Clearing the Fog

Neither the smoke screens of Communist propaganda nor the fog of Western self-doubt could obscure the nakedness of the Communist challenge last week or the facts of growing faith and growing strength in the camp of free men. Items:

¶ Red China battled with bombs and paratroops to blot out the last vestiges of independence in Tibet, and the Dalai Lama's spectacular escape into India (see FOREIGN NEWS), brought home the point for would-be neutralists in Asia and Africa that they stay neutral in the cold war to their ultimate peril.

¶ NATO's retaliatory power got vital reinforcement when Italy became the second European nation (the other: Britain) to announce acceptance of U.S. intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

¶ Russia grabbed so nakedly for power by puppet in the Middle East's Iraq (see FOREIGN NEWS) that the Arab world was brought up short.

¶ The U.S. challenged one Russian attempt to restrict entry to Berlin by sending a C-130 transport in and out of Berlin well above the Russian-set limit of 10,000 ft., despite harassment by Communist fighters; days later came a Russian backdown.

¶ The 15-nation NATO Council, meeting in Washington, turned NATO's tenth anniversary into a resounding statement of support for a policy of no backdown on Berlin, no disengagement in Central Europe—"no surrender by stages," one NATO minister put it. "Not one handful of NATO earth has been lost," said NATO's Commanding General Lauris Norstad in Paris. "Keep it so."

Much of the original fog of concession talk had in fact swirled up behind Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, as he journeyed from Moscow to Paris to Bonn to Washington last month, trailing anonymous spokesmen who talked about recasting the situation, making a start on troop reductions in Germany, etc. Macmillan, by his record no soft-liner, had nonetheless stirred worries about appeasement among other NATO members.

Communism's moves of the week demonstrated the futility of concessions; the West's moves of the week demonstrated the West's resolve not to make any.

Said President Eisenhower pointedly in a weekend speech at Gettysburg College: ''The course of appeasement is not only dishonorable. It is the most dangerous one we could pursue. The world paid a high price for the lesson of Munich—but it learned it well."