The Second Geneva

...His Philadelphia address, before his illness, proved that he was well aware of some of the dangers of the "Geneva Spirit...

...We can afford neither complacency nor hysteria...

...The Egyptian military classes are still smarting over the defeat by Israel and spoiling for revenge...

...The second area in which we have suffered a grave defeat is the Middle East...

...The loss of East Germany would not only rob Russia of very important industrial potential, but would lower the morale of her whole satellite empire...

...It is now perfectly obvious that the Russians cannot afford German unification, for a united Germany will not be Communist--though there are dangers in the present situation that West Germany may bargain with the Russians...

...They are not all due to the summit meeting, but it is significant that we have won no victory in the cold war since Geneva...

...We have not suffered as grave defeats in the Far East as in the Middle East and in Europe, but the tide has been running against the democratic cause in Asia at a frightening tempo...

...On the other hand, nothing which happened at Geneva relieved the relentless pressure which Communism is exerting against us in all parts of the world...

...It raised the Iron Curtain a few inches and provided for cultural exchanges which have the prospect of disintegrating the dogmatic base of Communism...

...President Eisenhower's illness is very inconvenient from the standpoint of these foreign-policy problems, because it removes him from effective leadership in meeting the new situation...

...At any rate, they are still gaining victories against us...

...The President succeeded in altering the stereotype about America which pictures us as "warmongers...

...We will probably reluctantly arm Israel, and the stage will then be set for a catastrophe in the Middle East, in which the very existence of Israel may be at stake...

...The obvious answer is that the world as a whole may have gained something from the "Geneva Spirit," but that the Western world has lost very much in the encounters since Geneva...

...ft is equally clear that the failure of our policy to unite Germany will be dangerous to West German morale, and that the inevitable passing of Chancellor Adenauer may bring disintegration of the spirit of cooperation between Germany and the West...

...The losses have been frightening...

...But this brief catalogue exhausts the gains of the summit meeting both for the world and for us...

...But that is a very long-range hope, and meanwhile we run the risk of seeing fools coming back from Russia with false impressions...

...But it should persuade us that we have the old unsolved problems of coexistence before us, the same burdens and anxieties of world leadership to tax us, and the same abyss of atomic annihilation to confront us...

...The Second Geneva By Reinhold Niebuhr The breakdown of the Foreign Ministers Conference highlights Western losses since the summit meeting The failure of the Geneva Foreign Ministers Conference to solve any of the problems which were pushed under the rug at the "summit conference" naturally prompts the question: Who has gained what by the relaxation of tensions since the summit meeting...

...The situation was made to order for the Russians, who are arming the Arab states...

...Our only chance of survival lies in the spirit of soberness and watchfulness...

...The Republican party won the election of 1952 partly on the charge that the previous Democratic administration had been soft on Communism, and it expected to win again on the claim that it had made peace with the Russians and delivered the world of its anxieties...

...The total, long-range gains for "mankind" of the summit meeting can be briefly enumerated...

...But it is more important to repress partisan satisfactions and record that we must, as a nation unaccustomed to frustrations and therefore inclined to overestimate any victory over them, face the fact that these smiling Communists are still very dangerous foes, the more so because they have supplanted the old intransigence with the new flexibility...

...It makes the future rather ominous for our cause in Central Europe...

...This fact ought not to tempt us into our old hysteria...

...A partisan (like the present author, who did not vote for Eisenhower in 1952 and would not have voted for him in 1956 despite gratitude to him for rebuilding American conservatism into a viable political instrument) might savor the ironic elements in this strange course of events...

...The greatest of our defeats has become obvious in the second Geneva Conference...

...In domestic politics, his illness and practical elimination from the Presidential race, just after the Geneva sunshine became so clouded, present us with some very ironic possibilities...

...and we have not pressed the propaganda advantage of West Germany's healthy state in our encounter with Communism...

...In Indonesia, the Communists have infiltrated into the nationalist parties, and collaboration with them has become endemic...

...There is, in short, no reason for complacency about our course since the summit meeting, though many of the developments cannot be attributed to policies initiated at Geneva...

...The new Russian policy is more dangerous than the old inflexibility, not only because it tends to relax the posture of alert defense but because the Russians seem less eager to spread Communism if they can only win alliances with hitherto resolutely non-Communist nations and cultures...

...The new picture of a peace-loving America, symbolized by a genial President, is of considerable value...

...There was also one gain in the conference for the United States...

...It involves German reunification...

...It gave official mutual recognition to the widely held conviction that war in an atomic age is impossible, and it committed each side to the conviction that the other side did not want war...

...Whatever the outcome, the alienation of the Arab world from the West is an almost inevitable consequence...

...And some of our losses may have been due to the policy of leaving important questions unanswered at the summit meeting for the sake of creating the "good will" which Geneva presumably symbolized...

...The failure of the summit conference to deal with the problem of German unity robbed the West of a tremendous psychological advantage in the cold war...

...It is apparent that the Russians will hold desperately to their bit of Germany even though it has become a slum...

...In Indo-China, there still seems to be some hope, but the best guess of observers is that Vietnam will become Communist if a plebiscite is held according to the Geneva agreements...

...It would be rather queer if this same party, with a less charismatic candidate, now faces dimmer hopes partly because the promised peace has not proved very durable, and because under the cover of this peace Soviet pressure against the free world has been accentuated...

...Egypt's military dictatorship is probably the best government it has had in decades, but it must rely on its military base, lacking popular support...

...It was held by friends as well as by foes and neutrals...

...That surely is the significance of their partisanship with the Moslem world, previously regarded as impregnable to Communism...

...The alienation of the Arabic and Islamic world from the Western cause has been aggravated by the stupidity of French colonialism, the tardiness of the French in yielding to the national aspirations of the Arab peoples, their foolish confidence in their ability to absorb North Africa into the French community, and the domestic confusion of French politics, which has immobilized French policy for months on both the domestic and colonial fronts...