First, the Shell

In major diplomatic conferences on both sides of the Atlantic, the U.S. last week confronted the new, assertive Europe. At Geneva, the U.S. started to bargain for its future economic relations with the Common Market, which is just five years old and is already the world's biggest trading bloc. At Ottawa, in recognition of its allies' new strength, the U.S. initiated the slow, painful process of sharing with Europe control of NATO's nuclear armory. If neither conference produced dramatic results, both narrowly skirted breakdowns that might have gravely damaged the Atlantic partnership.

Naked Europeans. Despite France's aversion to tariff-cutting, U.S. negotiators at Geneva hoped to achieve far-reaching liberalization of world trade through President Kennedy's Trade Expansion Act. Special Envoy Christian Herter and his 20-man delegation -- who were dubbed "Onward Christian's Soldiers" by the press corps--aimed for an agreement whereby Europe and the U.S. would make big, equal, across-the-board percentage cuts on huge categories of goods. Nothing doing, retorted the Europeans, who pointed out that U.S. tariffs are generally higher than Europe's, while the highest U.S. tariffs cover far more goods (20% of all U.S. tariffs are over 30% v.1% of Europe's).

Thus, protested Eurocrats, if European nations cut their already lower tariffs by the same percentage as the U.S., they would end up "naked," while the U.S. would still be comparatively well protected. In any case, shrugged Europeans, the U.S. in 1962 earned nearly twice as much ($4.4 billion) in the Common Market as it bought from the Six. So why make things easier for the Americans?

Inside the Egg. The talks actually had broken down, when West Germany's Ludwig Erhard devised the last-ditch compromise that proved acceptable to John F. Kennedy. It calls for both sides to make equal, across-the-board percentage reductions, as proposed by the U.S.--though they will probably fall far short of the ideal 50% envisaged by Washington. In return, the U.S. agreed in principle to make drastic cuts in the highest tariff categories. Since the fine print will not actually be negotiated until May 1964, some U.S. and British officials were fearful, as one put it. that "France has only moved her roadblock down the road."

Concluded Erhard: "We are agreed on the shell of an egg. What will be in the egg, we do not know."

At Ottawa everyone knew what was in the egg, but no one knew what to call it. Well in advance of last week's semiannual NATO Council meeting, the U.S. and its allies had agreed on a new addition to NATO's alphabetical armory: IANF, meaning interallied nuclear force. A limited first step toward giving NATO its own nuclear deterrent. IANF now consists mainly of 180 British V-bombers and three Mediterranean-based U.S. Polaris submarines that the two nations will turn over to NATO command. While it also includes 60 French tactical bombers, for which the U.S. controls the nuclear warheads, the French government hinted that it might withdraw them if IANF were made to seem bigger and more powerful--as it is--than France's vaunted force de frappe. Thus the Allies agreed that if France agreed not to make any scenes at Ottawa, IANF would be nameless. It soon became known as "That Thing."

By any name, the new force is intended to give the NATO Allies a greater sense of participation in nuclear strategy, but will do little to increase their actual role in the defense of Europe. A more significant development, in the U.S. view, would be formation of a multilateral force (MLF), comprising some 20 Polaris-firing surface vessels that would be jointly owned, crewed--and paid for--by the participating allies. Its main purpose, of course, would be to accommodate West Germany's eagerness for a nuclear role commensurate with its economic and political power. But the U.S. will have to yield far more if it is to meet its allies' demands for control of their own nuclear defense. In Ottawa, as at Geneva, the dialogue had barely begun.

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