The Alternatives

One of the facts of life in a democracy--which opposing dictators have often used to their own advantage--is that a nation which, in the first heated moment of provocation, postpones a resort to arms is far less likely to go to arms after thinking it over.

This was the reality behind all the appearances. From military encampments on the Salisbury Plain, Britain moved more troops toward embarkation ports and the eastern Mediterranean. In Paris the Defense Ministry announced appointment of three-star General Andre Beaufre, an expert on airborne operations, to command a new "Mediterranean force." French newspapers, kicking up a new martial stir over the Suez, reported that air units were grouping at fields near Paris, armor and paratroop forces massing near Algerian ports.

A "Just" War. As if taking all this very seriously, that pudgy partisan of peace, Nikita Khrushchev, warned at a Rumanian embassy reception in Moscow that if attacked "the Arabs will not stand alone. It will be a just war, and there will be volunteers." (In the Communist sense, volunteers" are apt to show up in division strength.) Obviously, Khrushchev felt that he could hint at belligerency without risk of war. As things stood, the French and British were likely to shoot only if Nasser closed the canal or committed some fresh outrage.

Behind the somewhat sham fac,ade of force, a deadly serious game of consequences was being played. The Egyptians are in serious trouble over keeping Suez Canal pilots on the job. Right after Nasser took over, the old French company shrewdly offered all foreign pilots a three-year salary guarantee (average: about $11,000 a year) in return for a declaration of loyalty to the company. All but 40 of the 205 skilled navigators are foreigners--including 61 French. 54 British, two Americans. At least two-thirds signed the pledge.

The nationalized Egyptian authority has tried to keep things going by signing up 50 more Egyptian pilots--but experience (including a two-year trial period) matters very much. Cross winds, currents, fogs and narrow channels make Suez piloting tricky work, and a single accident can jam the canal for a week or more. At week's end the hard-pressed Egyptians were reportedly trying to lure Kiel Canal pilots to the Suez by offering them up to three times their $400-a-month German salaries.

Look West. For the British and French, their biggest worry is their Middle East oil supplies. After a hasty look around, emergency committees have satisfied themselves that ways could be found to decrease dependency on oil through the canal (20 million tons, more than half of Britain's oil imports came through Suez last year). But these alternatives would be, expensive.

The simplest way would be to fetch oil straight across the Atlantic, from Venezuela, the West Indies and the U.S. (see HEMISPHERE). Alternatively, Britain's Ministry of Fuel and Power has prepared a rationing plan that would slash petroleum consumption--a distasteful step but one which the British could take.

Within a year's time, say British experts, new pipelines could be built to carry to the Mediterranean 10 million tons of Middle East oil that now travels through the canal. Lord Hore-Belisha has pulled out his old scheme for building such a pipeline from Haifa on the Mediterranean to Elath on the Gulf of Aqaba. One objection : Nasser's shore batteries command the entrance to the gulf.

The soundest way to tap Middle East oil without Nasser's say-so is the old route around the Cape of Good Hope. This requires about 60% more tanker capacity. Almost half the extra tanker space needed, say the British, could be found by taking 32 U.S. World War II tankers out of mothballs, speeding up tanker trips and turnarounds, and postponing repairs to the existing tanker fleet.

Go South. Bigger tankers are another solution. Requiring little more crew than smaller tankers, they cut oil-transportation costs. But outside the U.S., and possibly Japan, all existing tanker-building yards are tied up through 1960. Eighteen months' construction time, and an estimated $1 billion, would be necessary to build enough supertankers to permit a total switch from Suez to the cape route. Moreover, only four ports in all Europe are now capable of unloading the new 47,750-ton Spyros Niarchos.

Yet for the long pull, supertankers are now central in Western government planning. Whatever Nasser does or does not do, British and French leaders have determined that in the future no great power can afford to be so dependent on the Suez passage.

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