Man at the Keyboard

The President took no pains to hide the fact that he was the man at the keyboard of U.S. foreign policy. It was a virtuoso performance. Sometimes he did finger exercises, sometimes he improvised, sometimes he played by ear. But never did he get so much as a genuine grace note in return from the big brass of the Kremlin.

Wearing the Colors. The Administration scored a considerable diplomatic victory over the U.S.S.R. in the United Nations when a big majority--including three Afro-Asian nations--voted to back up Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold in the Congo (see FOREIGN NEWS). This was a heavy blow to loudly proclaimed Soviet intentions to get Hammarskjold and the United Nations out of the Congo. There was no crowing over the victory. (Both the President and Secretary of State Dean Rusk canceled their press conferences.) Instead. Kennedy called in Secretary Rusk and the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, Llewellyn Thompson. He publicly sent Thompson on his way back to Moscow bearing a letter to Khrushchev stating that Khrushchev could talk to Thompson as frankly as he might to Kennedy himself. There was no talk of summitry--just the fact that Thompson was there, wearing the presidential colors, if Khrushchev wanted to get on with his oft-proclaimed goal of easing tensions.

Well before Thompson landed in Moscow, Khrushchev roared new support for his Communist-backed rebel leader in the Congo and ruled out any compromise. U.S. intelligence duly noted that new Soviet advisers were trickling into the pro-Communist capital of Stanleyville. Soviet Ilyushins renewed their milk-run nights to help the Communist-led rebels in Laos. Moscow's Pravda suddenly revved up the ominous old demands that Western troops get out of Berlin on Soviet terms.

Acting Like Russians. By now, the President had no illusions that the Russians would stop acting like Russians. More to the point, he had begun to lay out guidelines for a foreign policy that would not have to just react to the Russians. He sent three personal representatives fact-finding through Latin America. He sent Roving Ambassador Averell Harriman to Western Europe. Behind the scenes at the U.N., Adlai Stevenson moved to achieve greater rapport with responsible neutralists in the Afro-Asian bloc, by backing their resolutions on agenda issues instead of floating his own. The State Department talked of the new U.S. hope of helping to establish broad-based governments instead of strongmen in troubled areas. In a tough memorandum to West Germany, the U.S. warned all its traditional allies that they must bear a greater share in the burden of providing foreign aid to the world's have-not nations.

In the midst of all this, the President of the U.S. added a little grace note of his own to the continuing blare of the cold war. He ordered a step-up in the U.S.'s potential for fighting guerrilla wars.

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