Out of Step

Driven by an unhappy awareness of Britain's declining power and her vulnerability to nuclear attack, an increasing number of Englishmen are disposed to favor summit talks on almost any terms. The parade of politicians who play on this wistful longing for talks for talk's sake is headed by Labor Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell. The West should not insist on summit talks "supposed to put the final seal on everything," argues Gaitskell; instead, it should be willing to settle for what he calls "the ice-breaking type of conference."

Privately, Gaitskell feels it unlikely that much good will come of a summit meeting. But publicly, he finds it both wise and popular to endorse the idea and blame the U.S. for any delay in its realization. "The Americans," he told a television audience last week, "have been a bit difficult about summit talks and what we call taking the peace initiative." With even fewer inhibitions, Aneurin Bevan (the likeliest candidate for Foreign Secretary, should Labor come to power) named the name of Britain's favorite scapegoat, accused Secretary of State John Foster Dulles of spurning an important Soviet "concession" when he rejected the booby-trapped Russian proposal for a foreign ministers' conference to establish a summit meeting agenda.

Go Slow. To the gratification of a group of dissident Laborites calling themselves "Victory for Socialism" (TIME, March 10), Labor Party chieftains have also found it expedient to emphasize the go-slow aspects of the party's policy on nuclear armaments, last week issued a new policy declaration calling for 1) suspension of British H-bomb tests for "a limited period"; 2) immediate discontinuance of patrol flights from British bases of U.S. planes loaded with hydrogen bombs; 3) postponement of construction work on U.S. missile bases in Britain until a new attempt has been made to negotiate with the Soviet Union.

So far, Britain's Tory government has stood firm in the face of Labor's blasts. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan continues to insist that there would be no point to summit talks without "a hope of definite achievement." Viscount Hailsham, chairman of the Tory Party, was equally unenthusiastic about suspending British H-bomb tests so long as the Russians continue theirs. Said Hailsham: "Within the last week or two, I understand, [the Russians] have exploded devices equal to 3,000,000 tons of high explosives . . . On the assumption that I am right in thinking we are not in front in this race, we should not forget that our tests are more important to us than theirs are to them." Two Kinds of Fission. But nearly every political poll shows the Tories trailing Labor in popularity, and odds are that after the next general election, Britain will have a Labor government. Wrote London's conservative Daily Telegraph last week: "These foolish concessions might lessen the danger of political fission within the Labor Party. But they would do nothing to lessen the danger of nuclear fission in the world at large. Indeed, by getting out of step with the Americans and breaking up Western unity on disarmament, we might even be reducing the chances of an eventual East-West agreement."

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