THE NATIONS: Of Strength & Courage

The headlines last week told of the seemingly irreducible deadlock between East & West at Berlin (see below). The breaking of that deadlock depended, in the long run, on which side was stronger. Beneath the headlines, the week’s less spectacular news contained some highly significant indications that the balance of strength between East & West was continuing to shift. The shift was in the West’s favor.

Britain, it seemed, was beginning to pull out of its economic swamp; the French government had finally decided to govern, rather than let Communist sabotage wreck its recovery efforts; and Western Germany was going through an economic resurgence that held out bright hope to all of Western Europe (see FOREIGN NEWS). Western strength was expressed still another way, and that was the changing mood and mettle of Western Europe’s people.

Last spring, Western Europeans criticized the U.S. for its “war hysteria.” Recently, however, observers who have sampled European opinion have found a growing tendency to face the possibility of war. Much of the war talk was still simply an expression of fear; many people, feeling cynically certain that the catastrophe was inevitable, had no notion of doing anything to prevent war, or to win “it, if it came.

But more & more of Europe’s war talk also expressed hope. TIME’S Paris Bureau Chief André Laguerre reported: “Good can come out of that talk, for it can dissipate Europe’s terror and engender the strength and courage which could prevent war. To build that strength and courage, Europe does need time. The Kremlin, by launching a sudden attack, has the power to refuse Europe the time it needs, and to cut short this period of Europe’s moral regeneration. That is the risk. But it is a risk which more & more Western Europeans are willing to take.”

In Paris this week, the Foreign Ministers of the Western Union nations met for the first time since last summer to implement plans for Western Europe’s common defense, in case war broke out. They would also discuss the possibility of a formal military alliance with the U.S. Most Western Europeans no longer regarded such concerns as hysterical.