New Policy for Middle Europe
REUSS, HENRY S.
Atomic plenty makes it urgent for the West to propose a NEW POLICY FOR MIDDLE EUROPE By Henry S. Reuss The NATO alliance today suffers from what Walter Lippmann calls a ''crisis of confidence"...
...No Russian, Communist or not, who remembers the two world wars is likely to buy such a proposal...
...To provide for atomic defenses in Europe, the Administration has proposed legislation which will permit us to share with our allies certain of our atomic secrets and weapons...
...Eighty million human beings now subject to Soviet tyranny would be free to shape their own destiny...
...Indeed, there is nothing to prevent Western Germany from such an arrangement with Russia today if it wanted it...
...Later, in a television interview, First Secretary Khrushchev espoused similar talk of mutual disengagement...
...2. A guarantee by Russia and NATO of free elections in both East and West Germany...
...At Budapest, the satellites showed that they are ready to turn their guns east, not west...
...It is by no means clear that the 12 West German divisions which now constitute its NATO ceiling would be lost to the West under the proposal...
...With the reduction of British, French and American forces in West Germany, it is not clear how much is left of NATO's "forward strategy...
...As an interim measure, the use of a United Nations police force could be explored...
...Even if it were certain that Russia would reject such a proposal, America cannot remain silent on the kind of middle Europe that we would like to see emerge from the long nightmare of Communism...
...To move another step away from conventional weapons increases the chance that any war at all in Europe will be a nuclear war...
...If and when the West evolves a constructive position for middle Europe, and if and when preliminary negotiations disclose some hope of success, a summit meeting could make sense...
...In return for getting out of the sagging satellites with some face-saving, Russia could conserve some of her strength for making the Russian people prosperous...
...If such a proposal were made, negotiated and carried out, its advantages for the West would be obvious...
...This proposal to share atomic secrets and weapons with present non-atomic powers marks a great divide in our foreign policy...
...2. Would it permit Germany to be drawn into the Russian orbit...
...5. De-emphasis on nationalism in middle Europe, in favor of regional political and economic federation...
...But the West's rejection of the role of saber-rattler does not mean that it need go to the other extreme and adopt the role of dazed and policyless bystander...
...The responsibilities of world power require that we make known our vision of a free middle Europe...
...We must demonstrate that, while we are preparing for the worst, we shall never cease working for a policy with some hope in it...
...To constitute a real deterrent to Russian aggression, we now realize that NATO must have adequate strength on the ground, both in conventional and in limited atomic weapons...
...A reunited Germany should be encouraged to participate fully in the Coal-Steel Community, the Council of Europe, Euratom, the Common Market, the European Payments Union...
...Throughout NATO, there is now a deep disillusion...
...Here the defense forces of the liberated states could provide at least a temporary roadblock against the Russians which does not exist today...
...Then there is the so-called Rapacki Plan for a nuclear-free zone in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East and West Germany...
...The millions in middle Europe who are enslaved by Soviet tyranny deserve more than fatuous expressions of sympathy...
...What we need is a policy that comes to grips with the realities of our divided world and which takes into account the aspirations of our European allies as well as the longings of the captive peoples...
...Atomic plenty makes it urgent for the West to propose a NEW POLICY FOR MIDDLE EUROPE By Henry S. Reuss The NATO alliance today suffers from what Walter Lippmann calls a ''crisis of confidence" because the people of Western Europe now recognize that "massive retaliation" cannot be a complete or satisfactory deterrent to Communist aggression...
...Would it not be to this country's advantage to attempt to secure the agreement of our NATO allies to a proposal for a settlement in middle Europe, as an accompaniment to an all-out effort to strengthen NATO militarily, along some such lines as the following: 1. A troop withdrawal by Russian troops to Russia's historic boundaries, and by British, French, and United States troops to the west bank of the Rhine...
...With its energy, it should be encouraged to take the lead in a new enterprise by the have nations to help develop the have-nots...
...For once known, it can begin to mold events...
...It is true that Russia has violated pledge after pledge where it has served its purpose to do so...
...It is difficult to conceive of any West German government opposing freedom for the East Germans because it refuses to consider an arms limitation that the rest of the West thinks desirable...
...But in any event, acceptance of the proposal would mean that a Russian aggression would have to start not from East Berlin or Mecklenburg or Thuringia, as at present, but from several hundred miles to the east...
