A TRUMAN-STALIN MEETING?
DALLIN, DAVID J.
East and West A Truman-Stalin Meeting? By David J. Dodlin (Second of two articles) AGREEMENT OR SURRENDER? Neither the Kremlin nor the White House is ready to make concessions without...
...Since "the Russians are human beings," he writes "the biggest barrier to world peace are people in this country whose attitude is intransigent," who have nothing to offer but physical force and threats...
...reporters, editors, rewrite men, etc., as to how a story should be handled...
...for neither of them has lost the cold war...
...The Soviet Foreign Office is well aware how much indignation has been aroused in the West by Soviet refusal to let them leave...
...This committee, of course, does not have the standing or authority enjoyed by the ECOSOC itself...
...We are flattered, of course, to think that ^here are people who believe that our influence is so great that we can dictate to the New York Times or any of its...
...By use of type and space the Times seemed to be equating peonage in the United States with slave labor in Russia...
...There is also need for a better understanding of foreign affairs among our political writers...
...Why not advise the satellite governments to stop involving London and Washington in their faked trials...
...The crux of the situation is this: Soviet postwar successes, especially in China, have turned Soviet heads and have engendered triumphant nationalist feelings of such intensity and expansionist hopes of such magnitude as to make impossible significant concessions to the "enemy...
...Tha Soviet system is a legal system...
...Vyacheslav Molotov says m his last speech that "the United States is preparing reckless acts of aggression in order to realise its aims of world domination...
...It is encouraged by the government, run by the saersi police of that government, is the prime economic factor of Soviet life and is an Instrument of political terrorism...
...Stalm and Viehinsky need not find it difficult to show their friendly intentions...
...DAVID LAWRENCE writes in his New York Herald Tribune column that "the leaders of the Politburo feel 'something must be done...
...What else can Moscow offer...
...Neither on a quantitive nor pn a qualitative scale is there anything anywhere else in the world lo equal the Soviet slave labor system/ "This statement was clear enough and should *have served to place the facts in their proper perspective...
...To conclude successful negotiations, both parties will have to "meet halfway...
...Of all the Important international issues, only one offers a potential area of agreement...
...Georgi Malenkov states that "the United States is suppressing the national liberty and independence of other peoples...
...If has not indicated that it wants and hqpes to reach an agreement with the West on the major political issues...
...Neither the Kremlin nor the White House is ready to make concessions without reciprocal gains...
...In 1941, in need of agreements with Britain and the U. 6., Stalin became extremely amiable in his dealings with Harry Hopkins and Lord Beaverbrook...
...Why not make life more bearable for diplomatic personnel in Moscow by amendments to the absurd new ruble exchange rate...
...Of course, nothing can be further from the truth...
...Certainly the Times is the irresponsible agent in this regard, and not the Workers Defense League or the Commission of Inquiry Into Forced Labor...
...no middleman, nor fellowtraveler, has made a reasonable suggestion...
...Here is the first reply...
...Certainly no one is in a better position than I, since I have made a study of forced labor, peonage, serfdom and chattel slavery as these exist in the world today, to state categorically that the slave system of the Soviet Union and its puppet countries is without compare...
...It is true that Moscow wants conferences to emphasize its peaceful aims and to make speeches about the moral superiority of the Soviet land over the backward world outside...
...there is no WDL, there is no Civil Rights Section to which people can appeal for help...
...as constituting a disservice to those fighting for human >ights...
...Such a service, however, is seriously affected Jby the sort of treatment which the New York Times gives our efforts and the unseemly haste with which so many of our friends hasten to condemn the sin of others...
...Why not order Peking to permit Americans to leave £J|ina...
...then his representatives went to the Metne in Konigsberg...
...Everybody knows what these assertions are worth...
...Both the Workers Defense League and the Commission of Inquiry Into Forced Labor have been receiving telephone calls and letters attacking us for equating the two systems...
...IN EFFECT, the Commission for Inquiry Into Forced Labor must serve as a sort of WDL for the slave labor victims of the Soviet Union...
...Onbr like things can bs compared...
...I have written to the Times protesting the treatment of our material on the U.S...
...Promises to this effect have been freely distributed over thirty years like a grocer's free circulars in the street...
