NATO: Harbingers of Spring

In NATO's new Paris headquarters last week, the glow of cheer was nearly as bright as the premature spring sunshine that caressed strollers on the Champs Elysées. For one thing, France-Soir, biggest of Paris dailies, reported that Charles de Gaulle had instructed his top brass: "You make arrangements with the Atlantic organization for air and naval cooperation. I personally will settle with Eisenhower the problems of stocking U.S. atomic bombs in France." For more than a year, De Gaulle's open hostility to the NATO concept of integrated Western defense had given the alliance an embarrassing hole in the center. Recently NATO's European commander, U.S. Air Force General Lauris Norstad, requested a do-or-die interview with De Gaulle, spent an hour and a half documenting NATO's argument that the swift air speeds of modern war rule out separate national air defense systems in an area as small as Western Europe. To make sure he got De Gaulle's full attention, Norstad borrowed Dwight Eisenhower's official interpreter, Lieut. Colonel Vernon Walters, who speaks eight languages, including a French that has earned the respect of Stylist de Gaulle.

Going It Together. Since then, De Gaulle no longer challenges NATO's power to order planes of all member nations into immediate action in case of a Soviet attack. (In tactful return, Norstad saw to it that a French officer would command the aircraft of France, West Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.) On their own initiative French diplomats have proposed some new form of NATO "association" for France's Mediterranean Fleet—which De Gaulle pulled out from under NATO command last March.

So far, De Gaulle's refusal to allow U.S. nuclear weapons in France unless France controls their use still stands—as does U.S. refusal to accept De Gaulle's conditions. But NATO, which had felt a little unwanted all winter, saw some other friendly signs. Turkey has agreed to accept U.S. Jupiter IRBMs, and negotiations are under way to install missiles in Belgium and The Netherlands. Half a dozen NATO nations, including Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Italy and West Germany, have announced plans to increase their defense spending in 1960.

Moving Missiles. Most noteworthy of the budget increases is in Britain, where new Defense Minister Harold Watkinson, a hard-hitting businessman, last week proposed to increase defense spending by $300 million, to nearly $4.6 billion. Wat-kinson's program had good news for NATO: Britain has abandoned "for the time being" its plans to cut back British air and ground units in West Germany.

Watkinson is also moving away from a 1958 British decision that would have hitched Britain's long-range nuclear-weapons planning exclusively to the fixed-site Blue Streak missile. Instead, the British are considering greater reliance on missiles that can be launched from submarines or planes—specifically the U.S. Navy's Polaris or the U.S. Air Force's Sky Bolt.