Evening star., 1950-09-12
New York and the Worlds Fate

Inc series OF international meetings be-
ginning in New York today may well decide
whether the world will be able to avoid general
war in the relatively near future. At any rate,
as far as the United States and like-minded
nations are concerned the problems to be
dealt with within the next four or five weeks
must be numbered among the most portentous
in history Certainly, their magnitude and COM
plexity can hardly be exaggerated. AS Secretary
Acheson has said, they probably add up to the
greatest multiplicity of difficult and fateful
issues ever faced by our own country in any
50-year peacetime period.
AS the curtain-raiser in New York, there will
be three days of crucial talks between Mr. Ache
son and the British and French Foreign Minis
ters-Mr. Bevin and Mr.. Schuman. These talks
will have to do with high policy bearing upon
such problems as the war in Korea, the threat
to Indo- China, the future of Formosa, relations
with the Chinese Communists, a peace treaty for
Japan, West German rearmament, increases in
the military efforts of members of the Atlantic
Pact and measures aimed at speeding up and
greatly strengthening an integrated defensive
system for free Europe as a whole-a region
whose strategic significance continues to out
weigh ASia's In the world balance of power
Next, on Friday, after the completion of the
Anglo-French-A American talks, all the Foreign
Ministers Of the twelve-nation Atlantic Pact will
meet for two days Their job will be to hammer
out new decisions designed to put the Pact's
machinery into high gear as rapidly as possible
To that end, besides agreeing on some formula
to rearm West Germany and make it part of
the joint one-for-all- and -all-for-one security
setup they will have to get down to brass tacks
as regards stepping up the preparedness pro-
grams OF the individual members and making at
least preliminary moves toward the creation OF
mol fHcd ifor1
capable OF developing, with utmost speed, genu-
1neiy effective defensive force to counter the
Soviet menace.
Finally, a week from today, with these West
ern meetings at an end, the world in general
SO different countries-will be on hand in New
York to wrestle with its own fate at the new
session OF the United Nations General Assembly
Not the least of those present will be Soviet For
eign Minister Andrei Vishinsky, who can be
counted upon - barring an entirely unexpected
change in Russian policy - to make the rafters
ring with violent attacks on what the United
States and other free lands are doing to cope
with the mounting threat of Communist aggres-
sion. All but handful of the u N, however.
have taken their stand against the Kremlin line,
and II they hold fast to that stand-morally and
materially-the Stain dictatorship conceiyablv
may be deferred from acts that could lead to q
global war
In any event, for his own part, Mr.. Acheson
has just given voice to the view that it Is "com-
pletely wrong and very vicious" to regard war
with Russia as inevitable. The hope he has taken
with him to New York is that the world can have
peace If the free nations in it "go ahead doing
the things we have to do"-things designed to
make the United States and its allies milttarily
as strong as the Soviet Union and hence able to
deal with 1T on equal terms for firm settlement
OF differences without resort to arms. Whether
that hope is sound, or whether it is merely wish
ful, is matter that may depend largely on the
international meetings now getting under way