At 12:21 one afternoon last week, Dwight Eisenhower snapped erect in his seat at the NATO conference table, put on his glasses, and. in firm, clear tones, began to read: "We are in a fast-running current of the great stream of history. Heroic efforts will be needed to steer the world toward true peace. This is a high endeavor. But it is one which the free nations of the world can accomplish." When he had finished, NATO Secretary-General Paul-Henri Spaak and Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan turned to him with quick, wide smiles of congratulation.
Truth was that it was too early for congratulations. The U.S. delegation had gone to Paris with some misconceptions about the temper of the rest of the NATO allies. In Washington shortly before leaving, Secretary of State Dulles had made it plain that he was counting on hard and fast acceptance of the U.S. plan to establish missile bases in Europe. Said he: "I don't favor these so-called agreements in principle." He had apparently given little weight to the talk of new East-West negotiations that had swept Europe in the wake of Russian Premier Bulganin's preconference notes to NATO nations (TIME. Dec. 23). "If Communism is stubborn for the wrong, let us be even more steadfast for the right," he wrote in an article published in LIFE last week, and dismissed the question of a new round of East-West talks with the observation: "The areas where you can usefully reach agreement are quite limited."
Question of Strength. In this mood, the U.S. had taken to Paris proposals that were designed above all else to increase the military strength of the NATO alliance. Ike earnestly insisted that "we should leave no stone unturned in our search for an agreement to end this appalling armaments race," declared that the U.S. "proposes to increase the economic resources which we can make available to the less developed countries of the free world." But what primarily concerned the U.S. was the need for intermediate range ballistic missile bases in Europe.
Taking over from the President, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles spelled out the U.S. plan. The U.S: was prepared to make available to U.S. General Lauris Norstad. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, a stock of intermediate range ballistic missiles. Norstad would assign the missiles to any NATO member that wanted them and, in his judgment, had need of them. To give the missiles nuclear punch in case of war with the U.S.S.R., the U.S. also proposed to establish stockpiles of nuclear warheads in Europe. But the warheads, unlike the missiles themselves, would remain in U.S. custody.