Unanimous Determination

In the fine print of the epochal NATO Treaty signed by twelve nations in Washington in 1949, was the provision that any NATO member could come back in ten years to suggest changes in the treaty structure. Last week, as the NATO Council got together in conference rooms and on the flag-banked platform of Washington's Departmental Auditorium, nobody suggested that a single comma of the original treaty ought to be changed.

NATO had had its ups and downs in the ten years, had short-fallen on some of its military ambitions and hopes for cultural unity, but its members represented 15 nations and 450 million free people from North America, on one side, through Western Europe to Greece and Turkey, on the other. And despite the addition of missile-rattling to the Communist arsenal of threats, the nations not only still stood solid on their antiCommunism, but most of them wanted to be sure that the Communists knew it. Highlighters among the speakers:

Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter (U.S.): The essential point about the Berlin crisis is that the Communists must understand in advance that the NATO nations "are firm in our resolve to use military power if necessary." Once the Communists understand that, they will not risk war over Berlin.

NA TO Secretary-General Paul-Henri Spaak (Belgium): "Moscow is playing a game in which the ultimate stake is [our] very existence . . . We must, therefore, even more resolutely than before, intensify our collective defense effort, strengthen our political solidarity and extend our cooperation."

NATO Council President Joseph M.A.H. Luns (Netherlands): Those who in the present situation talk about "disengagement," "freezes," etc. are showing a mentality that comes close to neutralism. "Communism uses these people. It cajoles them, approaches them, assures them that Western concessions, withdrawal, disengagement will open the way to lasting peace. Most disengagement plans are essentially Communist creations, designed to neutralize Germany, to make Western Europe defenseless and to force the withdrawal of allied troops from the Continent--in other words, to deprive Europe and the alliance of the main pillars on which peace rests."

But it was Dwight Eisenhower, symbolizing the dangerous early days when he flew to Europe as NATO's first Supreme Commander, who brought the alliance's purpose into clearest focus with the greatest simplicity. "Look at the hand," he said, raising his hand, fanning his fingers in a gesture that many of his old NATO officers well remembered. "Each finger is not of itself a very good instrument for either defense or offense, but close it in a fist and it can become a very formidable weapon of defense . . . The need, as we reach for a lasting peace with justice, is the abandonment of the Communist purpose of world domination."

Just to be sure that the Russians know that NATO is braced for whatever crises they want to create in the next ten years, the NATO Council closed its three-day session with a brief communique noting its "unanimous determination to maintain the freedom of the people of West Berlin, and the rights and obligations of the Allied powers."

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