Cries & Crisis

P: Disarmament Specialist Harold Stassen went for broke at last week's National Security Council meeting and lost. At odds with Secretary of State Dulles, Honest Harold urged a plan for disarmament under which the U.S. would split the parts of its current package proposal. Under Stassen's plan, the U.S. would agree to an end to nuclear testing, would not insist on an end at the same time to production of nuclear materials for weapons. Dulles stood aside while Defense Secretary Neil H. McElroy and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Nathan Twining turned down the proposal, backed by AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss, Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson--and Dwight Eisenhower. Where the defeat left Honest Harold, no one was sure. Powerful Administration staffers hoped he would quit rather than be fired. But, said a Washington acquaintance: "His soundings to run for governor of Pennsylvania have not borne fruit. I don't know what he could do if he quits."

P: In general, Pentagon brass is highly pleased with the clamor for more military spending that has followed the Gaither and Rockefeller reports on the status of U.S. defenses. But the generals and admirals are getting fed up with being asked whether they have read the reports. Reason: much of the expert testimony on "which the committees based their recommendations came from the same generals and admirals. "Am I familiar with the reports?" exploded a liberally starred Air Force general last week. "How many hours do you think we've spent making those committees familiar with what's going on?"

P: A new dock and airstrip building near Anchorage, road surveys and right-of-way proceedings along the Alaska Railroad, and talk of a $58 million contract awarded the Drake-Puget Sound Construction Co. for a job near Mount McKinley National Park add up to one thing to Alaskans: preparation for a string of U.S. ballistic missile bases. Sited along the Alaska Railroad, such bases could launch intermediate-range missiles that would reach Russian bases on the eastern tip of Siberia, intercontinental missiles that could arc across the Pole to Moscow and beyond. The U.S. bases would have the advantage of North America's finest defilade if enemy missiles should fall short: the Alaska Range, topped by Mount McKinley, at 20,270 ft.

P: Press Secretary Jim Hagerty's announcement that President Eisenhower might possibly cancel longstanding plans to speak at a Republican congressional campaign fund-raising dinner in Chicago next week (the fifth anniversary of his first inauguration) started a storm of cries from the G.O.P. National Committee. The Chicago affair was a near sellout with Ike's name on the billboard, and his thought-of cancellation seemed to confirm the suspicions of discouraged Midwest Republicans that Ike does not care much about the party's peril in this year's congressional elections. After the complaints deluged the White House, Ike changed his mind, laid plans to turn up at Chicago in time to deliver a 15-or 20-minute speech, head back to Washington the next morning.

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