FOREIGN RELATIONS: Diplomats at Work, may 20, 1957

Both on Capitol Hill and in the trouble spots around the world, the Administration last week was fighting the battle for U.S. foreign-policy objectives. During the week U.S. diplomats:

¶ Urged the Senate, despite mounting opposition by Old Guard Republicans, to ratify the 80-nation treaty to create an International Atomic Energy Agency, key element in Ike’s 1953 atoms-for-peace proposal before the United Nations. Among the objections: approval would involve the U.S. in a giant “giveaway” of atomic secrets; Red China might be expected to join and benefit, etc. Secretary of State Dulles, in appearances before two Senate committees, flatly denied the charges and warned the Senators that rejection of the program—”a native American product” that has “caught the imagination of the world”—would be “disastrous” to U.S. prestige and influence.

¶ Announced, as the West German Bundestag called on the U.S., Britain and Russia to suspend nuclear-weapons testing, that observers from 47 nations (not including India, the U.S.S.R. or its satellites) had been invited to witness a series of “low-yield” (tactical) nuclear-weapons shots in Nevada starting May 16. Purpose: “To familiarize them with U.S. testing policies and operations, especially safety procedures.”

¶ Got a report on the two-month, 15-nation Mideast tour of Ike Doctrine Salesman James P. Richards (TIME, May 13): Of the $200 million made available to the doctrine for emergency Mideast aid, said Ambassador Richards, he had pledged $120 million on the spot—slightly more than half of it for economic assistance, the rest for “guns, tanks and things of that kind,” which will be rushed to the area. Richards’ report was followed by a complaint from Tunisian Premier Habib Bourguiba, who had accepted $3,000,000 in Eisenhower Doctrine economic aid, but was nettled by Richards’ refusal to grant military aid—thus indicating the U.S. still regards independent Tunisia as a “French sphere of influence.”

¶ Announced, in a statement which brought a yell -of indignation from Red China, that the U.S. was sending an Air Force unit equipped with Matador missiles to Formosa to beef up the Nationalist Chinese defenses (see FOREIGN NEWS).