Evening star., 1951-12-06
Germany and the Kremiin

There can be no real peace in Europe until
parttioned Germany Is reunited and restored to
full sovereignty as a cooperative and trust
worthy member of the family of nations As
long as it remains in its present status-occu-
pied in the east by the Soviet Union and in the
west by France, Britain and the United States
it will continue to generate the gravest kind of
international tension.
With this hard reality well in mind the
United Nations General Assembly - acting
through its Special Political Committee-has
therefore voted overwhelmingly $50 to g. in
favor OF new move aimed at promoting con-
crete progress toward settlement of the issue
What the move calls for is an invitation to the
West German Federal Republic and the East
German Communist regime to send representa-
tives to a U. N meeting scheduled to discuss
the Ango-French-Americ proposal for the
creation of a commission to determine the FEAST
bility of conducting genuinely free elections
throughout the whole of Germany at this time.
But the Assemblys committee action, al
though constituting only very modest first step
toward solving the problem of Germany has
been vigorously opposed by the Soviet bloc,
with the support of Israel. The conclusion to be
drawn from this is that the men of the Kremlin
apparently are not yet prepared to make even
slight beginning in the direction of a sound
European peace system AS a result there seems
to be little or no chance that their East German
puppets will accept the U. N. invitation-which
the West Germans undoubtedly will welcome
to talk about holding free and secret country
wide vote as an indispensable prelude to unfit
cation, the withdrawal of all occupying forces
and the restoration of sovereign nationhood
OF course, far from being surprising the
Soviet Unions opposition Is wholly in keeping
with the policy the Kremln has been following
einep If tho
The Russian rulers covet Germany. If they
could become the masters Of all of it-not Just
the part occupied behind the Iron Curtain
they would have the key to the mastery of the
entire European continent, which in turn would
enable them to spread their dominance else
where. Hence, although they are always shout
ing for German elections and German unifica-
ton, what they want above everything is an
opportunity to rig votes and resort to other
chicanery designed to pave the way for COM
munist rule over the whole country, thus insur-
ing It's ultimate conversion into another Red
satellite.
Under the Anglo French American proposal
however, this Soviet objective would be extremely
difficult to attain. For the proposal-wth its
invitation to the East and West Germans-would
first OF all set up an impartial U. N. commission
that would travel freely everywhere in Germany
to see whether fair elections could be held Then
If the findings were favorable, the commission
or some comparable body would supervise the
voting to guard against rigging and similar
trickery. But such voting is exactly what the
Russians do not want for they fear-with good
reason-that it would result in an overwhelming
defeat for their Communist puppets
Accordingly there is little likelihood that
the Western proposal will get anywhere in East
Germany at this time. Nevertheless, since the
Soviet veto cannot stop the General Assembly
from agtating for free and secret elections, the
Assembly should agtate for them. In terms Of
German public opinion, such agitation can put
the men of the Kremlin very much on the
propaganda defensive. Beyond that, it may even
have the effect of eventually persuading them
to play fair ball.