THE TABLET, March 28th, 1959. VOL. 213, No. 6201

TH E TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 184 0

MARCH 28th, 19 59

NINEPENCE

Living Waters : Or Dry Bones Resurrexit sicut D ix it: A Meditation for Easter. By Michael Hollings Pope John XXIII: The Formative Years: i : Bishop Radini-Tedeschi Dux Vitae Mortuus, Regnat Vivus: A Page of Verse The Rubaiyat: The Centenary of a Great Translation Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

THE PENTAGON VIEW

^ ^ t IT H Mr. Macmillan’s return from Washington the centre of interest will shift over the next fortnight to the Budget, where the Chancellor has allowed expectation to grow th a t there will be a substantial tax reduction in order to stimulate consumption. The only point of substance on which the Opposition have been able to fasten for many months is that the economy is not expanding as it ought to be expanding, and m anufacturing capacity is not being used to the full. Their prognostications th a t unemployment would get steadily worse have not been borne o u t ; on the contrary, Mr. Macleod could show that there had been some improvement, and good hopes th a t with a stimulating Budget more and more slack in the economy will be taken up. All this would seem to point away from a snap election in May or June, and towards an autumn election.

Although the Americans have agreed to a summit conference, they make no pretence of expecting much from it. Mr. Macmillan’s visit to Washington was the most difficult of all his peregrinations. Unlike Moscow, Washington is a very ocen city, where the divided structure of American government, and the special authority of the Senate in foreign relations, leads to a great deal of open dialogue, a great embarrassment to the strategists of the Pentagon.

While the Russians have been pressing for summit talks, looking ahead and discounting the effects of the urem advances made by each side in inter-continental ballistic missiles, there is an entrenched body of thmjcrht in America which considers th e United States still for the time being very much stronger than Russia, and therefore argues th a t it would be an immense mistake to be wheedled into any concessions, and that the right nolicv. though it may not continue to be the right policy for verv much longer, is not to flinch from facing even the worst eventualities. They do not see any necessity for the West to prepare proposals, or to be afraid of going emnty-handed into a summit conference. The argument is that the Russians have wanted a conference,

that the tension in Europe is entirely the responsibility of the Russians, and their fault in failing to keep either in the spirit or the letter the Potsdam Agreement.

The Americans were very much more deeply shocked than the Europeans or the British by what Stalin did, b e cause the American Democratic Party, headed by Franklin Roosevelt, had believed very much more in his good faith. M. Khrushchev should not underrate the importance of this psychological factor, that he has inherited from Stalin an extremely bad reputation for Soviet duplicity over Germany and Central Europe. If the Russian policy is to consolidate an extension of power secured by these methods, they cannot expect those whom they deceived in 1945 to rack their brains to find ways of helping them to do so.

We do not see that the general position is such that Mr. Macmillan could plausibly say th a t he needed to have his hand strengthened by a demonstration, of national confidence, to be shown through a general election before the summit talks take place. His initiatives are generally understood and approved, and are not challenged by the Opposition. There is no question of Great Britain embarking on some new policy of a controversial sort, on which the country ought to be asked to pronounce. On the contrary, Great Britain will not be the principal Power at a summit conference, and the British contribution is essentially in the diplomatic order, to try to bring about concrete if small agreements, to establish the reality of negotiation.

Mr. Macmillan will not be likely to pitch expectations high. They were pitched too high four years ago, after Sir Anthony Eden’s successful election. People are wiser now, and it will not tell against the Conservative Party’s prospects if nothing much comes out of a summer summit. There would still be the recognition that at the beginning of the year a very serious Berlin crisis was looming ahead for May, and that Mr. Macmillan’s journeys have changed it into something