Nuclear NATO

The statesmen of the Atlantic alliance, assembled in Paris last week, decided that the defense of Europe must henceforth be based on nuclear weapons. It is no longer enough, they warned, for Europe to rely on the deterrent nuclear power of the U.S. Strategic Air Command. Now that atomic weapons are entering the tactical field (atomic cannon, atomic guided missiles, Belgians, Danes, Turks --all the armies and peoples of Western Europe--must reshape their defenses and readjust their prejudices to the dictates of nuclear warfare.

With 7,000,000 men under arms (compared with 5,900,000 in Russia and Eastern Europe), NATO's conventional rearmament is virtually complete. Henceforth, SHAPE will concentrate on what it calls the "New Approach." Britain's Viscount Montgomery explained it in a recent speech: "I want to make it absolutely clear that we at SHAPE are basing all our operational planning on using atomic and thermonuclear weapons in our defense. It is no longer a question of 'They may be used.' It is very definitely, 'They will be used--if we are attacked.' "

Left-wing editorialists seized on Monty's remarks to create a picture of pinheaded generals eager to trigger the world into war. Result: by the time the NATO conference got under way last week, the British and the French were talking up a plan that would require NATO's commanders to consult all 14 governments before answering a Soviet attack with atomic weapons. Such a plan would leave the West helpless during the first vital hours, while the Reds could be atom-bombing at will. John Foster Dulles put forward a compromise solution that won unanimous approval. In effect, it established that the statesmen have final authority, and generals were bound to consult them, but no cumbrous machinery of confining rules was laid down. After all, said Belgium's Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak: "If an atomic bomb knocks out the telephone, I don't think we can wait for the service to be re-established before we make a decision."

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