FOREIGN RELATIONS: Report on Europe

For the second time in a fortnight, John Foster Dulles made a radio & television report to the U.S. people. In his first message, the Secretary of State had frankly warned that the U.S. would have to reconsider its policy of aid to Europe if the Continental neighbors did not unite effectively in their common defense (TIME, Feb. 9). Then he had hurried off abroad to look, talk and listen.

Back home again last week, and discoursing conversationally from a Washington television studio, the Secretary gave a summary of what he had found: the U.S.-supported project for a West European army that would include German forces (the European Defense Community) is "not dead but only sleeping . . . There is a good chance that [it] will be brought into being." For the European leaders he had met, and for their difficult problems, Dulles had sympathy and praise: "Men of vision and stature, they look not backward but forward. They see the land of promise that lies ahead, and they desire to move into it."

Dulles took pains to report European misgivings about U.S. leadership: "It is conceded that we have the material power, but it is questioned whether we have the accumulated wisdom to make the best use of that power. They are particularly concerned because they have now to deal with a new Republican Administration, after having worked for 20 years, in war and peace, with a Democratic Administration. To them, as to many Americans, a Republican Administration is a novelty, and the unknown always carries a certain amount of fear . . . Remember," he counseled, "that we do carry a tremendous responsibility. Any false step could mean disaster not only for us but for our friends. Possibly our friends would suffer even more than we ourselves . . . We must be sober and restrained in our national conduct."

But despite his softer tones and more subtle shadings, Dulles was as unshaken as ever in the belief that a workable European defense system is an essential. Said he: "Our effort will not permanently serve Europe, or ourselves, or humanity, unless it fits into a constructive program for European unity. Nothing that the U.S. can do will ever be enough to make Europe safe if Europe is divided into rival national camps."