Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-01-02
Grim Drama on Aiming Bonn
Had Unhappy Ending for Reds
Defect at Puris Dashed Dazzling Hopes
OfSeeing Western Coalition crumbIe

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State Dulles. British Foreign
Secretary Eden and French For
eign Minister Bidault. Mr.. Molo-
tov went home from Eeriin .
well satisfied man. The West
to- be sure. had stood arm against
his proposals for ,lnifying Ger.
many under Communist rule. II
had spotted the obvious decep.
ton In his plan for an all-Euro-
pean security system whic b
would shut the door on the
United States and open the
fioodgates to the East.
Socialist Member Of Team.
Still Mr.. Molotov got what he
wanted. His propaganda shafts
were aimed at France as the
shakiest member Of the Western
team. His strategy was to play
. bigger game for higher stakes
Ito win the battle for Europe
by exploiting Communist
strength In Asia. His triumph
was an agreement to hold q sec
ond conference at Geneva In the
spring.
For the next rev months the
tide moved strongly in the Com
fnunists' favor. With brilliant
timing and excellent co-ordina-
ton Of military and diplomatic
effort. the war In Indo- China
reached q new peak BY mid
April. While the Western camp
haggled and stewed over the
possibilities Of united action
the Communist reinforcements
poured across the Indo- Chinese
border from China. When the
French delegation left Paris for
Geneva on April IS. the flower
of the French expeditionary
force was locked in q hopeless
death struggle 1t Diem Bien Phu.
Felt Success IN GRASP.
A month later, when the
French government fell. Com
inunists felt success within their
grasp. Their whole program had
worked OUT wonderfully. The
new French premier, Pierre
endes-France. was q man In
whom the Communists saw great
possibilities. Above all. they
knew him as an independent and
obstinate political figure who felt
deep misgivings about the much
discussed cornerstone" of West
ern policy the European Defense
Community.
It was no accident that 80
Communists In the French Ma
tional Assembly voted to con-
firm the Mendes- France govern
ment or that q few weeks later
the Communist leaders at Gen-
eva agreed to q truce in Indo-
China. How close the Commu-
mist strategy came to succeeding
is even more hair-raising In re-
Prospect than it seemed at the
time. BY mid-August, when Eu-
ropean statesmen gathered at
Brussels, cracks In the Western
coalition were already showing
badly when Mr.. Mendes- France
showed up with q whole list of
radical changes in the structure
Of edo. his colleagues met him
with undisguised suspicion and
hostility, turning q deaf ear to
his warnings that as 1t stood the
treaty was doomed.
Warning Justified.
His warning was speedily JUS
tined on August 81, the National
assembly rejected edo by a vote
Of $40 to 264. The platform on
which the Western leaders had
built such towering hopes was
smashed beyond repair. And in
the bitterness Of disillusion the
morale Of the West reached its
lowest point since the end Of
World. War II.
If there ever was q time for
the Russians to take the initia-
tive. this was 1t. Demoralized
and confused. q bold political Of
fensiye by the Kremlin would
quite probably have paid OF in
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