No Middle Way

The party lasted until 2 a.m., and the walls of Oslo's 13th Century Akershus Fortress reverberated with laughter and deep-throated Scandinavian singing. The guests --97 ministers, generals, diplomats and politicians of Sweden, Denmark and Norway--toasted each other and their countries. Gay as any was the host, Norway's Foreign Minister Halvard Lange. Yet in his pocket crackled a crisp piece of paper, a note from Soviet Russia. The Soviet ambassador had delivered it just as Lange was leaving for the state dinner.

Next morning the guests learned what Lange had known all during the party--that Russia had peremptorily questioned Norway about her joining the proposed North Atlantic Defense Pact, in effect had warned her to stay out of it. Scandinavia's period of fence-sitting was coming to a close.

Treading Water. Halvard Lange would need courage and the ability to keep his feet on the ground if he were to cope with the U.S.S.R. He showed he had both when, the morning after the party, he wiped the slate clean of a lesser problem. Standing in the smoke-filled Oslo officers' club beneath a foot-high wall inscription of the Norwegian kings' motto, "Alt for Norge" (All for Norway), Lange voiced his final no to the Swedish-Danish suggestion of a Scandinavian neutrality bloc.

The plan was Sweden's--a slight retreat from her long isolation and neutrality. The idea was that the three countries would arm as a unit, with the U.S. giving them the arms. They would thus be not quite in the same boat with the Atlantic-pact West, but would be hanging onto the gunwale, treading water.

With Norway's rejection, the plan collapsed. The three Nordic powers parted in their usual good spirits, agreeing to disagree, and still bound by old and tough ties. Lange's persistent refusal, after months of parleying, had won the admiration of his fellow Scandinavians. "This man has more stamina than a buffalo," sighed a Swede.

Two Foolscap Sheets. Next day Halvard Lange discussed the Soviet note with Norway's cabinet. The note emphasized the fact that Norway has a common boundary with Russia--a 122 1/2-mile strip on the Arctic tip of the Scandinavian peninsula. It asserted that the proposed Atlantic pact was an attempt by the U.S. and Britain to dominate the world. It asked Norway whether she was going to furnish the West with "air force or naval bases."

Lange went to his home behind the royal castle, relaxed in an easy chair, and drafted the reply in longhand on two foolscap sheets. He submitted it to Premier Einar Gerhardsen (his cellmate during the war in the Nazis' Sachsenhausen concentration camp), and to the foreign affairs committee of the Storting (Parliament).

In the dark-walled committee room, a Conservative member, often a stern critic of Lange's Laborite policies, huffed: "Couldn't be better; don't alter one word." A few words were altered. The reply was delivered at the Soviet embassy 71 hours after the protest had been received.

The reply was courageous, and it kept Norway's feet on the ground. It told Russia placidly that Norway would investigate the conditions for joining the Atlantic pact, that she would not grant bases to foreign powers unless attacked "or subjected to threats of attack."

Not Much Time to Lose. Next, Halvard Lange took on his critics in the Storting. At a special session, he told the isolationist nervous-Nellies that Norway alone "is not and cannot be militarily strong enough" either to discourage or fight off an attack by a great power. Whatever Norway decided, she would decide herself; he would bring back to the Storting the detailed conditions for joining the pact.

Lange's proposal--that the Atlantic pact be thoroughly studied--won the support of virtually all of the Storting except, of course, the Communists. Several non-Red speakers, however, said that not too much time should be lost in the study.

Waiting for a Taxi. At week's end Halvard Lange was ready to fly to the U.S. to get the facts. Just before his plane took off, he got another stern note from the U.S.S.R. Bulldozed Russia: Norway had "failed to give a clear reply" about foreign bases; Norway was guilty of a "suggestion that a threat of attack could emanate from the Soviet Union"; Norway should, "to eliminate any doubt," sign a non-aggression pact with Russia.

Russia's offer of a non-aggression pact must have given Lange pause, for Russia's road of aggression against half a dozen small states was strewn with broken non-aggression pacts (just as Hitler's road had been). Yet Lange did not cancel his trip; instead, he pocketed the note, snapped that he would "study it and reply in due course," and took off.

In Washington on Monday he conferred with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who was preparing to make public the substance of the North Atlantic Defense Pact as tentatively drafted by the seven powers.* It provides that an attack on any of the signatories is an attack on all. In return for this protection, Norway would be asked by the Western powers to discuss joint defense with the powers and submit to them her armament needs.

Lange's trip to Washington impressed on him the hard central fact of Norway's situation--that Norway is such a fine potential plane and submarine base that neither side feels it can afford to let the other side control her. The exchange of notes is not mere diplomatic mumbo-jumbo but a part of the suppressed war.

Norway recognized this hard fact. And her sympathies remained unbudgeably with the West. Back in Halvard Lange's Oslo, Nils Evensen, 34-year-old cabbie, pointed to his new streamlined Studebaker taxi and said: "If I had to wait for a Russian car, I'd be jobless all my life."

* The U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg.

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