But, Don't Go Near the Water

For a man on whom the U.S. State Department had blown hot & cold for a week, Halvard Lange, Norway's Foreign Minister, headed home for Oslo remarkably unruffled. Lange had been sent to the U.S. by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament) to find out just what it would mean to Norway--put & take--to join in the proposed North Atlantic defense pact.

Before he left Oslo, he had told the Storting that neutrality between the East and West was an illusion. Washington, pleased, had spoken admiringly of Norwegian guts. But when Lange got to Washington, he was met with warm handshakes and cooling answers.

The Residuum: "Action." What would the U.S. do under an Atlantic pact, he had asked, if Russia should attack Norway? Secretary of State Acheson was polite but unequivocal, as he explained that only the U.S. Congress could declare war.

While Lange was conferring, the U.S. Senate had also given him the answer. After six months of negotiations, the Atlantic pact powers had agreed that an attack upon one nation was to be regarded as an attack upon all. Each nation was required to take "military or other action" to help the nation attacked. Senators Connally and Vandenberg balked, insisting that the word "military" be cut out, making the clause read that the parties would take "action."

Lange also learned from Acheson that the U.S. was not certain just how much armament help Norway could get if she joined the Atlantic pact; the whole problem of allocating arms to Western Europe was still under study.

To Lange, this was somewhat confusing. Fortnight before, the U.S. had in effect torpedoed the efforts of Sweden to get Norway and Denmark to join in a neutral Scandinavian bloc, which would have no ties to the Atlantic pact. It had been Sweden's hope that the U.S. would arm such a bloc. But the U.S. replied that its arms would go first to the nations joining up in the Atlantic pact.

Lange had taken the U.S. side in that dispute. Now he had come to ask what arms Norway would get if she joined up with the U.S. He took his answer home with him as a secret. But Washington and Europe--knew that the answer was vague.

An Orphan Alliance. France and the Benelux powers had not been reassured by the week's developments. These were the countries that had been the first to sign up in the Atlantic pact group. Originally they had insisted on a U.S. promise that it would go to war in their support. Later they had compromised, comforting themselves with the fact that between them and the Red army were U.S. occupation troops in Germany; presumably the U.S. would fight if its own forces were attacked. No such token shield protected Scandinavia, Western Europe's left flank.

The unease of Western Europe was seized upon by the Communists and by the Third Forcers. Sneered the Paris Communist newspaper Liberation: "U.S. hesitations are blocking the Atlantic pact." Sneered the leftist Franc-Tireur: "The Americans are willing to play with this child-alliance but not to adopt it."

Hard-headed anti-Communists in France and the Benelux countries knew that the fault was not all the U.S.'s, despite a fortnight's blunders. They emphasized that the Europeans themselves would have to face up to their Communist problem at home and abroad--then, having adopted a moral stand, relate their physical program to it.

Lange's Norway, they said, had followed just that procedure. And when a little country like Norway takes its stand clearly, they added, it should certainly not get from the U.S. what a Quai d'Orsay official colloquially called the Scotch shower treatment ("le regime de la douche ecossaise" --intermittent hot & cold water, to save fuel). Let the U.S. make up its mind, he said.

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