Ready for the Climb

In four world capitals, statesmen were strapping on their diplomatic rucksacks, picking their Sherpas and testing their nonslip boots for the hazardous climb to the Parley at the Summit.

Moscow's preparations were the most unusual. Pravda suddenly broke out with a full and reasonably objective account of President Eisenhower's last-week press conference, and in an editorial conceded that Ike was a peace-loving fellow, and "receives with satisfaction" his announcement that he would like the "Cold War" to be changed to a "battle for peace." Included in Pravda's summary were the President's remarks that there can be no real peace in the world until the satellite nations are freed,* stranger still. Ike's comment, when he was asked about Bulganin, that it is a "puzzle . . . who is, or what is the dominating influence" in the Soviet government. Such thoughts have hitherto been considered too dangerous for Pravda's readers. One explanation: the Russian people also need reminding that Bulganin, for all the attention he will have at Geneva, is not the boss, and only speaks for The Committee.

The Western preparations for Geneva are being coordinated this week among high-level experts of Britain, France and the U.S. meeting in Paris. The Western Three, have already decided to split up the topics of discussion, one apiece. Each nation got a subject with which it is specially familiar, and in which it is specially interested.

Disarmament will be Eisenhower's topic, since it is the U.S. that carries the heaviest arms burden (particularly in nuclear development). The State Department is convinced that Russia, essentially a poor nation, cannot keep up with the ever-increasing ante in the nuclear weapons game. Says State: if U.S. spending for defense were at the same rate as Russia's, considering the huge gap between the Soviet and U.S. economies, it would amount to $150 billion per year--almost four times the current U.S. rate. The U.S. wants first to probe the genuineness of the Russian desire to disarm, and secondly to be ready to argue the complex technical details if the desire proves real.

European security will be discussed by France's Premier Edgar Faure; it is a subject which invokes France's old familiar fear of German might. France wants East and West to mutually guarantee the territory (and peacefulness) of a united Germany; Molotov has talked in general terms along the same lines. The U.S. is agreeable (though not very hopeful), provided that a united Germany is free to join NATO.

German unity will fall to Sir Anthony Eden. He is eager to press the plan he presented (and Russia rejected) at last year's Berlin conference. The Eden plan: 1) free elections in both East and West Germany, 2) establishment of an all-German government on the basis of the election returns, 3) a guarantee, by all four powers, that a reunited Germany will be free to decide its own foreign policy and to make its own alliances. Eden expects the election to be internationally supervised, but no longer demands it. figuring that the West Germans themselves will insist on its being free.

In the West the trick is to divide the homework but to unite on the results. So far, the three Western governments are showing themselves remarkably agreed on what they want, what they hope for, and where they stand.

*Though when Dulles suggested discussing the subject at Geneva, the Russians called it a "monstrous proposal."

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