At the end of their three-day conference in Washington last week, the foreign ministers of the Western Big Three emerged with springlike smiles and cheerful words. "A very satisfactory meeting," said the U.S.'s Secretary of State Christian Archibald Herter. "Agreement was reached," said France's Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, echoing an earlier report by Britain's Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd that "we agreed on everything."
What the foreign ministers had agreed on, with this display of cheerful unity, was a united Western stance for the Big Four summit conference scheduled to begin...