FOREIGN RELATIONS: Person to Person

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Soon after Britain's Prime Minister Churchill argued in the House of Commons for "substantial relaxation" of trade restrictions between Russia and the West (TIME, March 8), the British government sent a list of specific proposals to Washington. President Eisenhower, appalled by the extent of relaxation called for in the British list, took the extreme (for him) step of a personal cable to Churchill.

The British trade proposals were "not safe," cabled Ike, and not "in the common interest of the free world." Not only should the West forbid Russia and satellites "equipment and raw materials" of "high war potential," but also certain manufactured goods—particularly goods which Russia might like to buy abroad so that it could devote more of its own industry to military production. Ike strongly suggested that, before any East-West trade barriers are knocked down, the U.S., Britain and France meet quietly to examine I) the real meaning of the U.S.S.R.'s bid for more foreign trade, 2) Britain's needs for more trade, and 3) U.S. political opposition to trade with Russia.

Ike wrote in the friendliest of terms to Old Friend Churchill, explaining that he was resorting to a person-to-person message precisely because he did not want the U.S.-British policy differences to blow up a full-size storm to damage Anglo-American relations.