Where the News Ends:
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
WHERE the NEWS ENDS By William Henry Chamberlin Bleak Hopes for Rapprochement THE APPROACH TO the summit meeting in Paris was clouded by the unfortunate downing of an American reconnaisance plane...
...WHERE the NEWS ENDS By William Henry Chamberlin Bleak Hopes for Rapprochement THE APPROACH TO the summit meeting in Paris was clouded by the unfortunate downing of an American reconnaisance plane over Soviet territorv...
...he must also be sure West Germany was under a government of "peace-lovers," i.e., Communists and Communist stooges...
...To his credit, Eisenhower has fully endorsed the truthful, courageous and hard-hitting speech on our Berlin policy by Undersecretary Douglas Dillon before the AFL-CIO convention, of which the following passage is most important: "The abnormal situation of Berlin is merely one facet of the greater abnormality created by the artificial separation of the East Zone from the remainder of Germany...
...Khrushchev's declaration at Baku that, unless his "free city" plan for West Berlin was accepted, he would conclude a peace treaty with his puppet administration in the Soviet Zone, and that this would bar all Western access to West Berlin, was insolent and truculent...
...Agreement on disarmament has never been as hopeful as wishful thinkers have imagined...
...Even before the capture of an American pilot gave Khrushchev a propaganda bonus, the prospect of the summit looked extremely bleak...
...On the eve of the summit meeting the West faces the familiar, dreary alternative that always comes up in negotiations with the Soviets: surrender or deadlock...
...In espionage no pose could be more absurd than one of injured Soviet innocence...
...would he not, as a tough and dedicated Communist, have taken his life rather than revealed the damaging details of his mission...
...More than 18 months have passed since American, Soviet and British representatives at Geneva began to discuss a treaty for suspending nuclear explosions...
...One is reminded of the Duke of Wellington's retort to a slightly tipsy fellow guest who addressed him: "Mr...
...Only by a hairline, only by omitting a time limit, did this fall short of being the kind of ultimatum-like threat which President Eisenhower has ruled out in advance...
...Smith, I believe...
...Can anyone in his right mind imagine a Soviet citizen reporting to the United Nations that a secret explosion in violation of the treaty had taken place in some obscure corner of Kazakhstan...
...Even the smallest political or economic concession would represent appeasement, because it would not be balanced by any compensating Soviet concession...
...That would be, indeed, to turn one of Khrushchev's homely peasant figures of speech against him, putting the goat in charge of the cabbage...
...And the nagging thought occurs that if the situation were reversed and a Soviet pilot had been forced down over Alaska or Canada...
...And even if we were weak and foolish and cowardly enough to revert to the bad traditions of Munich and Yalta and throw the freedom-loving West Berliners to the Communist wolves, we could not purchase peace by such an act of ignominy...
...What is there really to discuss, without dishonor, about West Berlin as a separate issue...
...Both sides have undoubtedly used everv device to obtain information about the installations, weapons and plans of the other, from the routine study of printed material and monitoring of radio messages to the use of secret agents and observations by submarines and airplanes...
...the Soviet Government easily leads the field in the number of spy rings discovered in the United States, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and Greece, to mention only a few-countries...
...The attempt to gain all possible information about Soviet military plans and designs does not merit criticism...
...The abnormality of which Khrushchev speaks can only be cured by permitting the whole German nation to decide its own way of life...
...The original Soviet position had been that control posts should be manned chiefly by nationals of the country where the inspections took place...
...the timing of this particular venture does...
...Then how long before he set similar demands for France, Great Britain and America...
...How long would it be before Khrushchev would announce that West Berlin was not enough...
...Despite the very questionable decision of Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to accept the principle of a moratorium—with no guarantee except the word of the three governments— on underground tests which cannot be detected by present instruments, the Soviet representatives at Geneva continued to balk at such important issues as the number of permissible inspections and the staffing of inspection bodies...
...The monstrous nature of this abnormality has been strikingly demonstrated by the fact that more than two and a third million East Germans and East Berliners during the last 10 vears exercised the only franchise available to them and have voted with their feet against Communism by fleeing to the West...
...There we stand and we cannot back down without eternal shame...
...Sir," said the Duke, "if you believe that, you will believe anything...
Vol. 43 • May 1960 • No. 21
