Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
WHERE the NEWS ENDS Some Lessons of the Two Genevas By William Henry Chamberlin The "summit" conference at Geneva last July was widely hailed as a victory for international peace and...
...This should have a wholesome effect in curing German wishful thinking along these lines...
...Molotov, like Stalin before him, made Soviet aspirations brutally clear...
...The weary days of polemic at Geneva will not have been in vain if out of them emerges a closer understanding between the free nations of Europe, especially France and Germany...
...The "Spirit of Geneva" probably influenced Chancellor Adenauer to take his first questionable decision in foreign policy: establishment of diplomatic relations with Moscow without any promise of German reunion in freedom...
...On reunification of Germany, on limitation of armaments, on East-West contacts, there was nothing but sharp disagreement to register...
...The most inveterate wishful thinker would find it hard to see any occasion for celebration in the second Geneva Conference of Foreign Ministers...
...NATO began to display dangerous cracks and fissures...
...Pinay's conduct at Geneva tends to confirm an impression which I obtained in Paris last September: that the French attitude toward the real threat of the Soviet Union and the non-existent threat of Germany is becoming more realistic...
...It is no accident that the summit meeting was followed by a series of setbacks to the Western cause...
...But many people in free countries leaped to the conclusion that the cold war was over, charmed out of existence by the simple process of getting Western and Soviet leaders to sit down around tables and exchange compliments, jokes and pleasantries...
...The harsh, bleak negativism of which Molotov has become the human symbol dominated the Soviet attitude from the first day of the conference until the last, leaving no chink or loophole for possible later agreement...
...We owe it to our own self-preservation to display equal energy in keeping alive the spirit of freedom on the Soviet side...
...2. Abstention from nuclear warfare does not mean that the cold war will not be prosecuted-perhaps speeded up-by other means...
...It is along this line that there is the best hope of ending German partition on honorable and acceptable terms...
...He gave Molotov blow for blow, without pulling any punches...
...The second Geneva conference, with its sharp arguments, its continuous confrontation of irreconcilable positions, performed a task of harsh but salutary enlightenment...
...Yet, at the risk of seeming paradoxical or even perverse, I must express the belief that the first Geneva conference was much the more disastrous of the two...
...Communism became respectable again in Western Europe and the morale of anti-Communist resistance behind the Iron Curtain sagged...
...Three useful lessons should be derived from the deadlock at the second Geneva meeting: 1. There is no value in talk for talk's sake...
...This was because it took place in an atmosphere of illusion and make-believe...
...For instance, he indicated plainly that Germany could not buy reunion in freedom even by sacrificing its alliance with the West...
...All the barriers to free intercourse-the censorship of books and magazines, the jamming of radio broadcasts, the absurd exchange rate of the ruble-will remain...
...Minor issues like the disposition of Cyprus began to obscure the supreme necessity of a united anti-Communist front...
...One of the heartening features of the second Geneva meeting was the teamwork of the Western representatives and...
...WHERE the NEWS ENDS Some Lessons of the Two Genevas By William Henry Chamberlin The "summit" conference at Geneva last July was widely hailed as a victory for international peace and understanding...
...The Soviet Government began to toss matches, in the shape of cheap arms shipments, into the Middle Eastern powder-keg...
...Soviet methods and designs, as we have learned very quickly, have not been affected by that unreal atmosphere...
...3. It is clear that the Soviets cannot be charmed or coaxed to give up their grip on East Germany...
...Expressions of confidence in the sincerity of the Soviet desire for peace were no help to finance ministers trying to keep up military budgets...
...Molotov also made it refreshingly clear that the only contact with the West in which the Soviet Government is seriously interested is the ability to purchase strategic materials...
...The Soviet Government has already, and since the "summit" effusions, displayed a good deal of ingenuity in stirring up trouble on the free side of the Iron Curtain...
...They could conceivably be forced out, however, if it became a hopeless liability, rather than an asset...
...most specifically, the fine showing of France's Foreign Minister Antoine Pinay...
...The best means of bringing about this situation is to build up rapidly the projected army in the Federal Republic, to strengthen the ties between the Federal Republic and the West, and to direct at East Germain the strongest possible propaganda for reunion in freedom...
...There should be no further meetings with Soviet representatives until there is some reliable indication that the Soviet Government is prepared to end the partition of Germany on a basis of free elections and to relax its grip on the satellite states...
Vol. 38 • November 1955 • No. 47
