Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-05-24
Provdo and the Bio Four

paper In Russia, has given the world a
good hint of the difficulties likely to be
encountered by the West in connection
with the projected Big Four meeting "at
the summit" The hint has been offered
in the form of an editorial attacking the
United States for It's unreasonable" and
absurd" views as to where the conference
should be held, how long it should last and
what its agenda should be.
At first glance, the attack would seem
ready to reject the recent Anglo-French-
American invitation to participate in Such
a get-together in "an effort to remove
sources of conflict between us" But
Premier Bulganin, Foreign Minister Molo-
TOW and other top Russians have already
indicated that the Soviet Union-although
it has yet to reply formally-is very favor
ably disposed toward the idea. And so the
probabilities are that the conference will
be held in the relatively near future, not
long after Mr.. Molotov and his Western
counterpartS meet in San Francisco at the
June celebration of the tenth anniversary
of the founding of the United Nations.
The Pravda editorial, however, leaves
little room for doubt that the Russians
will meanwhile engage in great deal of
characteristic haggling and propaganda.
For the editorial shows that the men of the
Kremlin still are striving to drive a wedge
between the United States on one hand
and Britain and France on the other 1t
does so by concentrating it's attack solely
on our Government, as if seeking to per-
Suade the British and the French that the
American position rules out the possibility
of fruitful Big Four meeting and that
they ought therefore to break away from
us and go it alone-or at least try to make
us less unreasonable" and absurd" But
this is such transparency phony line
of talk that no one need fear how London
and Paris will react to it.
Actually, of course, Britain and France
are in complete agreement with the United
States on the essentials of this matter.
That is to say, they firmly support our
view-as against Pravda Shat the pro-
posed meeting should be held somewhere
in Switzerland Cor possibly in Stockholm)
rather than in Vienna, which is site that
lends itself too much to Soviet propaganda.
Further than that, and far more impor-
tant, London and Paris see eye to eye with
our country in insisting that the heads
of-government meeting should be only
brief one and that its agenda should be
confined to the business of laying the
groundwork for a definitive and pro-
tracted series of lower-level negotiations
aimed at easing world tensions and max
ing real progress toward a workable modus
vivendi between Russia and the West.
The fact that Pravda has attacked
all this-with fulminations to the effect
that the Big Four chiefs should spend lot
of time together and attempt to settle
verything-plainly indicates that there
may be great amount of patience strain
ing palavering before top-level meeting
is finally agreed upon But this prospect
should neither surprise nor disturb us.
After ALL it is typical of the Soviet way of
doing things, and we shall have to put up
with it until the happy day comes-if it
ever comes-when the Kremlin is gen.
timely interested in establishing decent
peace .