THE MOOD IN WASHINGTON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67-00318R000100770027-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 7, 2013
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: April 27, 1961
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified and Approved For Release 201/-0-5/07 : -orA-RDP67-00318R000100770027-5
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The Mood in Washington
Washington.
If one word could describe the at-
titude and mood of official leader-
ship in Washington this past week
it would probably be "sombre."
No one ia a position of heavy re-
sponsibility denied?indeed, he was
more likely to proclaim?the seri-
ousness of problems around the
world, "Crisis" was a frequent
v..c)rd. "Living with crisis" was
called the common experience.
,"Extreme" is an adjective people
liked to place before hard nouns.
The words suggest the mood of
men who have taken stiff blows in
recent days. Distant Laos in one
direction and the distant Congo in
the other conform to no traditional
pattern and yield to no standard
remedy. Because Laos is in the
path of Sino-Soviet aggression and
the Congo is in the midst of a score
of new, immature, unorganized,
volatile nations i a varying states
of transition, each connoted dan-
gerous possibilities far beyond its
own immediate issues and its own
, borders.
*
The Cuban bubble burst on trou-
bled minds as well as on bitter
shores and with bitterer disappoint-
ments. The shock was immense.
Many men, it is now possible to
say, participated in these decisions,
including men of long military ex-
perience. Little or nothing hap-
pened as they assumed it would.
The dismay of mistake possessed
the capital, and then the blunt
questions came roaring in. How
could such errors be made? Why
, the obvious ignorance? What kind
of planning was this?
This was the moment when the
?four generals rose up in Algeria
and in a twinkling possessed Al-
giers and Oran, and ? who could
tell? ? perhaps the greater part of
the French army in being. The dis-
patches reported fears of invasion
of metropolitan France, and de
Gaulle went to the country with
the old Gallic appeals to heart and
soul and personal leadership.
To Washington leaders still un-
der the Cuban shock this seemed
almost too much. France stands at
the center of Western Europe. It is
a foundation of NATO. If France
was in danger of overturn, if to
men in Moscow things seemed to
be going well in Asia and Africa,
and obviously in Cuba, and pos-
sibly therefore throughout Latin
Americ Declassified and Approve
would these men be tempted into ture today than then, and Wash-
going further for greater gambles ington will be grateful for that
toward a goal they have announced change. The Congo sometimes
many times? looks better, sometimes worse, and'
The hammer-beat of such events is certainly'not settled. Laos seems
and such potentials?so alien to worse. Yet to men who should
the green sweeps and the spring know, Laos, bad though it appears,
colors of Washington in April, is not the source of greatest con-
when the White House grounds cern in southeast Asia ? Viet-
never looked lovelier and the,tour-- /lam is.
ists from everywhere swarmedi ' These men look for no change in
climbed, and swept over every- Moscow. They see no gain from
thing?this hammer-beat shook the disarmament conversations in Ge-
new administration as nothing else neva. They will not be 'shocked if
has in experience or in contempla- a Soviet move aims at a Middle
tion. The flowers of Washington Eastern target before the year is
are immemorially gay, but the out, and they expect Moscow to '
thoughts of men in high posts 'raise the Berlin issue again and
were as sombre as Washington has vigorously. They think a' world in
known in such men in .years. transition is a sore temptation for
The ways in which President the Kremlin, and they count the
Kennedy and Secretary Rusk re- next few years?the next five, and
sponded to these pressures is now perhaps :the next ten ? critical.
a part of contemporary history. Beyond that they hope for new
Their concern?their extreme con- influences.
cern, their ex- * * *
tretne seriou s- One new factor such men try to
ness ? was un- measure is the relation of China
mistakable. and the Soviet 'Union. They know
permen in Wash- frequently been strained. They
To newspa- the relation between the two has
ington for annual foresee more Chinese attempts to
meetings they spread out beyond present borders
presented serious
Chi-
words and some \C''P in the historical way of the Chi-
nese when they are strong?nation-
weariness of body Rusk alism at work rather than commu-
but none of spirit. nism. They think Communist China
Mr. Kennedy's address to the will have nuclear weapons of her
American Society of Newspaper own making before much longer,
Editors last week blinked nothing, and, they would rather expect that,
dodged nothing, and was full of behind the cover of such arms, the
drive and purpose. It left some Chinese will try to move in one di-
questions unanswered. But they rection or another. Over the long
were not questions of spirit. The range such men,. think the Sino-
President seemed, on the contrary, Soviet partnership is so incom-
to be rising to new resolution and patible as to be impossible.
to new methods of dealing with the But for immediate purposes there
foe. His refusal to blame others, is the need of understanding the
his insistence that the responsibil- mistakes of the Cuban expedition,
ity is his, encourage men who and whether it includes the CIA
know somebody erred. and to what extent American mili-
* tary leadership. For the answerF
Mr. Rusk is less dynamic but the American government is count
looks, talks, and behaves like a ing first on the inquiries led by
steady, poised, undaunted, deter- re-mobilized General Maxwell Tay-
mined, very human and yet very lor. The Latin American reaction,
professional intelligence. When he as disclosed thus far, has been the
gets down to cases, his clarity, bright spot on the scene. The signs
directness, and frankness are re- of alarm to the south at the spec-
assuring. Each is a hard-driven man tacle of a foreign imperialism domi-
these days, but in different ways nant over a country of the Western
characteristic of different men their Hemisphere are an unexpected
rebound is plain to see. dividend. But it does not salve the
Yet to sources within the reach bitterness over Cuba and the neces-
of newspapermen the possibility sity of preventing, from now on,
few relief for Washington, or the such fiascos in a world that won't
country, or the world, is not prom- brook failure.
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d For Release 2013/05/07: CIA-RDP67-00318R000100770027-5