No Illusions

0 RUNS, 3 HITS, 0 ERRORS, concluded the New York Journal-American last week, summing up, in baseball jargon, its impression of President Kennedy's trip to Europe. But while the Journal-American felt that the President had at least got on base, many of the nation's newspapers were content that he got back without throwing away the game.

Chicago's American was "profoundly thankful" that the Vienna summit conference had produced "no concrete result," and pronounced Kennedy's two encounters with Soviet Premier Khrushchev a negative success: "They were not a failure, but considering how disastrous failure could have been, that's good news enough." Said the Los Angeles Times with a grateful sigh: "If the cheers from our side are prompted more by relief than the evidence of accomplishment, there is good reason for them. The President of the United States has met with the boss of world Communism and comes away with the family heirlooms still in his possession."

Back a Better Man. Some observers ventured beyond such neutral ground, with cautious kudos for the presidential stance in the international batting box. The Vienna meeting, said the Boston Traveler, "has done much to raise American prestige abroad, to strengthen the Western Alliance, and probably to jolt Premier Khrushchev into a sober reassessment of our determination to defend freedom." Columnist Walter Lippmann, a man who has had two private audiences with Khrushchev and upholds the principle of "accommodation" in dealing with the Reds (TIME, Dec. 22, 1958), termed Vienna "significant and important because it marked the re-establishment of full diplomatic intercourse." Wrote Pundit Lippmann: "As a result of the U-2 and the breakup of the summit conference in Paris, there was in fact, although not in form, a rupture of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington." Kennedy's repair work on that rupture, Lippmann added, was "a very considerable achievement."

New York Times Washington Bureau Chief James Reston was certain that Kennedy came back a better man. The trip, said Reston, "has helped restore the President's confidence, his sense of history and his sense of humor." When word leaked out that the President had toured Europe with an aching back, the result of some ceremonial spadework during his recent visit to Canada (see THE NATION), Reston slyly suggested quite another diagnosis: "The official line in Washington is that President Kennedy hurt his back digging holes for trees in Canada, but there is another theory that he did it straining in disbelief at what he heard from Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. If this theory is correct, it is not surprising, for the little comrade asked for the world with a ribbon around it, and blandly argued that Mr. Kennedy had no reasonable alternative but to accept his thesis."

Every Boy Should Know. The President's televised report to the nation touched off another round of press analysis, but the pattern remained the same. The Chicago Tribune, which had raised its eyebrows at "Little Mr. Merit Badge" marching into Khrushchev's den, continued: "If Mr. Kennedy went abroad as an innocent, he comes home with some knowledge. Chiefly it is that Communism is predatory, that he and Khrushchev can use the same words without any approach to a common meaning . . . It might be said that these are facts that every boy ought to know, and that it is hardly necessary to go several thousand miles to become acquainted with them."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.