By Richard H. Rovere New York It would not, indeed,
have been difficult to play down the urgency of the Suez crisis, for it engages no American passions and, despite the fact that we are second only to England in the volume of shipping through the canal, it affects few American interests of which there is very much general awareness. It must be remembered that for us the Middle East is not very 'middle'—on an American Mercator's projection the Suez Canal is not very far from the end of the earth. Moreover, our view of our world responsibility is a cold war view; we are a world power because the Soviet Union is a world power, and our tendency is to look upon situations in which we do not confront Russia or Communism directly as situations we can safely ignore. Thus, the President and Mr. Dulles could quite easily have taken a less serious view of the matter and made it easier for the party managers to pretend that the world had been set to rights, that Soviet power had been effectively checkmated, and that such disturbances as remain are of negligible consequence—small matters that can quite easily be dealt with by a President with a cardiac condition and a stomach disorder.
But the administration did not take the course that vfould be the most politically agreeable one. From high above the Atlantic, Mr. Dulles phoned the White House and suggested that radio and television time be arranged for so that he could explain the gravity of the affair to the American people and some sense of the role he expected the country to take in the August 16 conference. The White House made the neces- sary arrangements, and the President introduced Mr. Dulles by saying, 'All of us, of course, appreciate the tremendous importance of the Suez Canal. Its continuous and effective operation is vital to the economies [sic] of our country, indeed to the economies of almost all the countries of the world.' The Washington Post and'Times-Herald of that morning had talked of the need for 'the Eisenhower administration to emerge from its torpor and discard any notion that the crisis will disappear or go into abeyance for the political campaign.' Mr. Dulles, although he did not pass up the opportunity to make his customary remarks about the forthcoming triumph of morality, did take a grave and, it seemed to most of us, enlightened view. His speech seemed to establish an almost complete unity with our major allies. To be sure, he made no commitments on American policy in the event the forth- coming conference turns out a frost. But it would be unwise for anyone assaying our policy to interpret those remarks as anything more than an attempt of the kind that every responsible diplomat must make to hold on to freedom of action as long as it is safe to do so. If the present administration mood continues—and there is no reason now to suppose it will not—that freedom will be profitably and intelligently exercised.
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