Evening star., 1961-12-31
POLICY
Kennedy Seen Taking New Attitude
On Nations Rights to Stay Neutral
Continued From Page Al

pand their control throughout
the world.
8. The balance of power still
is on our side-perhaps mar
ginally. Over the long run we
can keep the balance of power,
although not so much as to
give us unlimited freedom of
action.
4. East Germany's building
Of the wall dividing East and
West Berlin was an important
confession of failure of the
Communist system in East
Germany.
5. Soviet leaders felt their
military situation was critical
enough to cause them to re-
sumo nuclear testing in the air,
thereby destroying their prop
aganda effort Of years to blame
the United States for fallout
dangers.
6. Americas defense buildup,
started last summer. Is substan-
TALLY increasing our military
power and has convinced So
Wet leaders that we are serious
about keeping our commitments
in Berlin and elsewhere.
z. Cuban Premier Fidel Cas-
tro's admission that he Is a
Communist has weakened his
influence in Latin America, and
the President expects the Inter-
American Foreign Ministers
Conference in Uruguay next
month to produce at least
joint condemnation Of Cuba's
becoming a Communist satel-
lite.
8. The Dominican Republic is
making more effective progress
in the transition from a dicta-
torshop to democracy than
might have been anticipated.
Realizes Danger
The Presidents attitude Is
that Americans should notr
over-emphasize setbacks for our
side in the world struggle, re-
alizing that the Communists
have had their setbacks, TOO,
and that generally the picture
is not as dark at the end of
1861 as it looked like it might
be year ago.
He recognizes that there still
are critical areas that could go
against is, such as in the Congo
and Laos where the situation Is
touch-and-go. I
Close friends who have talked ]
with Mr.. Kennedy recently say I
he describes his administra-
tion's foreign policy as having 7
basically the same purpose as
that followed by the United =
States since World War Ito :,
help preserve free nations and
prevent the balance Of world
power shifting to the Com I
munistS. sr
What changes there have +
been are in methods Of achiev- )
ing that purpose. =
New Attitude r
The president feels one i'm :
portant change is in this Gov Il
ernment'S attitude toward
neutralist nations. At one time,
he thinks the attitude was that t
if country is not with US. it v
Is against us. But now he ac- Q
cepts the fact that there are
going to be neutrals in the East
West struggle and that per-
haps neutrality is the best way $
for some countries to maintain
their independence.
The President, like many l
other Americans, was irritated
by India'S recent use of force T
to take over the Portuguese
enclave Of Goa. He thought !
it was especially unfortunate ,
because it damaged India's y
peacemaker image and dam i
aged the United Nations at a
critical time.
But he feels the United States
must not let such irritations :,
and disappointments blind it n
to the fact that India is a non
Communist country of half a
billion people, a major force in
Asia, which we would like to |
see remain out of the Com
munist orbit. I
Other Views b
On some other international 4
questions, the Presidents year.
end thoughts may be sum- e
married. authoritatively as: r
BERLIN-The situation is so r
dangerous that we must make
every effort possible to see if C
a peaceful solution can be +
reached. If worse comes to g
worse, the President would not '
want Soviet Premier Khru- n
shchev to be able to say we S
had made no proposals for il
settlement.
While he does not consider r
the diplomatic talks to be re- E
opened by American Ambassa- {
dor Llewellyn Thompson in t
Moscow next week as a make r
or-break effort for a Berlin /
settlement, they are very i'm {
portant. +
While there are differences S
of opinion with French Presi-
dent de Gaulle regarding ef- {
forts to negotiate about Berlin,
the President does not think +
there is a basic split. '
TESTING-The United States i
has learned from its recent
underground nuclear testing
that it is more difficult than it
had thought to make progress
in weapons design through un-
derground tests.
This does not necessarily
mean that this Government
will resume atmospheric test