Fair Warning

The big lesson that John Foster Dulles carried away from the Korean war was that the Communists would never have attacked had they been certain that the U.S. was willing to go to war. Last week Secretary of State Dulles used his press conference to hand the Russians as blunt a warning as they are ever likely to get: if they launch any attack on NATO Part ner Turkey, even under the guise of going to the aid of Red-lining Syria, there will be war with the U.S.

Dulles made it clear that the U.S. was deeply concerned about Soviet saber-rattling. There had been a recurring Soviet threat to Turkey since 1945, he said, but present Russian belligerence might be "a smoke screen behind which something more serious might be taking place." Whatever the case, the U.S would stand firmly with Turkey.

Finally came the key question: "Mr. Secretary, We have restated that we will stand by Turkey in an attack. How will you do that? By attacking the attacker?"

Replied Dulles: "Certainly if there is an attack on Turkey by the Soviet Union, it would not mean a purely defensive operation by the U.S., with the Soviet Union a privileged sanctuary from which to attack Turkey." Just how and where the U.S. might use its Mid-East power (see map) to counterattack he left to the Russians to guess.

Was, then, the U.S. on the brink of war? asked a reporter. Dulles made no effort to pull back from this gibe at what his critics like to call his policy of brinkmanship. "If anybody studies history they will find that the world has been always on the brink of war. The great reason why we have had so many wars is that people take it for granted that there isn't going to be any war. They get complacent and do not make the necessary efforts to avoid war. It's only by being conscious of the fact that war is an ever-present danger that you take adequate and effective steps to avoid getting into war.

"We wage peace, I think, more effectively on that account."

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