Atlantic Brotherhood

The chief problem before the Foreign Ministers of the twelve North Atlantic Treaty nations in London was the common defense. The strategic outline prepared by the Western defense ministers at The Hague had been ambitious, but expensive. When the Western finance ministers cried that the required military expenditures would wreck Western Europe's recovery program, the U.S. suggested--as it often had before--that one way of saving money was to avoid duplication of defense tasks.

Last week the Foreign Ministers agreed on an overall Western defense concept along these lines: the U.S. would provide the bulk of strategic bombing aircraft and heavy naval forces; the British would concentrate on tactical light bombing and fighter forces; the French would supply the bulk of the West's land forces.

Cold War or Hot War. The British would obviously not disband their infantry and rely entirely on the French, nor would they sink the Royal Navy and count on the U.S. fleet. Both the British and the French would need some all-round forces to maintain their overseas possessions. Moreover, the plan which the Foreign Ministers approved had yet to be ratified by their governments and parliaments. Yet a pattern of efficient, integrated defense had at last been laid down. The London plan constituted progress unthinkable five years ago. That fact was promptly acknowledged by the Red press, which sputtered about "infringement of national sovereignty."

To help the pattern become reality, the Atlantic Council set up a new, permanent, overall executive committee, to be headed--by tacit consent among the Allies--by an American. (Suggested for the job: onetime Under Secretary of State Robert A. Lovett, ECA Troubleshooter Averell Harriman, General Ike Eisenhower.) The members of the new committee--their diplomatic rank will be that of deputies to the Foreign Ministers--will run the cold war and integrate the West's defenses for a hot war if it should come.

Free Men or Slaves? The Atlantic Council also: 1) set up a North Atlantic planning board for ocean shipping, to coordinate the West's merchant shipping in case of emergency; 2) provided for the informal inclusion of the U.S. and Canada in OEEC (the European Marshall Plan organization) so that plans can be made for some sort of U.S. help after 1952, when the Marshall Plan ends; 3) assured Greece, Turkey and Iran that, although they are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty, the U.S. and its Allies retained a "deep interest" in their security.

At the council's concluding session, which was open to newsmen and the public, the tired, rumpled Foreign Ministers appeared on a stage in London's Lancaster House to read a dozen suitable speeches. It was ailing Ernie Bevin who raised his tired head from his hands to express the spirit of what he called the "great Atlantic brotherhood." Said he: "We firmly believe that in the end the free man can never be vanquished by the slave."

It had been a hopeful week for free men.

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