Foster's Hour

Just after the President of the U.S. went to lunch one day last week, a band of technicians moved into his huge, oval office in the White House. They laid a brown canvas over the green carpet, moved a picture of the President's mother off his desk, rolled in half a dozen cameras and set up floodlights, microphones and recorders. Six hours later, at the day's best hour for reaching large radio and television audiences, the office was the scene of a government's remarkable new technique for informing the governed.

In the language of radio and television programs, it might have been called "Dwight Eisenhower Presents," or "Foster's Hour." Seated at the gleaming mahogany desk brought into the White House in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ad-libbed for almost 30 minutes about world events. He was equipped with both notes and a text, but he seldom referred to them as he discussed the most intricate maneuvers of foreign policy in the least intricate of terms. As his master of ceremonies, he had the biggest name in the business: Dwight Eisenhower.

Turning the Tide. "Foster," said President Eisenhower, after the cameras panned in, "it's good to have you here to tell us something of the significant events that took place during your recent visit to Europe." Traveler Dulles was happy about those events. The signing of the Austrian Treaty and the admission of West Germany into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (TIME, May 23) were "to a very large extent a coming true of things" that the Eisenhower Administration has been planning for more than two years. "And, indeed, I think now one can say that what happened may really mark a turning in the tide of history." Foster Dulles was soon giving his report human touches rarely present in official reports on international discussions. When West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was welcomed into the NATO Council, Dulles reported, that "pretty stuffy and formalistic body" broke into applause for the first time in his memory.

There "was a sense of the great event as the free German Republic took its place" in the NATO Council. Since F and G come together in the alphabet, France and Germany sat side by side as allies, "and you felt that a new page had been opened on European history." Like any tourist, Dulles wanted to tell about the "high spot of the trip," in this case, the signing of the Austrian Treaty.

After eight years of negotiating in 379 meetings, the Soviet Union had finally agreed to pull out Russian troops. "It proves in this business you must not be easily discouraged," interjected M.C.

Eisenhower. Said Dulles: "You keep on steadily, steadily, keeping the pressure on, and all of a sudden you get a break."

At times the team of Ike and Foster broke into their discussion of serious events with easy asides. Pointing out that he had refused to go to Vienna to sign the Austrian Treaty until the Russians had agreed to final terms ("I felt once I got there in Vienna, I would be hooked"), Dulles recalled that the President had lent him the presidential plane, and "that part of it was pretty nice." Nodded Ike, with a grin: "It's a good ship."

Jumping with Joy. From Austria, as from NATO, Reporter Dulles brought back some color for his story. The Austrian people, who had lived under occupation since Hitler's goose-steppers arrived in 1938, were overjoyed at the prospect of liberation--"particularly the older people who had known the liberties of the past. [They were] just jumping up and down with joy, their wrinkled faces--it just made your heart feel warm at the thought that we'd been able to make some contribution to this spirit of joy." Beneath the surface, Secretary Dulles found further reason for "great satisfaction" in the Austrian Treaty. "In the first place, it marks the first time that the Red armies have turned their face in the other direction and gone back since 1945 . . .* Now, that's bound to have a tremendous impact in the other countries where the Red armies are there in occupation . . . The peoples of the satellite countries are going to want to be getting for themselves the thing that they see the Austrians get--they want to dance in the streets with joy, too, some time." John Foster Dulles did not think that the Soviet leaders had "got religion or been converted." He realizes that they have changed their tactics, not their purposes; he believes they have been forced to change in the face of the U.S. and Western "policy of strength and firmness and the standard of moral principles." He explained simply: "In every one of our well-ordered communities, there are a lot of people who don't believe in their hearts in the rules and the laws that are there, but they find it more convenient to conform . . . And it may possibly be the case that the Soviet Union, after this experience of trying to buck everything, may be feeling that it may be more convenient for them to conform to some of the rules and practices of a civilized world community." Vigilance with Hope. Since the West was united and the Soviet Union had softened its tactics, Secretary Dulles and President Eisenhower agreed that the time was ripe for four-power talks by the heads of government. But both approached the conference table warily.

Dulles: Now, nobody knows better than you that such a meeting has dangers as well as opportunities and the biggest danger of all is the danger that hopes will be raised so high that they can't possibly be realized, and then . . . either there'll be an open disillusionment and a feeling of dismay on the part of the people and a feeling that . . . the only alternative is war ... Or then there's the possibility that, in an effort to avoid that danger, the heads of government meeting there might arrive at sort of an appearance of agreement under ambiguous words where there was no real agreement.

Eisenhower: Foster, I don't believe that danger's quite as great as it was once, because my mail shows this: that the American people are really pretty aware of what is going on. They realize this is merely a beginning and not an end . . . I'm sure that there's a greater maturity than we would have expected several years ago.

Dulles: I do think the American people have become pretty sophisticated about it.

They're not easily going to be fooled . . .

The heads of government, great as they are, are not going to be able to get together for three or four days and find a substantial solution for some of these problems.

Considering the whole picture, Secretary Dulles felt that the U.S. and its allies "can face the future with new confidence" if they adhere to policies of firmness. Said the President: "In a word, we will stay strong, and we'll stay vigilant, but we're not going to extinguish the hope that a new dawn may be coming, even if the sun rises very slowly."

Deterrence Without Bellicosity. When the political reviews of the television performance were in, some politicians on Capitol Hill thought that Dulles and the President were too bold about the international situation and others thought that they were too timid. Some pundits clucked that crucial international issues should not be discussed on such an informal show. But it was clear that Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles had done a remarkably good job of explaining U.S. foreign policy in a way that the people of the

U.S. and of the world (the program is be ing transmitted in 37 languages by the Voice of America) could understand. The people of the U.S. could understand that these two men were not about to surrender to Communist wiles; the people of neutral nations could understand that the U.S. was not plotting the conquest of the world.

Through the plain talk on "Foster's Hour," as well as through other recent words and deeds of the Eisenhower Administration, the U.S. policy of deterrence is gradually becoming clearer. Its basis is strength and firmness. If the Communists resort to force, the U.S. will retaliate in kind, and will make the punishment fit the crime. If the attack is massive, so will be the response; if it is a peripheral attack, the answer will be peripheral.

But Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles are determined that they will never be bellicose, as the Communists are.

Ready at all times to enter into honor able negotiation, they will negotiate from strength, and will not negotiate away territory. They are not about to trade away Formosa or Germany, or both, to buy some dubious Communist promise. They will agree to genuine atomic control and disarmament, but will shun the mere appearance of agreement and control. They will take all honorable measures for peace, but will yield no real estate or no principle. The strategy, summed up, is deterrence without bellicosity.

* An exception omitted by Dulles: the 1946 withdrawal of Red armies from Iran's Azerbaijan province after determined insistence by the U.N.

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