Foreign News: THE BEAR’S PLAN

REPLYING to Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinoff’s proposal of “total and general disarmament” at the 1932 Geneva World Disarmament Conference, Spanish Delegate Salvador de Madariaga recited “the fable about the animals’ disarmament conference”:

“When the animals had gathered, the lion looked at the eagle and said gravely: ‘We must abolish talons.’ The tiger looked at the elephant and said: ‘We must abolish tusks.’ The elephant looked back at the tiger and said: ‘We must abolish claws and jaws.’

“Thus each animal in turn proposed the abolition of the weapons he did not have, until at last the bear rose up and said in tones of sweet reasonableness: ‘Comrades, let us abolish everything—everything but the great universal em. brace.’ “