...In Great Britain, the articulate leaders of the Labor opposition—Hugh Gaitskell, Harold Wilson, Denis Healey—are pushing vigorously for a proposal substantially like that here outlined...
...But it does not make sense to send the President to parley at the summit when the West has no agreed position to negotiate from nor common objectives to negotiate for...
...And, since Russia cannot trust the East Germans, Czechs, Poles or Hungarians with such weapons, it means that the Red Army will become an even more permanent part of the East European landscape...
...If they entertain the idea of re-entry, they could perhaps be discouraged by the clearest kind of statement by NATO that violation of the borders of middle Europe would be a cause for war...
...5. Could the Russians re-enter their former satellite states...
...It would cut down the threat of an atomic war which Russia should want no more than we...
...As for the other middle European states which would be freed from foreign armies, a declaration by the West that it will do all it can to achieve free elections and respect for human rights...
...Continued voluntary alliances with East or West pursuant to these guarantees would not be precluded...
...In Germany, Social Democrats like Mayor Willy Brandt of West Berlin, and independents like Wilhelm W. Schuetz, editor of Aussenpolitik, are articulate exponents of the proposal...
...The making of such a proposal, even though it is rejected out of hand, would be useful for an additional reason...
...The 1952 Republican platform promised to replace the Democratic "negative, futile, and immoral policy of containment" by a program which would "set up strains and stresses within the captive world...
...Obviously, under the present proposal, if the Russians cheat on withdrawal, the West would cease its withdrawal...
...Placing the atomic weapon in the hands of more countries increases the number of those who will have the capacity to trigger the atomic war we seek to avoid...
...Prohibiting missiles and atomic weapons should be considered...
...But let us assume that the chances of Russia's accepting the proposal are at present close to nil...
...Many individual Tories, such as Lord St...
...And economic internationalism in middle Europe would assure Russia of a trading area very much in her interest...
...None of this Communist talk has ever been tested by serious negotiation...
...The present administration sought power six years ago with a promise to liberate the European areas under Russian sway...
...If the proposal has so many advantages for the West, and is so free of booby traps, how can we expect Russia to accept it...
...All of it has been contradicted by negative talk at other times, and all of it is, no doubt, replete with diplomatic pitfalls...
...The proposal to share the atom bomb, therefore, must be considered not in isolation but in the context of our entire foreign policy...
...Secretary of State Dulles, who is fond of reiterating the sorry tale of Russian perfidy, apparently takes this view...
...No responsible leader in the West is proposing a war of liberation...
...4. Could the Russians break their promise and fail to withdraw their troops...
...Subject to the self-imposed limitations on its own armaments and on the stationing of foreign troops, a reunited Germany could continue as a member of NATO and participate in its guarantee against aggression...
...Then came a series of astonishing demonstrations that throughout middle Europe the people were rejecting Soviet tyranny...
...On November 17, 1956, shortly after the Hungarian uprising, Bulganin, then Premier, offered to negotiate the European question on the basis of mutual troop withdrawals...
...3. Self-imposed arms limitations by the emerging states of middle Europe, including a Germany united in freedom, as a step in a more general worldwide disarmament...
...In January 1953, John Foster Dulles said he would "use the Voice of America to help stir discontent and to let the Poles, Czechs and others know that they have this country's support...
...Is it not nevertheless important that the West lay before the world, including Russia, a proposal that a reasonable and patriotic Russian, freed of megalomaniac fantasies, might adopt...
...It is equally true that where there is present a self-enforcing provision, such as in the current Korean armistice line, the Communist agreement has been kept...
...Spreading atomic installations throughout Western Europe may induce Russia to do likewise among her satellites in Eastern Europe...
...The self-defense forces of a united Germany, even with a drastic arms limitation, might well be not far from this number of divisions—not to mention the absence from the area of the 22 first-rate Soviet divisions now in East Germany...
...A further insurance against Russian re-entry, whether by aggression or by subversion, would be the determination of the countries of middle Europe to resist with their national forces...
...By placing hundreds of miles between Russian troops and NATO troops, it would reduce what is probably the greatest single daily threat of atomic war...
...True, at various times Communist spokesmen have indicated a certain receptivity...
...Far from withdrawing from NATO, the United States should take immediate steps to see that NATO's power does not rely exclusively on massive retaliation, but includes also enough deterrent and retaliatory forces armed with tactical atomic weapons and with conventional arms...
