--- description: The U.S., British and French ambassadors were summoned last week to Moscow's Foreign Ministry. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko handed each a note. The Soviet Union, it said in effect,... title: International: Old Shell Game image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # International: Old Shell Game by [TIME](/author/time/) Nov 13, 1950 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Nov 13, 1950 5:00 AM CUT The U.S., British and French ambassadors were summoned last week to Moscow’s Foreign Ministry. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko handed each a note. The Soviet Union, it said in effect, deplored the move to arm Western Germany against heavily armed Eastern Germany, supported the recent Prague Declaration for German unity on Communist terms (TIME, Oct. 30), proposed an immediate four-power parley. Most of the free world guessed that the Kremlin was playing the old Red shell game—now-you-see-peace, now-you-don’t —sometimes called tactics of confusion. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6886036/international-old-shell-game/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6886036/international-old-shell-game/"},"headline":"International: Old Shell Game","datePublished":"1950-11-13T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-19T16:22:20.201Z","description":"The U.S., British and French ambassadors were summoned last week to Moscow's Foreign Ministry. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko handed each a note. The Soviet Union, it said in effect,...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6886036/international-old-shell-game/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6886036/international-old-shell-game/","name":"International: Old Shell Game"}}]}] ```