Who's Gained Since Geneva?

...but a new surge of hope...

...If we start from the opinion that the earth is not like an orange, but like a pear (as Christopher Columbus thought, by the way), we will be constantly wondering why the moon is there and not here and why the seasons are all wrong and the sun does not set when it ought to...

...Khrushchev has charged the West with responsibility for Hitler's war...

...and the behavior of the sun, the moon and the planets will seem as full of "new looks," "surprises" and inexplicable changes as that of Bulganin, Khrushchev, Pravda and Izvestia appear to many Western statesmen and newspapers...

...Isn't the invitation enough...

...In this case, the pear-shaped hypothesis consisted in believing that the Soviet leaders actually wanted "peaceful coexistence" and were therefore disposed to a genuine detente, indeed friendship, with the West...

...and, as if this were not enough, the reunification of Germany would inevitably arouse evil memories from the past in all the Eastern peoples thus forgotten...

...Starting from this wrong hypothesis, Western political astronomers calculated the orbits of the Soviet stars for the coming months...

...From that point of view, the unification of Germany as an item for discussion could not fit the Soviet purposes better...

...What would have been the effect in Poland of free elections in Eastern Germany...

...It was astutely trotted across Europe as a bait for German nationalism which even most reasonable Germans would not be able to resist...

...Why so rigid when they were so flexible in Geneva...

...And then there is Germany herself...

...The right assumption allows of no surprises and gives rise to no enigmas...

...de Madariaga is, of course, the author of many books, among them a classic biography of Bolivar and a history of the Spanish-American empire...

...The harvest could be gathered by the Soviet Union without waiting for an actual "success" at the conference...

...A vast dust cloud of coexistence, friendship and relaxation of tension was to create a new atmosphere so as to achieve a number of results in that more or less vaguely defined way which has been peculiar to world politics since the advent of the masses to a share in it...

...though Stalin and Molotov helped Hitler so loyally that Molotov nearly wept at the Fuhrer's ingratitude when the German Ambassador called to declare war...

...Whether successful or not, negotiation on that theme was bound to damage Western moral influence on the Eastern European peoples and weaken the resistance movements beyond the Iron Curtain...

...The right way is to return to liberation...

...Salvador de Madariaga, former Spanish delegate to the League of Nations, has been devoting most of his political energy in recent years to the promotion of a free and united Europe, from Gibraltar to the Urals...

...But the Soviet bosses realized that, in order to make worthwhile progress toward achieving their two immediate aims, all that was needed was to bring the West to a round table...

...Impelled by the nationalism which the issue of German "reunification" was bound to stimulate, many Germans now advocate direct negotiations with the Soviet Union...

...asks the Guardian...

...In the elation of their victory, the Duumvirs have been holding forth in India to their hearts' content...

...But for Moscow it had the invaluable advantage of dividing the oppressed Eastern Europeans and putting the Germans in a privileged position, since no one was speaking of liberating Poles or Czechs or Hungarians or Rumanians...

...In these circumstances, it seems evident that the pact of security offered to the Soviet Union by the West could have no healthy effects on Eastern European morale, and that arguments based on what would happen if East Germany could enjoy a free election are irrelevant since no such event can ever occur as things are being handled...

...But why should the Duumvirs want to come to London at all once they have been invited...

...Let us talk of liberating a part of Germany which is enslaved...

...That expectation could be justified only if the Western leaders had made it clearer that they included the Eastern European peoples in their plans...

...but the idea that Germany can be reunited at all by talking with Moscow is not merely selfish, it is fatuous...

...Moscow calculated its moves with its usual acumen...

...The other was to undermine further the faith in the West which still lingers in the Eastern European peoples...

...Now the point which the Soviet bosses seem to have shrewdly understood is that neither of these two desiderata required actual results in Geneva...

...But were they...

...despairing acquiescence...

...But, as the basic assumption was wrong, the Soviet stars soon began to move wildly off the orbits carefully calculated for them, and Western political astrologers were agasp with surprise...

...And again: "How strange that the two Soviet leaders should be so rough on the West at the moment when the West was getting ready to receive them in London...

...And again: "We may not know for a long time the cause of this new rigidity...

...With the same inhuman callousness with which she holds back German prisoners to blackmail concessions out of the Bonn Government, Moscow will play "reunification" until she has destroyed the edifice so patiently and tenaciously built by Dr...

...This might bring about the desired result, which the present policy can never do...

...And if it did not, it would at any rate be the European and liberal, not the selfish and nationalistic, way...

...His latest book, Portrait of Europe, will be reviewed here shortly...

...Not...

...But if we start from a basis which fits the fact, all enigmas disappear...

...Two results were in particular envisaged: One was the furthering of popular fronts in Italy and in France by creating an international "climate" that would make it difficult to keep the Communists of those two countries ostracized as they now are...

...A leader and founder of the Liberal International, he is also active in the Committee for Cultural Freedom...

...The pear-shaped hypothesis again...

...It was a sad day in the history of the world when the West let itself be lured by this ill-chosen subject for discussion...

...and Bulganin denounces the wicked United States for keeping bases and garrisons abroad when he holds half of Europe under his military heel...

...It all stems from a wrong assumption...

...True, it has been argued by no less a journal than the Manchester Guardian that the reunification of Germany, under the conditions demanded by the West, would have raised and not lowered Eastern European hopes...

...and they even found that the orbits would pass by London in the spring...

...The Soviet Union was the only gainer, at the cost of a few smiles and a bogus peace campaign which both lured and forced the Western leaders to make the proposal...

...to lure them into presenting proposals which--whether accepted or not (and the Soviet Union would not be able to accept them)--would in themselves achieve one or the other of the results sought by Moscow...

...If it had, their moves would have been more difficult, perhaps impossible...

...But isn't the cause obvious...

...Our papers will be as full of astronomical puzzles as they are now of political enigmas...

...But when President Eisenhower timidly mentioned the subject at the first Geneva Conference, not a word of backing came from either Sir Anthony Eden or Edgar Faure...

...because the fact is that the Soviet Union can make no important political concession to the West without serious risk to its international position if not to the very existence of its regime...

...Adenauer and his coalition...

...Why talk of reunifying a Germany which is not divided...