The Sound of Gunfire

As the election campaign moved quietly and placidly towards its climax this week the U.S. was suddenly confronted by the boldest, blackest headlines since Korea. Beneath three days of fog that sifted lightly across the Danube, the Communist satellite capital of Budapest (pop. 1,750,000) rang to the classic shouts of "Freedom of Speech!" "Freedom of Religion!" The answer, audible from the Baltic to the South China Sea, was the machine-gun fire of Communist T-54 tanks. Then, out of a deep night along the Israel-Egypt border, there sprang forth two spearheads of a regular Israeli army advance, lunging 75 miles into Egyptian territory in the general direction of the Suez Canal. Unknown was whether Israel was launching an unusually deep retaliatory raid, or whether this was the beginning of the painful tidings that the President and Secretary of State had long feared and had long striven to prevent: an Israeli preventive war.

Out of the Dark. In the immediate sense, the big news from Budapest was that the Kremlin could no longer paper over or conceal the splits and fissures in the Communist monolith (see FOREIGN NEWS). Beyond that, Budapest was a new vindication of the old proposition that government, however strong, cannot indefinitely have its way without the consent of the governed, however it might seem to be dulled. "The soul of man thus held in trance or frozen in a long night," Winston Churchill once said memorably, citing this proposition, "can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where."

At once the U.S. moved to keep faith with the gallant rebels by offering economic aid "very fast" if requested, by placing before the U.N. Security Council "the situation in Hungary." In-extraordinary Sunday session the Council voted 9-1 (Russia) with Yugoslavia abstaining, to put the complaint on the agenda for prompt debate.

"Let me make this clear, beyond a possibility of doubt," said Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in a speech in Dallas, "the United States has no ulterior purpose in desiring the independence of the satellite countries. Our unadulterated wish is that these peoples, from whom so much of our own national life derives, should have sovereignty restored to them, and that they should have governments of their own free choosing. We do not look upon these nations as potential military allies. We see them as friends and as part of a new and friendly and no longer divided Europe. We are confident that their independence, if promptly accorded, will contribute immensely to stabilize peace throughout all of Europe, West and East."

Into the Balance. Even as Dulles spoke of peace and a bright future, the dusty streets of Israel echoed to the tread of reservists reporting for induction, of roaring dispatch riders, of rolling convoys of armored vehicles. Israel was declaring "partial mobilization," said Premier David Ben-Gurion, "to safeguard the security of Israel's borders." The armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia stood bound by treaty to serve together under overall Egyptian command in the event of an Israeli war.

Urgently, President Eisenhower sought to head off a conflict. He fired off a personal message to Ben-Gurion expressing "my grave concern," warning him against any "forceful initiative . . . which would endanger the peace." The Administration kept congressional leaders informed of the fast-racing developments. Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson reminded a national TV audience that the U.S. was committed (by the 1950 tripartite pact with Britain and France) to fight any aggressor in the Middle East "if it is real aggression," but that the U.S. purpose was to "try to talk everybody into being reasonable." The State Department warned U.S. citizens to get out of the Middle East if they had no compelling reasons for staying--"without delay."

At the Crossroads. Then the President dispatched a second, more urgent message to Ben-Gurion, the white-haired old leader who held peace or war in his hands. In a statement the President informed the U.S. people of the new crisis and of his messages to Ben-Gurion. The President directed his ambassadors to urge the Arab countries to "refrain from any action which could lead to hostilities."

Word of the Israeli attack was flashed to the President in mid-air as he returned from his one-day campaign trip to Florida and Virginia. Dulles meanwhile conferred with British and French diplomats to prepare the way for U.N. action. In Manhattan U.N. delegates conferred with Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. On landing in Washington the President went into immediate conference with Dulles at the White House.

As the lights burned late in Washington newspaper presses were rolling out the words spoken earlier in the day by the President at Miami: "Even as we speak this day of our hopes and strivings for peace and justice in the world, we know that there persists real and present danger to that peace . . . This danger rises in various places, none more critical at this moment than at the ancient crossroads of the world, the Middle East, where whole civilizations meet. Ancient animosities flare anew. . . In such a critical situation we cannot expect to erase suddenly the bitter heritage of the ages. We can--we must --and we shall--go on striving to do all in our power to heal old wounds, rather than let them re-open into bloodshed. We can--and we do--use the full moral power of America to direct the purposes of all nations away from conflict and towards concord."

Thus, on the eve of the presidential election of 1956, history suddenly thrust upon Dwight D. Eisenhower one of the great tests of his life.

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