Prospects for the Parley

The Soviet Union last week grudgingly accepted the West's invitation to a Big Four parley at the summit. This, and the British election, made it a table for four: France's Faure, Britain's Eden, President Eisenhower and some still unnamed Russian, presumably Premier Bulganin. The time and place of the meeting are still open questions. The Kremlin favors Vienna, where it might expect to make popular capital out of its concessions on the Austrian State Treaty; the West prefers Lausanne in neutral Switzerland, between July 18-21.

Private Misgivings. All four participants publicly proclaimed their eagerness to have a go at negotiating a relaxation of tensions, but with the air of men trying to gratify a universal longing rather than expecting dramatic results. Despite all the rustling of policy papers and the wheeling up of agenda, each of the Big Four conferees has his own private misgivings. Russia's stood out starkly in its note of acceptance.

Three-fifths of the Soviet message was devoted to a clumsy attempt to make the U.S. responsible in advance if the conference should break down. The U.S. State Department had indicated its preference for a brief meeting of the heads of state, leaving the foreign ministers to get down to brass tacks. Such arrangements, wrote Foreign Minister Molotov, "cannot but condemn the meeting to failure." There had also been talk in Washington of "negotiating from strength." Molotov straight-facedly called this: "Inadmissible pressure on the conference."

Wanted: an Agenda. What the Big Four would talk about, no one seemed sure. Moscow hinted at Formosa, but the U.S. said no; Washington suggested the Soviet satellites, but Molotov promptly replied that this would be "interference with the internal affairs of other states."

A more likely subject was German reunification. Last week the man most involved, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, made it plain where he stood on that subject.

Adenauer had been genuinely (and needlessly) alarmed when President Eisenhower at his last press conference took up, without specifically condemning, the notion of neutral armed states. Reassurances flowed in from Washington last week, but der Alte was still anxious to forestall any Big Four notion that German unity might be bought with German neutrality. In this he was supported by his Socialist opponents, who developed a belated suspicion of neutrality as soon as German neutrality became remotely a possibility. "The establishment of a belt of neutral but armed states in [Europe]," said Adenauer, "would mean the end of West European Union, of any kind of European integration and of NATO. The balance of forces at present existing would be destroyed in favor of the Soviet Union, while the increase of Russia's potential would place the U.S. in extreme jeopardy."

Lowest Prices. Adenauer's suggestion was that President Eisenhower should take the lead at the Big Four conference with a "bold and resolute" plan for world wide disarmament. "There never has been a more promising time than now for such a step," the old man said. Adenauer's reasoning is that the Russians want a letup in the arms race because they have their hands full with problems at home (see below). The West, therefore, can afford to ask high terms. Most of all, it need not bargain over German unity, "which will be achieved in due course," whatever the Russians do. Explained an Adenauer aide: "One should not buy too early. Prices are coming down."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.