Spectator's Notebook
MY colleague Queequeg tells me that the Anglo-American conference at Ditchley Park this week talked mainly of the impasse into which President Kennedy's Grand Design has got itself. It started with an optimistic estimate of the Atlantic future by Mr. Ed Murrow, the head of the United States Information Services, but his cheerful mood was shared by few. Mr. Walt Rostow, the State Department's chief policy planner, gave four means to be adopted by those who want a real nuclear partnership: a com- mitment to working for the unity of the alliance around a unified nuclear deterrent; the establish- ment of guide lines for the use of nuclear weapons in case of Soviet attack; initiation of Europeans in the problems of nuclear control and operation; and 'active European and Canadian participation in the operation and con- trol of strategic as well as practical nuclear weapons.' Mr. Rostow put the case for the mixed manned NATO nuclear force persuasively and firmly while making it quite clear that this project was largely intended to disarm a potential de- mand in Germany for nuclear parity, at least with Britain and France. Here, he said, was the one area where it was possible to move forward without either quarrelling with France or putting pressure on her. Mr. Rostow is a persuasive ad- vocate, but it was hard to resist the impression that the policy of Washington is still one of wait- and-see.
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