THE NATION: Cold War Goes On

The U.S.’s attention was focused on the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, the Administration was feeling the numbness of its approaching end, and the President was taking a long vacation in Newport, R.I.—in short, it was a good week for Nikita Khrushchev to stir up as much trouble as he could. He hurled at the U.S. a series of accusations, insults, threats and challenges that in an earlier day, when weapons were less destructive and threats more lethal, might have been enough to set off a war. In rapid succession, Khrushchev:

¶Declared that a U.S. RB-47E reconnaissance plane had been shot down over Soviet territorial waters and accused the U.S. of “provoking a serious military conflict” by sending the plane on its mission. Khrushchev failed in his attempt to make the U.S. seem reckless and belligerent in the eyes of the world, but by shooting down the plane the Russians did achieve at least a temporary cessation of U.S. reconnaissance flights off Russia’s Arctic coast (see FOREIGN NEWS).

¶Warned the West to keep “hands off the Republic of the Congo.” What the U.S. had done to provoke this outburst was steer through the United Nations Security Council a resolution to send to the Congo—at the urgent request of the Congolese government—a U.N. police force to help restore order; the U.S.also planned to send planeloads of food for both Congolese and terrified Belgians (see FOREIGN NEWS).

¶Attacked the Monroe Doctrine as an anachronism that had “outlived its time.” Here Khrushchev overreached himself, brought on a surge of solidarity between the U.S. and Latin America (see THE HEMISPHERE).

Together, the three outbursts pointed up the fact that, amid the U.S.’s political suspense, the cold war goes on. Whatever the outcome of the November elections, the new President who takes over from Dwight Eisenhower will have to face up to that fact. The last years of the Eisenhower Administration have been shadowed by the illusion that, despite the oft-repeated Communist intention to dominate the world, the U.S. could end the cold war and achieve “peace” through some kind of “settlement” or painstakingly sought “relaxation of tensions.” The first and most urgent task of the new Administration, Republican or Democratic, will be to set aside these notions and build defense and foreign policies designed not to settle the cold war but to win it.