Evening star., 1951-12-02
The Disarmament Deadlock

Although the Soviet Union has decided to
join France, Britain and the United States in
accepting the Arah-Asian proposal for secret Big
Four talks on disarmament, nothing could seem
more unlikely than that the talks will end in
agreement. Instead, all signs indicate that the
old deadlock will continue and that the current
arms race-the deadlest in history-will 20 on
without letup.
At any rate, in agreeing to the talks in a
speech to the Political Committee of the United
Nations General Assembly, Foreign Minister Vi
shinsky has hardly succored the optimists. All
he has had to offer is another of his venomous
attacks on the Western Big Three and grudg-
ing Soviet acceptance of the idea of meeting
with them behind closed doors in an effort to
ind some common ground for a mutually salts
factory disarmament plan. Clearly enough he
had held out little hope that the effort will sue
ceed, and his Anglo-French-A American counter
parts have been scarcely more encouraging.
The reason for this is that the Kremlin and
the West are worlds apart in their proposals for
the reduction and regulation of armed forces
and armaments, including particularly atomic
weapons. What France, Britain and the United
States want is step-by step eliminating
in an agreement rigdly controlling the atom
to establish vetoless system under which there
would be Cd permanent corps of expert u N.
inspectors, (2) exhaustive on-the- scene inven-
tories of armies, navies, air forces, arsenals.
guns bombs, etc, in every major country, and
CD the strictest kind of continuous interna-
tlonal verif1cation and policing, without hin
orance, to guard against violations by any ma
ton tempted to prepare in the dark for war
OF aggression. what the Soviet Union wants
Is something else again. 1t does not want real
disarmament-not at this stage at least
Thus, before doing anything whatever about
establishing regulatory system in which all
nations could have confidence the Kremn's
plan would impose on the United States and its
Western Allies an immediate and unconditional
prohibition of atomic weapons In other words.
II would have us disarm ourselves right away of
the one thing that now protects our free world
our present A-weapons lead, the greatest single
deterrent to an attack by the Soviet Unions
numerically superior land armies and armored
forces The Russians would have us do this
moreover, on the basis of proposals under which
they would commit themselves merely to the
idea of eventually accepting an international
ver1f1cation- -and-control organization that would
operate within the Security Council-an arrange
ment that would permit them at any time to
veto genuine policing of military goings-on be-
hind the Iron Curtain.
not agree to such plan 1t is not plan. 1t is
fraud. and If the Russians continue to insist
upon it, the Big Four talks that have just begun
in Paris will get exactly nowhere Nor can there
be much doubt that that is what will happen For
the truth is that the men of the Kremlin have
shown no indication of change of heart and
until they do, until they make up their minds to
eliminate the Iron Curtain to degree that will
make effective disarmament and atomic control
possible, the present deadlock is bound to remain
unbroken.
Nevertheless, despite this outlook, the Paris
approved by the General
Assembly-is worth trying Conceivably by
bringing the Big Four together in secret meet
ings, it may have the effect of making the
Russians little bit less adamant Beyond that
even if it fails to promote the slightest progress
toward agreement, it can serve to point up the
fact that Soviet nay-saying is the only real
reason for the worlds failure to disarm That
in itself should have some value