World: NATO ENTERS THE THIRD DECADE

THE scene evoked a poignant sense of history. One by one, to the ruffles and flourishes of the blue-uniformed Army Band, the foreign ministers of 14 Western nations entered the flag-bedecked Departmental Auditorium on Washington's Constitution Avenue, a few blocks from the White House. Their predecessors had assembled in the same hall in 1949 to sign the epochal pact that created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Though the foreign ministers were gathered to celebrate NATO's 20th anniversary, they used the occasion to discuss how the 15-member alliance* should react to changing technological and political realities, especially to overtures from the East bloc for improved relations. In an address to the delegates, President Nixon came as close as anyone could to summing up NATO's attitude toward its Communist opponents. "All of us are ready as conditions change," said the President, "to turn that fist [of self-defense] into the hand of friendship." But, warned the President, "it is not enough to talk of relaxing tension unless we keep in mind that 20 years of tension were not caused by superficial misunderstandings."

It was not so long ago that there was much talk about converting NATO from its original military purposes into an instrument of diplomacy and cultural exchange to further détente in Europe. The change of roles reflected almost unanimous conviction in Western Europe that the threat of a Soviet attack had diminished to the point of nonexistence. In the long run, NATO's final mission remains one of negotiation and settlement. But in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the plans for demilitarizing NATO have been temporarily shelved. Reflecting the concerns of their countries, the European ministers felt that NATO must retain its defensive role while gradually taking a diplomatic initiative.

The Soviets tried their best to persuade the NATO ministers that the military function of the alliance was already obsolete. On the eve of the Washington meeting, the Soviets offered to dissolve the Warsaw Pact in return for the disbandment of NATO, on which they heap all the blame for starting and prolonging the cold war. Last month's Warsaw Pact meeting in Budapest renewed the call for a conference of all European countries to settle the problems left over from World War II.