DULLES UBER ALLES
By Our German Correspondent Bonn ASUDDEN fit of hysterics thrown by Britain and France over an inevitable shrinkage in their dwindling colonial empires might have pitched the world into a third world war, if it hadn't been for the prompt intervention of Mr. Dulles. This is the prevailing impression which the German newspaper reader must have gathered from the very full German press coverage of the Suez crisis.
Leader-page commentators in Die Well and the Frankfurter Allgemeine took the view that Nasser had been rash and un- necessarily provoking, but not wrong. 'The right of the Egyptian Government to nationalise a transport company of this kind can these days hardly be contested,' wrote Herr Jurgen Tern in the Allgemethe. This attitude was opposed by the papers which normally support Dr. Adenauer—notably the Industriekurier, which saw the seizure of the Canal as a stern warning of what might happen if the West persisted in pursuing a policy of credulity and appeasement towards Russia. But, with minor variations, the Allgemeine line was adopted by most of the influential independent dailies, from the Frankfurter Rundschau and Der Mittag just on the left of centre to Die Welt well over on the right.
A Rundschau commentator felt that the West had been play- ing a 'dangerous game' and that Nasser had found himself forced into a situation from which there was no escape. Die Welt clung wanly to the hope that the self-interest of the United States and Russia would prevent the self-interest of Britain and France getting out of hand. Der Mittag regretted that the London conference had been so hopelessly rigged against Egypt. This paper also took the opportunity of review- ing American and British foreign policy over the past twenty- live years. The Abyssinian war; the 'flabby,' then hard, then 'unconditional' attitude to Hitler; the encouragement of Stalin; the consistent support of the wrong man in the Far East— hadn't it all been a succession of dreary failures? Der Mittag, which could hardly have sounded more impatient with this sorry record if it had been beaming political wisdom westwards throughout the period in question, concluded that the West would never learn. All the same, it offered what it felt to be the obvious solution to the Nasser problem : the West must confirm Suez nationalisation in exchange for guarantees of unimpeded passage, and then provide the balance of money needed to finance the Aswan dam.
It would be wrong to suggest that these papers entirely absolve Nasser from blame. But what blame there is is oddly marginal to the moral argument. Nasser is held to exist in a kind of invincible ignorance of international law. Moreover, his actions are found to be more in tune with the 'political realities of 1956' than the reactions of the powers who oppose him. He is inevitable. His movements must be charted like those of a typhoon. And the West must realise (the German leader-writer wags a warning finger in our direction) that wars are not started by political realities, but by the nations which rashly mismanage them.
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