Table Talk at the Waldorf

As a cardinal point in its foreign policy, the Kennedy Administration remains determined to see if there is any chance for meaningful negotiations with the Soviet Union over the future of West Berlin. In Manhattan last week, Secretary of State Dean Rusk sat down for a lunch with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to find out if that chance was still left. The answer: well, maybe.

Rusk prepared a long time for the lunch. A fortnight ago, he met in Washington with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and West Germany to discuss what stand he should take with Gromyko. The ministers considered offering the Soviet Union certain concessions in return for a guarantee of West Berlin's freedom and of Allied access to the city. Among those "negotiables" were all the old-hat ideas that the West never should have offered and that the Russians had ignored anyway. They included: de facto recognition of East Germany; confirmation of the Oder-Neisse line as the boundary between Poland and East Germany; turning Berlin into some form of free city under U.N. guarantees (its stature to be symbolized by transferring certain U.N. conferences there from Geneva).

Revolving-Door Fantasy. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had announced that Rusk and Gromyko would get together--but neither side had decided how the session would be arranged. Rusk hoped that he might just happen to meet Gromyko in the U.N. corridors and arrange for a little chat. As it turned out, Rusk's idea turned into the kind of revolving-door fantasy that diplomats should leave to the moviemakers.

Early in the week, Rusk lingered in the General Assembly president's chamber, fully expecting that Gromyko would drop by. He did not. But coming out of the chamber, Rusk saw Gromyko, surrounded by reporters, standing by an escalator that led to the delegates' entrance. Gromyko escaped down the escalator before Rusk, blocked by newsmen, could get near. Outside the building, the Secretary of State finally came within 20 feet of his quarry, made no effort to catch up with him for fear of displaying the fact that the U.S. was chasing Russia for an interview. Finally, State Department Soviet Expert Charles ("Chip"') Bohlen put an end to the game: meeting Soviet U.N. Ambassador Valerian Zorin on the Assembly floor, he invited Gromyko to lunch with Rusk two days later.

Just as Expected. Lunch was served at Rusk's nine-room Waldorf-Astoria apartment, Suite 28-A, known to bellhops as "the Windsor Suite'' because the Duke and Duchess always stay there during Manhattan sojourns. On the dot at i p.m., Gromyko and a small herd of aides walked past blue-jacketed Marine guards to the foyer, where Rusk was waiting for his guest. While photographers snapped away, the two men chatted amiably about the similar color of their suits (both wore dark blue, but Gromyko's was double-breasted) and the by-blows from Hurricane Esther, even then whipping through New York.

Then Rusk and Gromyko settled down in the richly shabby living room for a drink before lunch. Held up by a late meeting of a U.N. committee, U.N. Ambassadors Adlai Stevenson and Zorin arrived at mid-drink, headed back to the Assembly as soon as lunch ended.

But Rusk and Gromyko stayed on for further discussion. In fact, they talked until 5:25 in the afternoon, in tones described by a U.S. aide as "friendly and chatty as could be."

During lunch, Gromyko had once more summed up the Soviet arguments for a troika arrangement in the U.N. secretariat. Rusk just as firmly reiterated the U.S. belief that there should be only one Secretary-General. Gromyko laughed, dismissing the thought as an old joke. Afterward in the living room, the talk turned solely to Berlin. Neither Rusk nor Gromyko raised any new issues at this first encounter, instead rephrased the arguments that each side had marshaled in the mass of memorandums that has been passed back and forth since June.

Rusk, as President Kennedy had done at his confrontation with Khrushchev in Vienna, again laid down what the U.S. considered to be its vital interests in Germany--interests that could not be negotiated away. Gromyko limited himself to long-familiar arguments, but explained in greater detail what the Soviet Union meant by such terms as "access" and "free city." He also insisted that the question of West Berlin could only be considered in the context of discussions about a German peace treaty; Rusk felt that this demand made the basis for negotiations far too narrow.

"Any Place, Any Time." This week, Rusk will meet Gromyko again in a further effort to see if there is any change in the Soviet attitude. So far, despite Gromyko's surface amiability, no such change was visible. From Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev answered the pleas of the Belgrade neutralists for peaceful negotiations with a letter saying that he was willing to talk at "any place, any time and at any level"--but gave no hint that he had softened his demands for a German peace treaty. Clearly, the problem of Berlin would be around for a long time.

At a press briefing, retired General Lucius Clay, in Berlin as President Kennedy's special representative, hinted at East German "identification"--letting East German officials check the papers required for ground access from West Germany into Berlin--as being negotiable. Clay insisted that the actual right of Western access to Berlin was not negotiable. He denied that the present division within Berlin was permanent. "The wall in Berlin cannot last indefinitely," he said. "It may take three or four years, but the wall will fall." If Clay proved to be right, there might eventually be fewer clouds over Berlin than there had been in a long while.

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