FOREIGN RELATIONS: Out of the Corner?

As Washington saw it, Russia’s Nikita Khrushchev was backed into an embarrassing corner by the U.S.-NATO refusal to give up war-won rights to stay in West, Berlin. But he was not yet ready to give up the diplomatic battle. His potshots of the week:

¶ Russian First Deputy Premier Anastas I. Mikoyan got a three-month diplomatic visa from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, got ready to hit Washington some time next week for a two-week visit. Presumed intention: to feel out the firmness of U.S. policy on West Berlin and to explore a possible deal for all of Germany, perhaps on the basis of Communist or neutralist disengagement schemes.

¶ Khrushchev’s Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko added the Kremlin’s characteristic rocket-rattling buildup for such a diplomatic mission. Said Gromyko: West Berlin is a threat to the peace, and if the West should try to force its way through a Berlin blockade, “the flames of war would inevitably spread to the American continent, for today’s military techniques have virtually eliminated the difference between distant theaters of war and those close at hand.”

Khrushchev’s new shots notwithstanding, U.S. officials went on preparing new proposals for Germany that were based on proven and continuing firmness. Principal element: reunify Germany by free elections with free choice on whether or not to join NATO. Possible tactic: offer the Russians a new European security treaty guaranteeing that no new German militarism could threaten them, even to the point of guaranteeing not to move NATO troops forward of their present positions in West Germany.