The Safety Catch

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

From the start of the Suez Canal crisis six weeks ago, the U.S. has been the patient, quieting influence, calming those in Britain and France who talked of force. It was U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles who mustered 18 maritime nations behind a mild U.S. plan to put the key waterway under a form of international supervision while acknowledging Egypt's ownership. Dulles sent the State Department's ace Middle East troubleshooter, Loy Henderson, to Cairo on a five-nation committee "to present and explain" the U.S. plan to Egypt's President Nasser.

"I believe," said Dulles, "that we will invoke moral forces which are bound to prevail." What if they did not? Said Dulles: "That will create a new and serious situation."

Last week Nasser rejected the U.S. forces of morality, and that new and serious situation was at hand. The Cairo talks failed, and once more war talk was spouting out of Paris and London (see FOREIGN NEWS). In this new crisis, the basic objectives of the U.S. remained unchanged. "We are committed to a peaceful settlement of this problem," said President Eisenhower.

The U.S.'s aims were 1) keep the Communists out of the Middle East, 2) keep the peace and preserve the highest possible measure of unity of the non-Communist world, 3) keep the Suez Canal in working order so that Middle Eastern oil might continue to flow to Western Europe's industry. None of these objectives would be achieved and all of these objectives would be jeopardized by a shooting war. In the tactical sense, the U.S. was ready to accept blame from the British for dragging its feet if that might give Prime Minister Anthony Eden a better chance for maneuvering in the new phases of the crisis.

This week the crisis centered in London, and there was a possibility that it might eventually go to the United Nations. But whatever the technical course might be, it was clearer than ever before that the U.S. will have to play the most significant role in any solution that might be reached. "The gun is loaded, aimed, and the finger is on the trigger," said a neutral observer in crisis-torn Cairo last week, adding gratefully, "but the U.S. is the safety catch."

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