Guns Plus Butter

Self-relieved of his burden as special adviser to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in preparing for the NATO conference (TIME, Dec. 16), Adlai Ewing Stevenson was once again free to talk, once again assured of a Page One audience. Indeed he had more headline value than at any time since the 1956 campaign, when he advocated ending the military draft and abolishing hydrogen-bomb tests.

First off, Stevenson went to Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria and a meeting of the New York County Lawyers' Association to paint, in terms of his "greatest anxiety," the dismal picture of the "City of the World." The U.S., said he, would have to work harder on defense, expand foreign aid. But it could by no means back out on any of its welfare programs, e.g., "education, slum clearance, health, social security." Guns plus butter, Stevenson admitted, would "take a lot of money." How could it be done? And what about inflation? Quipped Adlai Stevenson: "Well, that's another speech--probably for a Republican."

That problem avoided, Stevenson whipped back to Washington for a few comments about Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin's latest "peace proposals." Stevenson hoped that the President's reply would be "affirmative in spirit." To be sure, said Stevenson, U.S. experience with "fine Soviet promises has been very disillusioning." But even so, the U.S. "must leave no stone unturned."

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