Evening star., 1953-06-23
Bermuda and q New Perspective

AS events have turned out, it may well be
a good thing that the Bermuda Conference
of the Western Big Three has been delayed
by Frances depressing inability to organize
a new government since the fall Of Premier
Mayer and his cabinet on May a.
Originally scheduled to begin on June IS,
and then on June 20, the meeting has now
been put of until July 8, at which time
France-if it still lacks a Premier-will be
represented by Mr.. Mayer. But this latest
postponement, disappointing as it may seem,
is not necessarily regrettable. On the con-
trary, it can have real value to the extent
that it will allow for extra days in which
President Eisenhower Prime Minister Church
i'll and their French counterpart can prepare
to attend the conference with thoughts and
agenda revised in keeping with what has been
happening in the world since the middle Of
last week.
Certainly, it is not unfortunate that the
Bermuda sessions failed to open on June IS.
For the conferees, if they had met then, would
have found themselves celebrating on the
basis of ideas rendered suddenly obsolescent
by the momentous anti Communist rebellion
in East Germany and by South Korean Presi-
dent Syngman Rhee's e-imperiling release
of war prisoners and his intensified threat to
keep on fighting the enemy even if an armi-
cumstances, the postponement of the confer
ence until June 20, and now until July 8, seems
at least to have the virtue of enabling the
Big Three to ponder more fully the good-and-
evil possibilities inherent in these highly sig
nifcant developments and thus to get to-
gether with clearer concepts of how best to
organize common policy in dealing with the
post-Stalin Soviet government and its so-called
peace offensive. .',.
It is because such a policy is very much
needed that the President has taken the initia-
tive to stage the Bermuda Conference. He has
done so in response to Mr.. Churchill's rather
premature call for Big Three meeting with
Russia. President Eisenhower, while not op-
posing that idea in principle, has plainly indi-
Gated that he will continue to think little of
it, as practical proposal, until the men Of the
Kremlin demonstrate good faith by backing
up their soft words with some meaningful deeds.
Meanwhile, so that "tl1e cause of peace may be
advanced" he is anxious to promote concert
of views that will hold France, Britain and
the United States firmly together as regards
great issues like the future of Korea, the status
of Red Peiping, the security of Indo- China,
Austria's independence, the unihcation of Ger
many, the liquidation Of the cold war and the
crucial problem Of disarmament.
On some of these and kindred matters,
there are important areas of differences be-
tween the United States on one hand and
France and Britain on the other. But they
are differences that can be ironed out and
the Bermuda Conference can achieve much
to that end. That is why the Russians have
attacked the projected meeting as If Presi-
dent Eisenhower were wicked for having called
it in an effort to harmonic Western views.
Harmony of course, is what they least want
to see in the free world, and hence their con-
slant striving, even as they mouth peaceful
words, to drive wedges between US and our
allies.
The mere fact of this hostility toward the
Bermuda Conference speaks volumes in its
favor, and the Big Three ought therefore to
make the most of it. The postponement gives
them time to readjust their thinking to the
new international perspective resulting espe-
cially from East Germany's anti-Soviet upris-
ing-a profoundly important event whose i'm
plications must figure largely in any Western
attempt to evaluate the Russians peace Of
fensive" or to determine the feasibility of meet
ing with them in an effort to negotiate settle
ments.