The Week

The communiques issued by President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Eden at the close of their Washington talks are about what might have been expected. They deplore the successes of Soviet aggression, reaffirm their faith in the various treaty organizations set up as counterweights by the free world, and declare their intention to persevere in their efforts to free enslaved peoples and secure “just and lasting peace.” But they “reject any thought that the cleavage. should be resolved by force.” Thus far, they are right where they started. But there is an ominous hint that one of the few weapons left them may be abandoned. The controls on trade with the enemy are “to be reviewed now and then periodically as to their scope . . .” Time may prove that Mr. Eden has won out in his demand for increased trade with Communist China.

We rejoice that the President discarded Bulganin’s proposal so summarily, and we rejoice, too, that certain neutralists, here and abroad, applauded the gesture. We have not heard, as yet, from the Soviet Union. But we fear that their response will be along the following lines: Why, they will ask, do you continue to state you believe in coexistence, and then rebuke us when we propose a non-aggression pact? Such a retort from the Kremlin is, under the circumstances, unanswerable. Or did the President mean to reject, along with Bulganin’s proposal, coexistence itself? That would be news indeed.

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The communiques issued by President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Eden at the close of their Washington talks are about what might have been expected. They deplore the successes of Soviet aggression, reaffirm their faith in the various treaty organizations set up as counterweights by the free world, and declare their intention to persevere in their efforts to free enslaved peoples and secure “just and lasting peace.” But they “reject any thought that the cleavage. should be resolved by force.” Thus far, they are right where they started. But there is an ominous hint that one of the few weapons left them may be abandoned. The controls on trade with the enemy are “to be reviewed now and then periodically as to their scope . . .” Time may prove that Mr. Eden has won out in his demand for increased trade with Communist China.

We rejoice that the President discarded Bulganin’s proposal so summarily, and we rejoice, too, that certain neutralists, here and abroad, applauded the gesture. We have not heard, as yet, from the Soviet Union. But we fear that their response will be along the following lines: Why, they will ask, do you continue to state you believe in coexistence, and then rebuke us when we propose a non-aggression pact? Such a retort from the Kremlin is, under the circumstances, unanswerable. Or did the President mean to reject, along with Bulganin’s proposal, coexistence itself? That would be news indeed.