"All Fine"

Representatives of eight Atlantic, Pact nations emerged from a two-hour-and-20-minute conference and stepped into a reception room on the fifth floor of the U.S. State Department, as pleased and smiling as though they had delivered a bouncing, 8-lb. boy. The Belgian ambassador, Baron Silvercruys, gave out a verbal bulletin: "It's all fine, agreed and everything."

All of the home governments had been informed of the text of the agreement, and all were believed ready to sign. Publication of the text was held up until this week, while the French went through some last-minute formalities in Paris. Foreign ministers of the eight* (plus Denmark, Italy and Iceland, possibly Portugal) were expected in Washington for signing ceremonies early in April.

Denmark's Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen arrived in Washington, and was closeted with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who told him the facts of life as related to peace for the Atlantic community--and also, probably, gave him an estimate of what Denmark could expect in the way of arms after she signed. This week, Iceland's Foreign Minister Bjarni Benediktsson arrived for a similar briefing.

The treaty will go into effect, for 20 years, when a majority of the signers have ratified. The framers of the pact labeled it a defensive alliance, permitted by Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. Western Europe had been eager to learn the extent of U.S. military commitment, in case one or more of the pact nations should be attacked by "an aggressor." The commitment (Article Five) provides that if one or more of the treaty nations should be attacked by an aggressor, each of the others will, individually or collectively, take whatever measures it deems necessary against the aggressor "including the use of armed force."

It might be said (and undoubtedly would be) that this was only a "moral" commitment. But since there exists no supranational agency capable of enforcing commitments by sovereign states, all treaties rest on moral commitments. The European nations seemed to be satisfied--and that was the main point.

Peacetime aid toward the rearmament of the Atlantic Pact nations is not included in the pact's terms, but such aid will go forth as part of the same moral bundle. The Administration bill aimed at Congress includes Greece, Turkey and some Latin American states, as well as the Atlantic nations. Estimated overall cost to the U.S. (in addition to Marshall Plan economic aid): $1.5 to $2 billion. The cost--and the risk--of the pact was more than balanced by the feeling of Western cohesion, the assurance that peace of the Atlantic community was indivisible.

Russia has shown no signs whatever of going to war over the Atlantic Pact. She has fought it tooth & nail, but only with defensive acts of desperation, e.g., international threats of Communist treason. In Rome last week, when Premier De Gasperi announced his cabinet's decision to join the pact, a small mob of Communists in front of the Parliament building shouted, "Down with warmongers and wars!" and "There are pillars in Rome whereon to hang traitors!" They were joined by neo-Fascist youths (members of the Italian Social Movement). The neo-Fascists objected to the pact because it "betrayed the national interest," the Communists, because it served the national interest at the expense of Soviet Russia.

* U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway.

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