...In the summer of 1939, for instance, he ordered his envoy to Germany to visit the Nazi art exhibition in Munich...
...even the Comintern is dissolved...
...the Soviet press ceased to attack the Nazi system...
...Instead, wfeat MwsBWIT eays aad does nowadays, at tfee heeglst «f Hi "pease caeapaign," is well calculated to irritate the other side and to aggravate relations, A lew days ago Pravda published a sharp personal attack on Dean Aoheeen -which mmtfhdhaU si all the apace reserved for foreign affairs...
...No such analysis can be made of the situation In the United Stales, where peonage is illegal...
...It is my hope that these few lines will serve to set tilings straight...
...Does Stalin want a settlement of his differences with the West, especially with the United Staes...
...And let us not imagine that a conference of the Big Two or any other parley can span the present wide abyss with a diplomatic bridge...
...It is inside America where there is need for greater understanding of human relations...
...The so-called "electoral campaign"/which ended on March 12 actually was a long series of unmitigated, often savage, prop* aganda attacks upon the United States...
...I am sure that had you obtained a copy of Rowland Watts' report, you would have noticed how carefully it was prepared and how insistent he was that peonage in the United States could not and should not be equated with the monstrous forced labor systerruof the Soviet Union and the Soviet satellite countries...
...but what concessions will he be prepared to grant...
...Rowland Watts and I were therefore very much surprised when the New York Times gave the story the identical space and placing that was given to the Soviet slave labor charges...
...Moreover, we were disturbed and somewhat angered that the reporter did not see fit to include in his article the statement which we jointly issued and which ran something like this: * * * *"NO EQUATION and no comparison between tee Soviet slave labor system and eon* diltoas In the United States, as described In ibis MDort, is sosslble or conceivable...
...They certainly are not...
...But who would attach any significance to Soviet pledges along these lines...
...Stalin knows how to lay the groundwork for agreement when he really wants to...
...The story involved the United Nations and some of the best men and organizations that I know of...
...Certainly, bat on his terms only...
...What Stalin wants, we know approximately...
...Why not, for instance, permit British and American wives to join their husbands abroad...
...In an interview with Liston Oak over the Voice of America, I made the very point which you made, namely, that in the U.S.S.R...
...wx These and other secondary isaisw qpuld be settled fast if Stalin really wanted to indicate jus desire Car a rappreetnaent...
...It is from Albert K. Herling, Research Director of the Commission of Inquiry Into Forced Labor: "What disturbs me and Mr...
...Dean Acheson described it in his speech at Berkley as "refraining from undermining established governments through the Communist apparatus controlled by the Soviet Government*' i. e., non-intervention by Moscow in the internal affairs of other nations and cessation of financial and armed assistance to Stalinist parties all over the world...
...For concession spells partial retreat, and why retreat when new advances are possible...
...Since the whole business is red hot, I expected to get some explanations from persons mentioned in my story...
...They assume too much on the basis of too little information...
...There is not the slightest hint at any other concessions in the dozens of Soviet statements, in articles, in diplomatic negotiations...
...Watts, National Secretary of the Workers Defense League, is that both his organization and ours are made to appear as politically irresponsible, insensitive and unconcerned about the political currents at work in the world...
...there are hints of a Russian desire to participate in conferences through the United Nations or the Foreign Ministers' council...
...Are these terms acceptable...
...By William E. Bohn TWO WEEKS AGO I held forth in this space about a pair of headlines which appeared in the New York Times...
...Concerning the Watts repor^which was prepared by the Workers Defense League for the Commission of Inquiry Into Forced Labor, it was presented, not to the ECOSOC, but to the Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery which that' body had set up...
...he consented to free thousands of Poles from Russians prisons and to suppress anti-religious propaganda, • » • IF HE WERE SERIOUS about an agreement with the West, Stalin and his press would not confine themselves to reiterating dull phrases about the "possible coexistence" of capitalism and communism...
...To Moscow, international parleys are one thing, a hard-and-fast agreement another...
...More than once he has shown a fine appreciation for diplomatic gestures, for moves of politeness and decency...
...The Home Front Again — When Are Slaves...
Vol. 33 • April 1950 • No. 13
