ANSWERS REQUIRED
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HE language in which the communiqués that I customarily follow international discussions are couched rarely bears much relation to any known tongue; this, however, no longer causes any great difficulty, since we have all learnt to translate readily. A more serious problem is that the jargon used is the same for those talks and conferences at which something useful is decided as for the other kind. It is impossible, for in- stance, to deduce the category into which the discussions between President Kennedy and Mr. Macmillan fell from a reading of the com- muniqué. That the two men would 'reach a very high level of agreement' on their 'estimate of the nature of the problems' was never in much doubt; but it gives no clue to the solutions of the problems, which are rather more important. Similarly, most of us were prepared for the two men to discuss how their countries 'can help to strengthen the free world as a whole' and to consider 'what measures it might be advisable to take . . . to ensure the cohesion, effectiveness and adaptability of the Atlantic community in a changing world,' and many of us would even have been ready to hear a little of any plans that were made for that strengthening and ensuring. And 'the urgency and importance of further steps towards the economic and political unity of Europe' have never been in doubt. But is Britain going to join the Common Market or is she not?
It is argued that formal communiqués do not provide the best means of announcing decKons as far-reaching as these would have been if they had been taken. But this is only the surface reflection of the problem. Beneath it lies the whole question of whether such meetings are worthwhile at all. During his campaign for the Presidency, Mr. Kennedy made it plain that he viewed such international summitry vith toler- ance at most, and there is no reason to suppose that he has warmed to the idea since.
President Kennedy's friendly words about Mr. Macmillan can be partly attributed to a natural desire to counter some of the wild talk going on about his blunt language to the Prime Minister during the talks, and partly to a genuine appre- ciation of the special importance of the Anglo- American alliance. All the same, the special importance of the relations between our country and the President's—vis-à-vis the relations be- tween, say, France or Germany (and still more, Continental Europe as a whole) and the United States—is a great deal smaller than Mr. Mac- millan would care to recognise in public, and it is still shrinking. If Britain is to pull anything like her weight in the counsels of the West, let alone reinforce her special position in the Atlantic alliance, some hard questions must be answered, and soon, in language more readily intelligible than the international gobbledygook of com- muniqués.
First, what is the Government actually going to do about our H-bomb? It is certainly, as Mr. Macmillan said in his speech to the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology 'undesirable to alarm and perhaps endanger the world by appearing gratuitously to encourage the uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons from country to country.' But what is Britain doing to stop this spread? Is Mr. Macmillan now willing for Britain to give up her own 'deterrent' if France will do the same? And if not, how does he propose to help stop the spread 'from country to country' of, nuclear weapons? And why can he not make clear what precisely it is he has in mind?
As for Europe, it can hardly be doubted that President Kennedy urged Mr. Macmillan to bring Britain into the Common Market. Did the Prime Minister agree? If not, what has he to propose? Certainly, no form of compromise will be acceptable to the Six; they have made it cies"- that Britain will not be allowed to join with her fingers crossed. Then are we going to bow to the inevitable and join, or to continue pretending that the contracting Commonwealth and the device— inadequate from the beginning—of the Seven will suffice to meet the challenge of the Corn- mon Market? Or is Mr. Macmillan simply cal- culating that the economic deluge will not come until after he is safely tucked up in the House of Lords?
These are not empty questions; they vitally affect the lives of us all. What happens to Western defence, what happens to Britain's economy, are not subjects to be spread thickly with platitudes and put away for storage. Mr. Macmillan may be willing to wait indefinitely before making up his mind; but the problems are not static. They are dynamic; and they will come and take answers for themselves if he does not provide them.
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