Yes, No or Maybe

President Eisenhower's dramatic proposals for a worldwide atomic-energy pool last week drew praise not only from friends, but from not always friendly critics. EISENHOWER PLAN MAY PREVENT WAR, said the headline in New Delhi's influential Hindustan Times. Wrote Paris' neutralist Le Monde: "Ike speaks the language which can and must be used by sensible men of whatever camp."

The response that mattered most was Russia's, and at first it was hostile. The day after the President spoke in the U.N. General Assembly, Moscow radio said: "Eisenhower threatened atomic war." Then the men in the Kremlin apparently decided to reconsider. Three days later Moscow radio announced that Foreign Minister Molotov had already assured U.S. Ambassador Charles E. ("Chip") Bohlen that Russia will give "serious attention" to the U.S. plan.

The Soviet about-face was one more sign that Joseph Stalin's successors are capable of a surprising indecisiveness in foreign affairs. Just a month before, the Communists slammed the door on a four-power conference, then suddenly opened it again, clumsily recovering their grip on the doorknob.

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