Evening star., 1946-02-23
Patience Is Required

Although the present trend In
Anglo American Russian relations
is deeply disturbing, it certainly has
not reached point that justifies
the kind of despairing talk being
heard today in some quarters. Mos
COW has been making moves of
high-handed and disquieting nature,
and there has been an extraordinary
interAllied exchange of long range
invective, but these are times
charged with emotion, times in
which tremendous complexities be-
devil world whose nerves have
been rubbed raw by a terrible war,
and in such period it is almost in
evitable that there should be some
measure of the sort of thing hap
pening now.
What is of first Importance is that
all powers concerned, instead of
yielding to sterile pessimism and
letting mutual suspicious spread
more and more poison through the
international atmosphere, should
lose no time in trying to check the
current deterioration. In the House
of Commons the other day, British
Foreign Secretary Bevin made an
earnest contribution to that end,
emphasizing over and over again
that Britain, despite what the Rus
slams have been saying and doing,
does not harbor hostile feelings to-
ward the Soviet Union, that war be-
tween the two is inconceivable, and
that he is prepared to extend their
present 20-year treaty of friendship
to SO years, though definitely deter
mined not to surrender principles or
legitimate British interests for the
sake of appeasement.
Similarly, on the same day Mr..
Bevin spoke, General Smith, our new
Ambassador to Moscow, addressing
an American-Soviet Friendship din
ner in New York, expressed himself
In way that should at once re-
assure the Russians and make clear
to them that we expect them to be
not less reasonable than ourselves.
The United States, he said, is willing
to go a long way in meeting it's in
ternational associates. but it must
be watchful of its own vital interests
and hold to "the line beyond which
compromise cannot CO." Then he
went on to declare that Eve must
expect this attitude on the part of
others" and that America and the
U. S. S. R., given honesty and
frankness on both Sides" can get
along together in the future just as
well as they have "for almost $50
years, in spite of the fact that our
governments and our economic sys-
TENS have been quite different"
Now that both Mr.. Bevin and
General Smith have thus sought to
spread oil on the troubled interna-
tional waters, nothing could be more
wholesome than to have Russian Of
f1cials Of comparable stature speak
out with equal sincerity in an effort
to clear away some of the very deep
and very real misgivings felt in the
Anglo-American world as a result of
numerous Soviet actions. Such a
step would go far toward creating
a better mood among the three
powers, but whether or not 1t is
taken, these words of General Smith
might well be memorized by peoples
everywhere:
THE war which has just ended
inflicted wounds on the world which
will take a century to heal. '"s To
insure that no such catastrophe will
occur again, the Soviet government
has joined with us and with other
peace-loving peoples to develop last
Ing formulas through the
medium of the United Nations Or
ganization. Petty frictions
must not be misread as signs of in
soluble problems. - Patience is
required. The months and years
ahead will be cropping ones until we
are certain that the machinery is
firmly established through which all
nations are agreed to deal with each
other in mutual understanding and
forbearance