...Despite years of Communist indoctrination, despite the use of Soviet tanks and bayonets, East Berlin, Poznan and Budapest demonstrated that they would never accept despotism as their final lot...
...Again, the Government of Chancellor Adenauer, while clearly and correctly insisting on the reunification in freedom of the two Germanies as a condition of security arrangements, has by no means ruled out the suggestion of self-imposed troop withdrawals and arms limitations...
...It is hard to visualize how American missile bases could accomplish very much more east of the Rhine than they could west of the Rhine...
...Oswald, are also vigorous partisans of the proposal, as is Sir John Slessor...
...Indeed, the proposal has such genuine advantages for Russia's legitimate interests that we need to remind ourselves that our prime object is not making things difficult for Russia but producing a peaceful world...
...Now that the Soviets have the power to destroy Washington, New York or Chicago with thermonuclear rockets, our threat to bomb Moscow in retaliation for some local aggression in the Middle East, in Asia or even in Europe will not be taken entirely seriously...
...Newspaper advertisements in the foreign language press showed a uniformed General Eisenhower swearing: "Upon my honor, before God, I will work for liberation...
...Here again, the proposal for a voluntarily imposed German self-limitation on armaments in no way suggests German neutrality or disorientation from the West...
...And it can hasten the day when more reasonable men can come to power in Russia, by giving them, too, a goal...
...He talked encouragingly of airdrops to aid such peoples...
...As for the suggestion that Germany might want to form a new Rapallo arrangement or a new Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Russia, the new Germany's attachment to Western free ideals is the best guarantee against this happening...
...What are the disadvantages...
...Several have been suggested...
...True, they might, although it seems absurd for them to withdraw from where they are now comfortably ensconced, only to have to fight their way west again the hard way...
...Such limitations would be internationally policed, hut would permit a level of defense forces so that these countries would not be a pushover for an aggressor...
...Yet today our "policy" for middle Europe appears to be simply this: Let the Russians withdraw from Eastern Germany and the other satellites to their own borders—with no prior assurance that the countries thus liberated (including a united Germany) would not arm to the teeth and become hostile...
...Surely the proposal answers the real Russian need...
...The best additional barrier against a desertion to Russia lies in creating a belt of independent states between Germany and Russia...
...We now have no alternative policy...
...The best way of strengthening NATO is to convince our allies that we have something more in mind than simply bases for atomic missiles...
...1. Would it mean the withdrawal of U S. forces from Europe to the United States, and hence the end of NATO...
...foreign policy...
...He has led group of some 20 House "Young Turks" in offering many imaginative ideas to improve U.S...
...There is plenty of room for America's present four ground divisions west of the Rhine, where, indeed, it is reported they are about to be withdrawn in any event...
...In Norway, Denmark, France and elsewhere, voices for a new NATO policy are heard more and more...
...4. Guarantees from both NATO and Russia against aggression in middle Europe...
...Confronted with the very liberation which its words had encouraged, the Administration did nothing...
...The short answer to this is that it would mean nothing of the kind...
...Insurance against the setting-up of heavily armed and hostile states on Russia's borders could provide a real measure of military security...
...NATO deserves leadership from us— not the repetition of tired policies and tired slogans...
...House of Representatives from the Fifth District of "Wisconsin in 1954 and reelected in 1956...
...Nor would it involve removal of American strategic bombing bases...
...Such a sharing of weapons—with fourth, fifth, sixth, and nth nations—has several fateful consequences: Henry S. Reuss, Democrat, was elected to the U.S...
...These are the advantages of the proposal...
...3. Would it hurt NATO's defense strategy by depriving the West of a battleground in West Germany, and of the West German Army...
...Liberation by airdrop" died in November 1956 when the last pathetic SOS call from Radio Budapest went unanswered...
...Independently of the human beings involved, such a consummation would remove from Communism an area essential to its plans for world domination...
...It can give encouragement to the captive peoples...
...In short, it is an odd argument that we should reject a proposal that the Russians go back to Russia on the ground that, once they are back home, they might come charging out again...
...With nationalism de-emphasized, a solution for such festering sores as the Oder-Neisse territory would be attainable...
...As we rush onward over the great divide, we and our NATO allies must at least think out and place before the bar of public opinion an alternative policy for middle Europe...
Vol. 41 • May 1958 • No. 19
