FOREIGN RELATIONS: The Acid Test

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles correctly foresaw that the Communists would get short-term, tactical advantages from last summer’s Parley at the Summit. The resumption of Big Four contacts and the easing of tensions, the Secretary reasoned, would somewhat weaken the will of the Western democracies to take the hard decisions needed to maintain a posture of strength; the democracies, moreover, would feel freer to indulge their petty quarrels of long standing. Such a sequence has already followed, amid the looping longings of “The Spirit of Geneva.”

John Foster Dulles also predicted that certain long-term advantages might accrue to the West. The Russians, he reasoned, could not arouse the hopes of mankind for peace, and then crumple them, without meriting a new surge of world bitterness and distrust. Dulles felt that nations, like individuals, could become creatures of their own behavior: if the Russians talked long enough about removing the causes of world tensions, they might eventually find themselves compelled to start removing them. Dulles’ theory was founded upon a belief that the Russians needed a breathing spell for which they would pay a price. One of the concessions John Foster Dulles set out hopefully to collect was the reunification of Germany.

Tri-Continental Support. This week Secretary Dulles went back to Geneva for a conference of the Big Four foreign ministers, which President Eisenhower had defined as “the acid test” of the Soviet Union’s peaceful intentions. After conferring last week with the President in his hospital room at Denver, Dulles reported: “I go to Geneva with the assurance that I have behind me a President who fully knows the issues and who has given me a full and comprehensive mandate to speak for our nation.” He also got assurances of support from the leaders of Congress.

Dulles briefed the ambassadors of the Latin American republics, and was received warmly. He warned his listeners not to expect too much from the conference: his best hope, at this stage of the preliminaries, was to advance German reunification into the framework of specific negotiations. Dulles added that should the Russians balk at taking such a small step, their intent could not be peaceful. “This Geneva meeting,” Dulles told a press conference before he left for Europe, “is the way to put the so-called Spirit of Geneva to work.”

On his way to Geneva, Dulles paused in Rome for talks with the leaders of Italy, who had recently been feeling neglected amid the comings and goings of the Big Four. He journeyed on to Paris for a meeting of the NATO Council. Dulles found the West Germans perturbed that the British might weaken the Western line, or bend it, by putting up some kind of “Eden Plan” that might tend to freeze the division of Germany; the British, however, were reassuring. Out of these meetings, Dulles confirmed the support of the Europeans upon the three formal questions of the agenda:

Europe: The West will go far towards drafting an all-Europe security system acceptable to the Russians, but only if Germany is to be reunified. Last week Dulles said: “Fortunately, security for the Russians is not inconsistent with justice for the Germans. Indeed, we doubt that in the long run security is ever gained by perpetuating a grave injustice like the division of Germany.”

Limitation of Arms: The West will continue its quest for an effective “network of alarm” designed to prevent surprise attack, based upon the President’s plan for an exchange of blueprints and a ground-air system of controls; the West considers this must precede reduction of arms.

East-West Contacts: The West will press the Russians to admit Western publications into their empire, to quit the censorship and the jamming of Western radio programs; the West expects the Russians to press for increased trade in strategic materials, and tourism.

“Serious Implications.” On the eve of the conference, his 23rd in his three years as Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles seemed patient and calm, prepared to make concessions, if necessary, in the cause of peace, but not to concede fundamentals. “I realize that this conference has serious implications,” Dulles said. “The foundations for it were built by the heads of government themselves. If we cannot build on that foundation, then many high hopes will have to be discarded. If, as I believe, we can build on that foundation, even modestly, then it will be good for all the world . . .”

Dulles expected to remain in Europe, he concluded, for perhaps three weeks.