Tour of the Horizon

The Prime Minister landed at Washington National Airport in a drizzling rain. Homburg in hand, he listened intently while Secretary of State John Foster Dulles spoke a welcome: "We meet here with a background--a tradition--of having worked together for freedom and a just.peace." Sir Anthony Eden smiled: "I am deeply grateful. Foster--if I may call you that. I am quite sure that we can make a serious and positive contribution to peace."

Beneath grey skies and scudding black clouds, the dignitaries sped off downtown for what diplomats call a tour d'horizon, an overall review of common concerns. The President welcomed Eden on the White House steps. When the visitor asked: "How are you?" Ike, aware of big-eared reporters, cupped his hand and jokingly whispered his reply. During lunch (steak and apple pie). Britain's Eden remarked that the U.S. handling of Marshal Bulganin's request for a non-aggression pact (TIME, Feb. 6) had struck him as "admirable."

Then ensued three days of intermittent debate and deliberation around the octagonal table in the Cabinet room, beneath a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington. Twice the President took Eden off alone into his office ("Anthony, could you come in for a moment?") for man-to-man talks.

The Landmarks. In addition to signing the notable Declaration of Washington, the President and Prime Minister also produced a formal communique on the key landmarks of the international horizon, a generalized document that sometimes reflected more agreement, and sometimes less, than had actually been attained.

On the Far East, the communique warned Red China that the U.S. and Britain "were firmly united ... to deter and prevent aggressive expansion by force or subversion." Actually, as the course of the talks again made clear, Eden does not support the U.S. view that a Communist attack on Quemoy and Matsu could constitute aggression. Then the communique noted that the allied embargo on strategic trade with Red China "should be reviewed now and periodically ... in the light of changing conditions." During the talks Eden pressed the U.S. to let into Red China the strategic goods that it now lets into Red Russia.

When Eden brought up the British desire to have Red China seated in the U.N. this year, the President told him forcefully that any British move in that direction would bring on agitation in the U.S. for a withdrawal from the U.N. On the Middle East, the communique warned the Arab states and Israel not to use "force or the threat of force ... to violate the frontier or armistice lines." The communique warned that the U.S. and Britain had "made arrangements for joint discussions as to the nature of the action we should take in such an event." Actually, the U.S. and Britain already have their own separate stand-by plans for stepping in and stopping any new Arab-Israel war--plans ranging from economic sanctions to the deployment of British troops and the U.S. Sixth Fleet, with or without U.N. approval. Last week the U.S. and Britain agreed to coordinate these separate plans in a common one.

Here and there along the horizon, the President and the Prime Minister reached total agreement, e.g., to continue to press for the reunification of Germany, to continue to regard an attack on Berlin as an attack upon the U.S. and Britain. Here and there they reached total disagreement, e.g., the U.S. turned down Britain's request that it join the Baghdad Pact of anti-Communist countries in the Middle East; the U.S. declined to intervene in Britain's oil row with Saudi Arabia at the remote Buraimi Oasis (TIME, Jan. 30).

"A Sort of Mixing Up." Eden next moved to achieve one of his big objectives: to establish himself in U.S. eyes as the leader of a new-style British Commonwealth. He took himself off to Capitol Hill where he addressed--separately --the Senate and the House of Representatives. Eden stressed effectively that Britain's share of defense costs almost matched that of the U.S. "in proportion to our size." He drew attention to the current British concept of imperialism: "In many territories of the Commonwealth constitutional progress has reached, or is approaching, the last stage before their peoples assume responsibility for their own affairs." As for the cold war, Eden's theory was that "it is not so much military containment as political enlightenment which is the need of the day. Let us there fore be quite clear about our own philosophy in the appeal we make to other lands."

On a nationwide TV hookup, Eden tried to allay U.S. misgivings about the coming visit of Khrushchev and Bulganin to London. He said: "If you have confidence in yourself, if you believe in your own convictions, if you trust your own faith, you shouldn't be afraid to meet, to argue with others."

Before heading northward to Canada on his way home, Eden summed up: "We covered, I think, pretty well every imaginable topic while we went through these three days of discussion. We found a wider measure of agreement on them than I had expected when we arrived here ... I don't think we can have too much of this sort of mixing up, and I am sure it is an advantage . . ." He added a personal note: "These have been the most encouraging three days I have spent among you in Washington --and I have been on many journeys."

Eden's visit added to the considera ble store of credit he has banked in the U.S.; he will need it next April when he plans to draw a large check by leading Khrushchev and Bulganin into the presence of his Queen.

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