Evening star., 1953-11-06
ImpIocdbIe Soviet Hostility

AS State Department experts have indi-
Gated, there is every reason to believe that
Soviet Premier Malenkov and his colleagues
have decided to abandon even the pretense of
wanting to negotiate reasonable settlement
of the cold war. This pretenSe, which began
after the death of Stalin has consisted in
recent months of number of minor concessions
and conciliatory gestures accompanied by much
dove-like cooling. But now it appears to have
vanished Only the wishful can conclude other
wise from the dead end that has been reached
in the exchange of notes-one of the dullest
and least fruitful exchanges in history-that
has been going on between the Western Big
Three and the Krenlin since the middle of
last July.
The latest of these notes. merely another
in the dreary series back and forth, is Mos
cows reply to last months >Anglo-French-
American message inviting the Kremlin to join
in Big Four foreign ministers conference
starting at Lugano, Switzerland, on November
9-to deal with Germany and Austria. Brief
and to the point, this invitation, just as in the
case of its predecessors, has now been answered
with 18 pages of worn-out Soviet propaganda
that amounts to a fiat rejection. The propa-
ganda, although it is significantly much more
emphatic than usual in its negativiSm and
mendacity, is essentially the same as what has
been advanced before-a hackneyed old line
totally unacceptable to the West.
This line is made up of a counterproposal-
last heard of in the Soviet note of September
28-calling for the following: Cd foreign
ministers conference of the Big Five, including
Red China ito lessen tensions in international
relations" and (2) a meeting of the foreign
ministers of France, Britain, the United States
and the Soviet Union to discuss Germany mot
Austria, which would be left to normal diplo-
ol.o I.IN
broad and sweeping enough to take in prac-
tically everything including the diplomatic
equivalent of non-germane kitchen sinks. In
sum, in response to the Vests simple invitation
for a limited get-together at Lugano, the Krem-
lin keeps on insisting that Peiping must be
dragged into the picture and that there must be
an unrestricted discussion of such extraneous
matters as the projected European Defense Com
munity, the aggressive" North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, and American military bases
overseas-undertaking whose liquidation"
according to the Russians must be accom-
plished before any progress can be made toward
a settlement of the German problem and other
vital issues.
Clearly, as President Eisenhower declared at
his news conference Wednesday, all this adds
up to convincing evidence that the Soviet Union
is animated not by an intention to get together
with the West in sincere effort to reach agree
ments Germany and Austria, but by IAN
intention to create as many difficulties as pos
Sible' in order to prevent such agreements at
this time. Nothing else can adequately explain
the fact that the Krenn in its latest note,
in its earlier ones, has set forth impossible
conditions" as it's price for meeting with
France, Britain and the United States. In such
circumstances, the only conclusion to be drawn
is that the Maenkov regme-perhaps because
of uncertainty within tSelf-is dead set, at the
present juncture, against meeting the Big
Threes negotiating challenge on any level,
high or low.
Accordingly assuming that the West now
replies with yet another note-and it is ques-
tionable whether another should be sent-the
usual negative response will almost certainly
be forthcoming once again. If the situation
were not potentially tragic, one would be
tempted to laugh at it as display of diplomacy
in which the wooerS are constantly rebuffed by
the wooed. But it is no laughing matter. 1t is
a state of affairs in which the United States,
Britain and France (all three apparently agree
on the issue) must recognize the implacable
hostility of Soviet policy and, recognizing it,
remain armed and on the ready with the rest
of the free world against any grim eventuality.
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