Approach to the Summit

"The governments of France, the United Kingdom and the U.S. believe that the time has now come for a new effort to resolve the great problems which confront us. We, therefore, invite the Soviet government to join with us in an effort to remove sources of conflict between us ... We think it would be fruitful to begin with a meeting of the heads of government . . ."

Thus, in a joint note to the Kremlin, the U.S. and its allies yielded to the pressure that had been abuilding in hearts everywhere (but mostly in Europe) since the day two years ago when Winston Churchill, from the summit of his own giant prestige, had suggested that a "parley at the summit" might mean a "generation of peace."

Some time this summer, the leaders of the East and West will meet as they met in the momentous conclaves of wartime.

Three of the chairs will be the same, but the occupants will all be new. In Stalin's place will sit Commissar Nikolai Bulganin, the Soviet Union's Premier, but not undisputed boss as Stalin was. Anthony Eden, alumnus of Yalta, expects to sit for leonine Winston Churchill. For the U.S., Eisenhower will sit in the place filled by Franklin Roosevelt. The new chair will belong to France, represented at none of World War IPs summit conclaves. Occupying it will be owlish, cautious Premier Edgar Faure.

Compelling Impetus. Men's minds instinctively turned back to those wartime conferences when the Russians sat as allies, and decisions were regarded--by the Western allies, at least--as directed only toward the defeat of a common foe.

Now the Russians have themselves become the enemy, and so the summit meeting of ten years later will be nearer in spirit to Panmunjom than to Yalta or Potsdam, its chief compulsion a mutual weariness of danger. On the West's summits this week, there was little more than a feeling that it was worth a try.

But in Paris last week, as the West's foreign ministers gathered to welcome Germany as the new member of NATO, that feeling had taken on a compelling political impetus. The U.S.'s John Foster Dulles was soon closeted with Britain's Harold Macmillan and France's Antoine Pinay in the Quai d'Orsay, in a meeting later joined by Germany's Konrad Adenauer.

The Europeans were urgent. The French Assembly had agreed to permit the West Germans to rearm only on the promise, offered by Mendes-France and confirmed by his successor, that there would be a new attempt to negotiate with the Russians before the Germans actually got their guns. Germany's staunch old Konrad Adenauer faced a similar demand at home for "one more conference." Most urgent of all was Britain's Harold Macmillan, whose instructions from campaigning Prime Minister Anthony Eden were to get a parley at the summit and to get it quickly--Macmillan was to announce it on a TV broadcast in midweek.

Secretary Dulles observed that he was not "adamant" against four-power talks, now that West Germany was safely riveted into the Western alliance. But was a meeting at the summit either safe or desirable? In the past, he pointed out, such meetings had led to "slipshod" work (he was obviously thinking of Yalta), and the Russians had taken advantage of "general agreements" only to cause trouble later. It would be a terrible mistake, he argued, to arrange a meeting of the chiefs of state and expect them to make decisions on substantive issues in a matter of a few days.

The Compromise. Harold Macmillan, whose diplomatic manner is less polished than his predecessor's, bluntly disagreed.

He suggested a compromise. The foreign ministers could meet first, to iron out the agenda and make sure the Russians had no opportunity to disrupt the top-level meeting by a sudden demand, for example, for the presence of Red China.

Then the chiefs of state themselves could meet for a limited time, under the vigilant eyes of the foreign ministers. The chiefs would "devote themselves to formulating issues to be worked on and to agreeing on methods to be followed in exploring solutions." Then the chiefs could go home, while the foreign ministers began to negotiate on the matters and through the procedure agreed on.

Dulles pronounced the plan "both useful and ingenious." As one U.S. delegate put it, the Macmillan proposal incorporated the U.S. concept that the foreign ministers should "serve as John the Baptists--prepare the way for the Great Coming," and also ensured that they will do the actual negotiating on matters of substance. Thirty-six hours later, approval came from President Eisenhower in Washington.

Groundwork. With Russia's Bulganin expressing "a favorable attitude," the Western allies set to work to concert their policies. Steps had to be painstakingly hewn out of the ice before the ascent to the summit could be made. The seven Western European Union nations met to put in motion the new organization designed to keep a watchful eye over West Germany's proposed 500,000-man army.

In the NATO Council, the smaller nations quickly made clear that in the future they wanted to be consulted on all big-power policies, not just military decisions. This included such disparate matters as the Big Four talks and U.S.

Far Eastern policy.

Carefully, Dulles sought to set their fears at rest. For "historical reasons," he explained, it rests with "a few" of the NATO nations to take the initiative in opening talks with the Russians. But this is not wartime, when a few countries have to make decisions cutting across the rights of many smaller ones. The few could identify the problems that needed or seemed possible of solution; but the smaller nations concerned would be called in as they became affected. There would be no "deals" behind anyone's back.

What, then, could the Big Four talk about? First, the reunification of Germany, said Dulles. He did not consider the problem hopeless, he said, recalling that six months ago scarcely anyone had believed a solution possible for Austria.

Another subject was the "repression of human and national rights in the satellites." The West must not give the impression that it accepts the indefinitely prolonged enslavement of captive peoples, and wanted the captive peoples to know that. There was also the question of thermonuclear weapons and arms control.

What is needed there, said Dulles, is "new vigor and hope." Pinay declared that there could be no bargaining over West Germany's new status as an armed partner in the Western alliance.

As for U.S. policy in the Far East, the U.S. has no "double personality," said Dulles. The U.S. does not seek peace in Europe and war in Asia. But he reminded his NATO listeners of Lenin's old edict -that the Communist road to victory in Europe lay through the rubble of revolution in Asia. All the U.S. is trying to do is to check Communism there, "as we have here."

At week's end Dulles, Pinay and Macmillan flew off to their rendezvous in Vienna with Russia's Molotov, who" quickly accepted their proposals. It was agreed that the time of the meeting should be between mid-July and late August.

The world cautiously took a deep breath. Unreasonable it might be, but there was hope in the air that the cold war might be transformed into a "cool truce." At least, there might be what Adenauer called last week "the beginning of an epoch of negotiations."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.