Diplomats at Work

Before he came home to the freshly-fanned Middle East crisis, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles looked over a part of the globe where he had helped put out the fires nearly three years ago. Addressing the third annual council meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization at Canberra, Australia, Dulles declared that SEATO had been successful in blocking the spread of Communism in Asia: "The increased stability in the treaty area is fully evident," e.g., in "the unity and strength developed by the Republic of Viet Nam."

But, although recent events have proved that international Communism is "a passing and not a permanent phase," Dulles warned the members of the eight-nation group (U.S., Britain, France, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan) that SEATO must maintain its posture of defense--both militarily, against the ever-present threat of Red Chinese attack, and internally, against Peking's stepped-up campaign of subversion in Southeast Asia. And for the information of the delegates, Dulles reiterated the U.S. position on the two Chinas, i.e., nonrecognition of the Chinese Communist regime, opposition to its seating in the U.N., and steadfast support for the government of the Republic of China on Formosa.

In other moves up and down its global beat, U.S. diplomacy last week:

P: Spurned, in concert with Britain and France, a Soviet proposal for a joint Big Four policy in the Mideast. Highlights of the Russian proposal, put forward last month to bring "peace and security" to the area: withdrawal of all foreign troops and liquidation of foreign bases, a ban on arms shipments, agreement by the "great powers," i.e., the West, to renounce "all attempts to involve these countries in military blocs." Among the reasons for the U.S. rejection: if the Middle East states feel themselves threatened, they have every right to join "with other nations in legitimate collective-security arrangements," e.g., the Baghdad Pact, and the U.S. wants no part of a big-power attempt, "as suggested by the U.S.S.R.," to abrogate this right. Net effect of the U.S. reply: to put Moscow on notice that the U.S. intends to go ahead with the Eisenhower Doctrine.

P: Dispatched, on a rugged (two-month), wide-ranging (up to 18-nation) Mideast mission, Democrat James P. Richards, 62, longtime (23 years) South Carolina Congressman and former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who retired in January, was promptly named by Ike as a special adviser on Mideast affairs (TIME, Jan. 21). Ambassador Richards' job: "to remove misunderstandings" about the Eisenhower Doctrine in the Mideast, survey the military and economic needs of the nations that wish to share in its benefits, report to Ike on how the $200 million earmarked by the program for the development of the area should be allocated.

P: Dispatched, to this week's London disarmament talks, U.S. Disarmament Specialist Harold Stassen, after a private talk and a round of photographs at the White House with Ike. One reason for the White House visit: the U.S., which will seek agreement on a five-point plan aimed at nuclear-and conventional-arms reduction, feels that Russia, economically hard-pressed and anxious to improve its international reputation, may present some new and realistic proposals of its own--and Washington wants to flag the Russians that Negotiator Stassen, despite his recent political difficulties with Administration leaders (TIME, March 11), has Ike's full, personal authority to deal for the U.S.

P: Welcomed home, after his dramatic four months' holdout in the U.S. legation in Budapest, U.S. Minister to Hungary Edward Thompson Wailes. Career Diplomat Tom Wailes arrived in Budapest last November in the midst of Hungary's upheaval, never got to present his credentials to the short-lived Nagy government, thenceforth refused to present them to the Communist Kadar regime because it "did not represent the people." Under persistent and rising Communist pressure to recognize the Kadar puppets, Diplomat Wailes took a final step to avoid doing so: he arranged with Washington to order him back "on consultation," then slipped out of Hungary into Austria, leaving legation affairs (including the care of its most celebrated house guest, Hungary's Cardinal Mindszenty) in the hands of Counselor N. Spencer Barnes. Said Tom Wailes as he landed in New York en route to Washington: "The Hungarian people are the bravest I've ever seen."

P: Extracted, after almost three weeks of negotiations with the Polish economic-aid mission in Washington, the first hard estimate of what the Gomulka government expects of the U.S. to help Poland maintain its shaky independence from Moscow. The request: some $200 million worth of surplus U.S. farm products, to be sold for Polish zlotys, and a $100 million Export-Import Bank loan for the purchase of U.S. machinery. Even though the State Department is thinking in terms of some $30 million, California's William Fife Knowland, Senate minority leader, declared he would continue to oppose any sum until Soviet troops are withdrawn from Poland and free elections are held. From the other side of the aisle, Massachusetts' Democrat John F. Kennedy proclaimed that it would be a brutal and dangerous policy for the U.S. to turn down the Polish request. The prospect: either a comparatively modest (up to $40 million) sale of agricultural surpluses for zlotys--or, if the Administration asks for changes in the Battle Act (which bars outright aid to countries trading in war materials with Russia), a big battle in Congress.

In the game of diplomatic musical chairs, these transfers were rumored:

P: To Manila, filling the empty ambassador's post, Charles E. ("Chip") Bohlen, 52, Ambassador to Moscow since 1953, veteran (28 years) Foreign Service officer and a ranking Department Russian scholar with extensive service as interpreter and adviser at international conferences (e.g., Teheran, Yalta) before reaching his present rank. In the wake of President Magsaysay's death (see FOREIGN NEWS), troubleshooting Chip Bohlen's work in the Philippines seems cut out for him.

P: To Vienna, as U.S. representative to the new International Atomic Energy Agency, Deputy U.S. Representative to the U.N. James J. Wadsworth. A onetime (1931-41) Republican member of the New York State legislature, Wadsworth, 51, served in a variety of federal executive posts (e.g., ECA, Civil Defense) before Ike appointed him to the U.N. in 1953, is a logical choice for the new job: at the U.N., Ambassador Wadsworth was the key U.S. negotiator in the talks that set up the agency.

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