Walking Softly

Tolerance and restraint are main threads in the fabric of Washington's diplomacy, and they neatly stitched together last week both the President's and the Secretary of State's press conferences. Needled by provocative questions on successive days, Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles responded with an even-voiced summary of U.S. attitudes on the explosive issues around the globe. The roundup:

Destalinization. "The essential question is this," said Dulles. "Are the Soviet rulers now attacking the basic causes of domestic discontent and foreign distrust, or is their purpose merely to allay this discontent and distrust?" The "downgrading of Stalin" and the policy of smiles have not relaxed the Soviet grasp on the satellites, or checked Soviet attempts to subvert free countries and regions, e.g., the Middle East.

"Nevertheless," said Dulles, "the fact that the Soviet rulers now denounce much of the past gives cause for hope, because it demonstrates that liberalizing influences from within and without can bring about peaceful change . . . The yearnings of subject peoples are not to be satisfied merely by a rewriting of past history. Thus we can hope for ultimate changes more fundamental than any that have so far been revealed." Added the President next day: "It might be, you might say, a forced--or the beginning of a forced--reformation of some kind."

Western Unity. "One of the great things of NATO," said Eisenhower, "is to make us all feel we are part and parcel of the same defensive security problem . . . When you know someone is with you . . . you have got a strength that is very hard to defeat." Dulles was sure that the free world would maintain its unity in the face of Soviet change. "Unity has to be carefully differentiated from conformity. That is the difference between our system and the Communist system ... We tolerate and welcome differences of opinion . . . Goodness knows, we don't want any satellites." When free world countries get into disputes in which the U.S. is not directly involved, e.g., the Dutch-Indonesian row about New Guinea, "we expect to continue to take a position of neutrality."

Iceland. The resolution of Iceland's Parliament for the withdrawal of U.S. troops (TIME, April 9) is "understandable," said Dulles, in that the 5,000-man U.S. garrison was a large one for Iceland's 160,000 people to absorb: "There is, I think, a feeling in Iceland that perhaps the recent Soviet moves make this less necessary. But I do not think that it is reflective of anything other than a desire to minimize the presence of foreign troops, insofar as it can safely be done." Still open for discussion at a future NATO meeting: "The question of how safely it can be done." Added Ike: "They are our friends, the Icelanders are, there is no question."

The Middle East. Peace, independence and higher living standards are still the U.S. objectives, said Ike and Dulles. The U.S. had taken no decision on Israel's request for U.S. arms; the U.S. did not agree with Britain that Egypt's Premier Nasser was a menace. The President saw no need for "a firmer line": "I would have to say 'firmer line' with respect to what, where, when . . . [The Middle East problem] is like a stack of jackstraws. Every time you touch one, you are very apt to move the whole crowd, and equilibrium is, to a certain extent, destroyed. That is what we don't want." Asked if he would order "those Marines that were sent over to the Mediterranean" into war without the consent of Congress, Ike reddened with anger. "I get discouraged sometimes here ... I have announced time and time and time again [that] I am not going to order any troops into anything that can be interpreted as war unless Congress directs it."

Anti-Americanism. Secretary Dulles resisted the invitation to snap back at French Premier Guy Mollet and other overseas critics of U.S. policies (see FOREIGN NEWS). "I feel the fact that those criticisms are made, freely made," he said, "is one of the greatest tributes to the U.S. that could be made. Because all those countries know that they can criticize the U.S. without any fear of any reprisals, or that we will change the principles which actuate us. We are not trying to run a popularity contest, and we don't give or withhold assistance on the basis of whether people say nice things about us or not."

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