THE NATION: More Than a Hope

(2 of 2)

"All Three Ideas." The talks began on the subject of Anglo-American scientific sharing. "Harold," said the President, "you know I cruised briefly last summer on our newest aircraft carrier, the Saratoga. And I found myself particularly interested in three things—the angled deck, the mirror landing system and the steam catapult. The angled deck and catapult have made our carriers much more effective, and the landing system has saved lives of our men. I found also that all three of them were British ideas, British inventions." Macmillan was more than willing to agree on the mutual benefits of scientific cooperation; such a sharing has long been a cardinal point of British foreign policy.

The Washington conference would have been far less of a success if it had stopped there. Time and time again. President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles drove home their point that the full resources—not just armies and weapons—of all free nations must be marshaled against Communism. They found in Harold Macmillan a man of like mind. ("Such a conference," said one of the participants, "never would have been possible with either Anthony Eden or Winston Churchill.") And as the men at the Washington conference talked, they found their spirits surging with enthusiasm to make the total alliance a reality.

The Glory of Freedom. It was into this atmosphere that NATO Secretary-General Paul-Henri Spaak stepped one afternoon with a blunt suggestion: As a next step, why shouldn't Ike and Macmillan both attend the NATO conference in Paris next December? Both probably will.

In its final form, the Washington conference communiqué produced an eloquent restatement of the principles that guided it: "Despotisms have often been able to produce spectacular monuments. But the price has been heavy. For all peoples yearn for intellectual and economic freedom, the more so if from their bondage they see others manifest the glory of freedom. Even despots are forced to permit freedom to grow by an evolutionary process, or in time there will be violent revolution."

As an actual gathering of freedom's resources, the Washington conference may have been only the beginning of a beginning. But if its principles are put to work, it will long be remembered.