Developing the New NATO

"The time has come to advance NATO from its initial phase into the totality of its meaning," said Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. "Let us exalt freedom by showing better what freedom can do." Thus, a scant six weeks ago, the U.S. signaled a major new direction in foreign policy. By last week the State Department had set up a six-man staff that was hard at work translating Dulles' challenging words into some specific proposals. The U.S. aim is to gather the 15 NATO nations into a new regional association under the U.N. Charter, roughly similar to the Western Hemisphere's Organization of American States, equipped to deal with such common political problems as Cyprus and the Saar. The net effect will be to advance President Eisenhower's long-term concept of European unity. First step will be the drafting of a statement of common aims and purposes acceptable to all NATO members.

Already State's special NATO staff has drawn up position papers suggesting major changes in the West's diplomatic machinery. One suggested plan is to enlarge the Council of Europe (now largely a talking body) to include the U.S. and Canada. A possible alternate, now under study, is the creation of a permanent new NATO council of senior ministers. Under this plan, the present NATO military command would be reduced to the status of NATO's defense ministry.

The U.S. has some specific reservations about a political NATO, which it plans to take up with its allies later this month when Canada's External Affairs Minister Lester Pearson comes to Washington for talks with Dulles. For one thing, State does not want this new association with European powers to imply that the U.S. is endorsing colonialism. Nor does the U.S. intend to give up its freedom of action in non-NATO areas, e.g., Formosa Strait. Nonetheless, the drafted proposals are a challenge and an appeal to the nations of Western Europe to draw closer together, with U.S. support.

Best evidence that it is high time for the evolution of a new, broader NATO came last week when even NATO's Gen eral Alfred Maximilian Gruenther was un able to muster up much congressional or public enthusiasm for the most sensible of pleas for foreign aid, made on the basis of the old NATO program.

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