Evening star., 1951-09-06
The Boom Lowered on Gromyko

If the men of the Kremlin sent Andrei
Gromyko to San Francisco with high expecta-
tonS that he would be able to put real crimp
in the proceedings there, they must be pretty
well disillusioned today. For as result of
yesterdays sessions-which were quite Fortnight
and unceremoniouS-the parliamentary boom
has been lowered on the Soviet delegation and
on the puppet delegations from Poland and
CzechoSlovakia.
That is to say, the Krenlin's spokeSmen
have run into situation where it should be
virtually impossible for them to prevent-if that
is what they had hoped to do-the prompt sign
ing of the Japanese peace treaty by the over
whelming majority OF the participating nations
Any plans they may have had to engage in
delaying tactics, or to stage flibuster long
enough to spread confusion, division and irreSo-
luton, have been effectively knocked on the
head. To repeat the boom has been lowered on
them. They have been fiattened out and gagged,
and nobody has taken the trouble to disguise
the fact that they have been flattened out and
gagged. The whole business has been done in
a completely frank without apologies,
because no apologies needed when one deals
with wrecking crews.
What has happened is that everybody from
the non-Sovet world, fed up with the Kremlin's
customary behavior at international meetings
and determined not to be victimized by it this
time, has seen to it at San Francisco that the
Russians, the Poles and the Czechs-a forlorn
trio in their propagandistic protestationS-ca
not get very far with the well-known techniques
of Communist obstructionism. The great ma
jority, in other words, has ganged up on the
small minority to make sure that that minority
Will not be able-aS so often in the paSt-to
Illustrate the majority will. Thus, by vote of
48 to 3-the three being the forlorn trio-the
participating nations have adopted rules of pro-
cedure limiting the speech of each delegation
(Andrei Gromyko has already used up his allot-
ment to one hour and otherwise insuring
against monkey diversions. Beyond that,
43 of those nations have voted to elect Secretary
OF State AcheSon as the permanent presiding
oficer-a position giving him far-reaching power
to rule all trouble-makers out of order and thus
provide practically ironclad guarantee against
oratorical sabotage and kindred shenanigans
aimed at upSetting the scheduled signing of the
treaty.
The chances are, of course, that all this has
not struck Gromyko and his bosses in the Krem-
lin as an astounding surprise Very probably,
having been warned in advance that action
would be taken to guard against obstructionism,
they are not altogether fustered by the develop
ment. What seems safe to assume, therefore, is
that the Soviet delegation together with its
planned-on a propaganda show Needless to
say, as indicated by the Gromyko speech, this
show will use every minute of the little time left
to the forlorn trio to harp on the usual phony
arguments about Red China's absence from San
Francisco to assail American "imperialists" for
planning to use Japan as springboard for
aggression against ASIA and to make great to-
do over the "dictatorial" "steamroller" gag
rule" tactics of the United States
In some areas of the world, such propaganda
may have considerable potential appeal but if
the American and other non-Sovet delegations
do the job they are capable of doing-empha-
sizing for example, how the Gromyko pro
poSalS" for treaty revision would make Japan
vacuum of power wide open to conquest by
the Red totatarians-they should be able to
answer it in a way that can render it rather
futile. AS matter of fact, the men of the
Kremlin can be placed so much on the defensive
at San Francisco that they will have good reason
to wonder why they ever chose to attend