Monday, Oct. 21, 1957
The Specific Threat
"There are forces in the world," said Communism's Nikita Khrushchev in his proud capital last week, "that have not given up the idea of war in the Middle East. But Turkey and the U.S. should reflect that war, once started, can spread, and once guns begin to boom and rockets begin to fly then it will be too late . . .
When we let off our intercontinental ballistic missile, people said that it was a psychological trick and that we were out to create an impression. They did not be lieve us. But we do not go in for bluffing.
We are a serious people ... If war breaks out, Turkey would not last one day."
Old Objectives. Thus Khrushchev translated the new world prestige of Sputnik and the world's fears of Red missiles into one, specific, power-political threat to an area that the Communists have long and unsuccessfully sought to domi nate. He sought to intimidate NATO Partner Turkey, which is menaced by Russia on the north and by an increasingly Red Syria on the south (see FOREIGN NEWS). He sought to feel out the temper of the NATO nations and discover whether the U.S.'s European allies would stand by the U.S. He also sought to make an impressive power play before impression able Arabs and to undermine the U.S.'s regional and worldwide prestige.
Communism had all but lost the ideo logical cold war in satellite Hungary, 1956; Communism had all but lost the economic cold war in the contrast be tween the prosperity of Western Europe and the poverty of Communism, 1957.
But now the Communists were exploiting their brand-new Sputnik to achieve their old Middle Eastern objectives. "People of the whole world are pointing to the satellite," crowed Nikita. "They are saying that the U.S. has been beaten."
Greater Power. The U.S. met the new threat to the Middle East as it had met the old. During the Suez crisis the Russians had threatened to rocket-bomb London and Paris and to send Communist volunteers into the Middle East; the U.S. responded by warning the Kremlin that the U.S. would forcibly oppose the Communist volunteers, that any rocket attack against Western Europe would trigger instant U.S. air retaliation against the centers of Soviet power (TIME, Nov. 26 et seq.). Now the State Department fired off a tough statement warning the unpredictable Khrushchev, in effect, that the U.S. would not let its ally Turkey and the bigger principle of collective security go down ; it would fight.
"Despite distances," said State, "he should be under no illusions that the U.S., Turkey's friend and ally, takes lightly its obligation under the North Atlantic Treaty or is not determined to carry out the national policy as expressed in the Joint Congressional Resolution on the Middle East -- the Eisenhower Doctrine."
Thus the U.S.. armed with the local atomic capability of the Sixth Fleet and the worldwide thermonuclear capability of Strategic Air Command, and assured by week's end that a missile speedup was inevitable (see below), moved to meet Khrushchev's crude power play with a readiness to use power, if necessary. How to preserve that power and that diplomatic capability five to ten years hence, in the face of Sputnik's warning, was the heart of the sober second thought in Washington last week.
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