Roanoke Rapids daily herald., 1948-10-28
Matters Bound
To Remain
Almost Same
By Dorothy Thompson


Berlin dispute before th& Sc
curity Council has been Woxing,
bound to leave matters essen
TALLY where they were before.
Under the United Nations
Charter the whole world togeth-
er cannot t1ke action against
great power, which shares
judgment on its own case and
exercises a veto. At the mo-
ment it is being demonstratd
that even a unanimous Security
Council is unable to enforce a
truce against the tiny state of
Israel and the weak Arab world.
1t obviously is futile, therefore.
to hope in its power to effect
a settlement between great pow
ers.
Nor is the struggle over the
rights" of the Western powers
and Russia in Berlin of the es-
senCe. The only right
either side has in Berlin rests
on the right of conquest. But
the political battle which is 60
ing on is part of the battle for
Germany; the battle for Ger
many is part of the battle for
Europe; the battle for Europe is
part of the battle for the world.
chief asset-and monopoly--has
been a clear concept OF the min
imum and maximum objectiveS
for which ii fought the war. The
minimum objective was 20 save
the integrity of the Soviet Union
and recover the territory lost to
the Russian Empire by the First
World War when Lenin and Trot-
sky-for the sake OF the Bolshev-
ist revolution-ceded away some
of RusSia's most valuable terri
tories. not all Of which were
recovered through a subsequent
victory of the Western Allies.
For Stain to prove Bolshevlsm'
capacity TO throw out the Ger
mans, to whom it had once cap
itu!ated, and recover very inch
of territory Lenin himself lost
was surely always d minimum
objective.
The maximum objectiv was
the retaliation of Lenin's long
view dream-the turning of war
into a revolution to make the
Socialist fatherland" master of
the globe.
For the achievement of the
maximum objective, the Sovlets
needed the initial cooperation of
the Western Allies, especially
over Germany. They got it.
The most favorable condition for
the Sovietizing of Germany was
German truncadon and division,
under circumstances which
would enable Russia permsne2t
ly to hold knife at the heart
of the capital and exclusively
control a large section of Ger
many territory. The first was
achieved by forcibly Sovietiz-
ing Poland and then extending
the borders of ia-dominated
Poland to within a few miles of
Berlin.
When we discuss the possibil-
ity of both Russia and the West
ern powers withdrawing from
Germany, we obviously must
ask: Whereto? The United
States would withdraw 5000
miles. Russia would withdraw,
leaving armed Soviet republics
all contiguous to Germany and
herself and all acting under
Russian orders. These repub-
lies would surround an entirely
helpless country in the Baltic,
at the gates OF Berlin, SaXony,
Thuringia and Bavaria, on from
tiers obviously defensible even
by an armed Germany and all
Western Europe.
Today no part of Europe is
sufficiently strong to face Rus
sia's acumul alton of military
power even if4he Soviets should.
as a tactical move, retire from
what is left of the German
Reich. According to the last re-
port of the International Com
mittee for the Study of European
Questions-which committee CO.
mmands the intelligence of first
rate political and military OBJ
servers - the Soviet Unions
armed forces on land total 3.5
million; her navy, which IN
cludes the largest submarine
fleet in existence, commands an
other half million men; there
are $4,000 to l6, 500 planes in her
air fleet; and her industries are
guns and 5000 planes this year.
Does Russia have the atom
bomb? 1t is dangerous to as
sumo the contrary. 1t would be
wise to suspect that she has Sc
cured sufficient plutonium to
make few. She has been work.
ing the Czechoslovak uranumum
mines night and day, under
conditions of such secrecy that
the Czechs themselves do not
know what is going on. Unques-
tlonably territory as large as
the Soviet Union has sources of
uranium for which energetic
search must have been made by