Evening star., 1953-03-03
The Eden-ButIer Mission

During their impending conferences here
with top officials Of the Eisenhower administra-
ton, Foreign Secretary Eden and Chancellor Of
the Exchequer Butler will set forth Britain's
views on a great complex of intertwining mill
tary political and economic problems involving
the future well-being and security of the entire
free world. No commitments are to be made by
either side. at this time, but the though
informal and exploratory in nature-are
expected to lay the groundwork for later
agreements designed to strengthen our Anglo
American partnership as the cornerstone Of the
general allied effort to deal with the far-f1ung
and many-headed threat of Red totalitarianism.
In the military and political spheres, the
problems to be discussed range clear around
the globe In Europe they encompass questions
bearing upon the North Atlantic Treaty Or
ganlZat1on and BritainS relationship to the
projected Six-nation European Defense Com
munity, in which France would like to see closer
British participation as safeguard against the
possibility of reSurgent German militariSm In
North Africa and the Middle East, the issues
cover such matters as Arab nationalism, the
spread Of anti-Western sentiment, the settle
ment of Anglo-Egyptian differences, the crea-
ton Of a special defense command, and the
touch h-and-go situation In Iran. Finally, as far
as Asia Is concerned, Mr.. Eden and Mr.. Butler,
together with our American representatives,
will seek concert of views regarding Malaga,
the struggle in Indo- China, the Chinese Com
munists and ways and means of breaking the
bitter Korean stalemate.
Important as all this is, however, the over
riding purpose of the Eden-Butler mission is to
talk economics of sort that profoundly affects
the free worlds capacity to prosper and build
the kind of strength that is needed for security
against aggression. With that in mind, our
British visitors will emphasize their country'S
desire to substitute trade with America for aid
from America, and they will offer proposals
aimed at enabling the United Kingdom, in CO.
operation with the whole Commonwealth and
with us, to earn enough dollars to pay for all
that it must get from us to live. The proposals.
some of them highly technical-include meas
ureS for easing restrictions on the exchange of
currencieS, for stabilizing the prices of raw
materials, for encouraging greater private
American investment in the development of
underdeveloped regions in the pound-sterling
area, and for stimulating the export-import
flow between that area and the United States.
Among other things, to achieve these objectives,
Commonwealth barriers against dollar goods
would be lowered, and our own country, in ad-
dition to simplifying customs procedures and
reducing certain tariffs, would undertake q
commitment to buy from sterling nations, at
fixed prices, fixed minimum quantities of tin,
rubber, etc.
BY coincidence, on the eve Of the Eden
Butler visit the Committee for Economic De-
velopment ,has issued a report advocating a
number of these trade-not-aid steps. At the
same time, however, the CED-a private organ
ization of distinguished Americans-has warned
that the United Kingdom must have our con-
tinued financial assistance if the NATO alliance
is to survive. How long such assistance must
continue, and on what scale, is another ques-
tion-a vexing one that will be discussed at
length in the talks beginning here tomorrow.
AS the situation stands now, all that anybody
can be sure of is the fact that the closest pos
sible partnership between ourselves and the
British is indispensable to the future of free
dom in this tense and topsy -turvy world.