Cold War: What Is Realism?

As Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and their aides sat down to lunch at the Soviet Mission to the U.N. in Manhattan, someone discovered that a package of Russian cigarettes on the table bore the brand name Troika. This allusion to the Soviet U.N. policy created general hilarity. The actual remarks are not known, but it is just possible that someone asked Gromyko: “Are you vetoing more and enjoying it less?”

The luncheon-table jollity was typical of the successive Gromyko-Rusk meetings so far, described by one participant as “perfectly genial, perfectly agreeable.” Behind the geniality, of course, was the deadly serious purpose of finding out whether a Berlin compromise is possible. The seriousness was acknowledged by Gromyko. who has developed into an inveterate knee-tapper, prodding his own and his opponents’ knees with a blunt finger for emphasis; although Gromyko speaks English reasonably well, he insisted on conducting the Rusk negotiations in Russian through an interpreter to make sure that no word was lost or misunderstood. And indeed much of the talk concerned words. The men around the table sounded more like semanticists than diplomats, exploring the precise meaning of such terms, widely used by the Russians on Berlin, as “access.” “free city” and “guarantees.”

New Ingredients. Both the Kennedy and Gromyko speeches before the U.N. last week made clear that both sides want negotiations on Berlin. Furthermore, the possible ingredients of a deal are beginning to take shape. Very tentatively, the U.S. is considering:

> Some form of recognition or at least acceptance of the East German Communist regime.

> Acceptance of the Oder-Neisse line as the eastern border of East Germany (and, therefore, of a future United Germany).

> Agreement not to give West Germany atomic weapons.

> Some change in West Berlin’s present status, possibly by reducing the number of Western troops there as pressure decreases.

If the U.S. were to agree to make any or all of these concessions (and Kennedy’s U.N. speech hinted a readiness for most of them, given the right conditions), how much would the U.S. be losing?

In one view, little or nothing. The existence of the East German regime and the Oder-Neisse line are facts of life that probably cannot be reversed short of war; as for West German atomic armaments. Adenauer wants them but the U.S. is far from eager to give them. With West Berlin’s population already nervous, any change in West Berlin’s status or in the size of Western forces there would pose a severe morale problem; but, after all, even the present number of Allied troops in the city (14,000) is not a force that could hold back the Reds—only a symbol of Western “presence.” In short, it can be argued that the various steps under consideration would not really add up to Western concessions, but merely to a “realistic” acceptance of the facts.

Nevertheless, such acceptance, with its implicit retreat from the ultimate, long-maintained U.S. goal of German reunification, would undoubtedly be a serious blow to West German morale and allegiance, possibly a strain on the West European alliance, and at least a limited cold-war victory for the Russians. Realism surely demands to know what the U.S. would be getting in return.

If the Soviets want to negotiate merely on the narrow basis of Berlin alone, the U.S. might make some concessions for the basic conditions on which it absolutely insists: 1) the West’s right to move in and out of Berlin freely, 2) Western troops in Berlin, 3) West Berlin economically and politically independent of Communism.

The striking fact about these conditions is, of course, that they all involve things the West has now. Is the U.S. thus negotiating to buy a set of rights in Berlin that it holds anyway?

Fact of Geography. True, the West now holds these rights precariously. A solemn and public reafnrmation of these rights, as Khrushchev has invitingly pointed out. might well improve the West’s position. The fact remains that no guarantee, no treaty, no Russian commitment however solemn, can change geography. Berlin would still remain deep behind the Iron Curtain, at the mercy of the Russians any time that they find an excuse to break their agreement. In any case, the West is not prepared to break out its full assortment of possible concessions unless Moscow is willing to broaden negotiations beyond Berlin to include “security arrangements” for Europe as a whole, or an overall disarmament deal.

A lot depends on detail. Items: Would Western access be guaranteed by the Russians themselves, or only by the East German puppets? Item: Would Berlin’s safety be additionally guaranteed through the presence of U.N. agencies there? Item: Would the West manage to retain, even theoretically, the goal of ultimate German unification?

Amid these and countless other problems, and their often hair-splitting definitions, the basic question for the U.S. concerns the meaning of a word more important than “access” or “guarantee.” The word is realism. As Jack Kennedy and Dean Rusk well know, realism in the U.S. dictionary must not come to mean merely acceptance of the other fellow’s reality.