Little Three & Big Four

FOREIGN RELATIONS Little Three & Big Four When Sir Winston Churchill's doctors ordered a rest, the U.S., Britain and France called off the scheduled Big Three meeting in Bermuda for the time being and agreed to hold a foreign-ministers' conference--promptly dubbed the "Little Three meeting"--in Washington. Last week Britain's Lord Salisbury and France's Georges Bidault, each trailing half a dozen aides, arrived in the capital for talks with Secretary of State Dulles.

Dulles was in a somewhat awkward position. He expected the meeting to produce nothing new on the old problems--Korea, German unification, the European Defense Community, NATO, Indo-China. Such questions were, and would continue to be, under constant discussion among the three nations at several diplomatic levels. On the other hand, he did expect Salisbury and Bidault acting on instructions, to press for a Big Four meeting--a proposal to which Dulles did not want to say yes and could not, for amity's sake, flatly say no. To avoid raising hopes either at home or abroad, Dulles said, before the visitors arrived: "We wish these things took place more often. Then people wouldn't expect great events to take place or new policies to be issued." Disapproving of Dulles & Co.'s attitude, the London Times remarked: "Never has so much cold water been poured by so many on something so little . . ."

Inevitably, Salisbury and Bidault raised the Big Four question. Salisbury, who disapproves of the idea himself but has to go along with Churchill's view, took a middle way by suggesting that the question be put aside until after the West German elections in September. Bidault urged a Big Four conference soon. His countrymen, he said, would never ratify the European Defense Community until everything else had been tried. There is. of course, no guarantee that the French will ratify EDC even if a Big Four meeting is held and fails to reach agreement, but Bidault, who hopes to become President of France, wants to put off the day when he has to take a firm stand on the EDC issue.

Dulles got by without saying yes or no to proposals for a Big Four meeting. The conferees seemed agreed in principle that such a meeting should be held some time, but there was little chance that it would actually be held soon.

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