K.'s Bad Week

In the stereotypes of punditry, Moscow's diplomacy is unbeatably foxy, Washington's well-meaning but bumbling. But last week it was Russia's Premier Khrushchev who was the bumbler and object of pundits' derision. And if Khrushchev's embarrassment was partly a result of U.S. luck, diplomatic skill and patience also had something to do with it. Steps to Khrushchev's stumble:

July 19. Transparently trying to wring a propaganda triumph out of the U.S. and British landings in Lebanon and Jordan, K. demands a summit meeting to save the world from "catastrophe."

July 22. President Eisenhower replies that the U.N. is the place to deal with the Middle East crisis, adds that the U.S. is willing to join in the "orderly procedure" of the U.N. Security Council.

July 23. K. agrees to come to New York "as soon as possible," but still rumbles about Western "aggression," tries to invite the guests and dictate the meeting's arrangements.

July 25. Eisenhower reminds K. that the arrangements are up to the Security Council, and that the meeting will deal with the whole range of Middle East problems.

July 28. K. fumes, but does not flatly say no.

Aug. 1. With K.--who has nothing to gain from a U.N. summit meeting on any terms but his own--now on the defensive, Eisenhower further embarrasses him by restating U.S. loyalty to the U.N. idea, opposition to big-power domination.

Last Week. After a Peking huddle with Mao Tse-tung, who apparently down-thumbed a U.N. summit meeting with India and Nationalist China taking part (see FOREIGN NEWS), K. backs away from a Security Council conference on the lame excuse that the Council is "practically subordinated to U.S. foreign policy." He calls instead for a meeting of the full 81-nation General Assembly to deal with the Middle East.

With Secretary Dulles away on a flying visit to Brazil, Ike confers with Under Secretary Christian A. Herter, drafts a prompt reply, 1) regretting that K. turned his back on the Security Council, and 2) accepting a General Assembly session on the Middle East--especially since the U.S.'s U.N. Delegate Henry Cabot Lodge "previously proposed such a procedure" in mid-July, before K. started the latest flurry of summit letters.

Historical Contrast. Some pundits dim-viewed this week's special General Assembly session (with Khrushchev absent) as a mere propaganda brawl in which the U.S. stands to gain nothing. But President Eisenhower made it clear, at his first press conference since before the U.S. landing in Lebanon, that the U.S. will strive to get the "underlying causes" of Middle East disorder discussed in the Assembly, will urge economic programs to deal with those causes. "Troops are never going to win the peace," said he.

Even if the Assembly meeting proves to be nothing more than a propaganda forum, the U.S. stands to lose nothing, whether or not it stands to gain anything. In any face-to-face propaganda debate with the Soviet Union over who committed aggression against whom, the U.S has the facts of history on its side. "The history of this century," said the President, shows "the basic purposes and principles of the U.S. as they are applied to the rest of the world. We have sought sovereignty over no other country. We have not tried to make any people or nation subservient to us in any way."

In contrast, he went on, Russia's 20th century record shows that Soviet accusations of aggression "should be directed directly to themselves, and not to us." And in the U.N., though prejudices and old resentments sometimes sway delegates' minds, the facts of history are never quite forgotten.

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