High Cards

In the tons of coverage and commentary out of Paris last week, the most overworked cliche was: "Khrushchev overplayed his hand.'' This implied a general agreement that the U.S. had dealt him a strong hand to play--at least for propaganda's sake. Some of the U.S.-dealt high cards:

The Question of Timing. The value of U-2 surveillance over Russia had been established by results (see Defense), but the question of whether to overfly Soviet territory just before the summit should have been weighed and debated at highest levels. It was not. Pilot Francis Gary Powers was brought down, and Khrushchev had a case. Air Force Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White believes the gamble was unnecessary. Had he been responsible for the U-2 flights, said White last week, the flights would have been called off well before the summit.

The Decision to Lie. The standard spy "cover story"--of a weather flight that developed oxygen failure--was put forth in haste when Khrushchev first announced that a U-2 had been shot down, and was poorly planned. Its creators had clearly never considered the very real possibility of a U-2 or its pilot being captured, and were trapped in a lie when Khrushchev had the goods. Yet such are the unchanging habits of bureaucracy that U.S. cloak-and-dagger types, only 48 hours before the scheduled start of the summit, actually prepared an announcement that U-2 oxygen gear had passed re-examination and flights would continue. Happily, this announcement was killed.

Telling the Truth. Once its cover story was exposed, the U.S. fumbled. All day, after Khrushchev announced that Pilot Powers was in custody, "alive and kicking," Secretary of State Herter conferred on the situation, finally called President Eisenhower at Gettysburg, and got his approval for a State Department statement. Eisenhower and Herter announced that the surveillance flight had taken place (and thus admitted the first U.S. lie), and justified the U-2 program on the basis of the fear of surprise attack. Then, because Khrushchev himself had publicly seemed to exonerate President Eisenhower of blame, they went along with the diplomatic game by stating that the flight had been made without the knowledge of authorities in Washington.

Taking Responsibility. It took just one day for Ike to realize his mistake. An editorial flap blew up because the President had apparently been unaware of one of his Administration's most delicate and dangerous activities. Presidential ignorance of a specific plane flight would not have been beyond belief. But no charge by the political opposition piques Press Secretary Jim Hagerty more than the charge that Ike is not on top of his job. Furthermore, Communist propaganda likes to say that Eisenhower is the innocent dupe of Pentagon "war planners." Ike reversed himself, aggressively shouldered all the blame for the U-2 May Day flight. By this time critics were saying that the U.S. should stick to one side or the other, moralists were saying that the U.S. should not lie, and sophisticates in the espionage trade were saying that the U.S. did wrong to tell the truth.

Reversing the Policy. Before he left for Paris, Secretary of State Herter made a statement justifying continued overflights. Reporters were told to draw their own conclusions. Press Secretary Hagerty bluntly denied a New York Times story that U-2 flights had been canceled. Ike, in his final pre-Paris press conference, seemed to echo Herter's position.

The purpose of all such subterfuge was to give Ike a bargaining point at the conference table. He planned to offer the U-2 and its equipment to the U.N. for international "open skies" inspection, and in the same package to abandon overflights of Russia. But he waited too long. Khrushchev boldly played his propaganda high card, one that could easily have been finessed by a pre-Paris announcement that the flights had been discontinued.

Finally, under Khrushchev's intense pressure, Hagerty announced that Ike had actually ordered the U-2 flights canceled just before leaving for Paris. The order had gone, said Hagerty, to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Nathan Twining, and to Defense Secretary Gates (thus casually demolishing the President's earlier statements that the military had no part in the U-2 program). Actually, the U-2 program died the very day Pilot Powers was shot down. As an intelligence-gathering instrument, the flights had been compromised by discovery, and CIA Director Allen Dulles, the man in charge, had canceled the program without a moment's hesitation.

By all the signs, Khrushchev intended to walk out of the game regardless of the play of cards. But his own cover story for his wrecking operation earned more credence than it should have.

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