For the chronically hopeful, the 1959 thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations, the Eisenhower-Khrushchev visits and the march toward the summit, carry the promise of an enchanted spring of peace. But a remarkable number of show-me skeptics, foreign and domestic, are worried that the thaw may put the U.S. on even thinner ice in a cold war that has yet to end. Last week three experienced diplomatic weathermen contributed to a growing debate on the subject. Secretary of State Christian A. Herter pledged the Eisenhower Administration to careful negotiation and something called “co-survival.” President Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, warned against the perils of negotiation. And Mr. Cold War himself, Nikita Khrushchev, proclaimed that he is certainly a man of peace, turning out guided missiles by the hundreds.
Herter. The real meaning of the series of high-level meetings, said Herter in a speech to the National Foreign Trade Council in Manhattan, is that a new process of communication between East and West may be developing. “I say ‘may’ because only time can tell whether we shall have learned to talk somewhat less at cross purposes than in the past, and with better understanding of opposing points of view.” Khrushchev, said Herter, had said there was a need for “a common language despite the ideological conflict to which he staunchly adheres. Many will find this hard to believe after the years of baffling doubletalk. Yet I believe that on certain fundamentals we can find a common language because we have a common interest. That interest lies simply in the basic will to survive, shared by free men and Communists alike.
“Thus, the one area in which a common language has best chance to grow is that of ground rules for the great competition which dominates our time—some rules of the game—to keep it within bounds set by the conditions of co-survival.”
Acheson. Two days later, before an applauding group of NATO parliamentarians in Washington, Acheson implied that the Russians are interested principally in survival for Communists. “It is so easy to confuse or to use this word ‘negotiation’ as a cover for a surrender … If to negotiate means to put the fagade of consent upon a defeat, then I think it is not something which should recommend itself to us . . . The essential thing is what you confer about—not whether you should confer but what you confer about.” And what the U.S. is being asked to confer about now is disengagement of U.S. forces out of Berlin, Germany and Central Europe—a longstanding Soviet objective.
“What disengagement means is that the whole attempt to create a counterforce [in Europe] to the Soviet force is ended. We cannot create such a counterforce with ground forces in Europe and in the U.S. separated by the Atlantic Ocean . . . Khrushchev says, ‘This is a matter on which a compromise is possible. I don’t have to cut all your throats; I only need to cut a half of your throat.’ This is the kind of thing into which we are being led by the incredible view that any sort of negotiation is good per se.” In only one area, said Acheson, can negotiation really benefit the West: hardheaded discussion of disarmament that aims toward shortening the offensive “reach,” both nuclear and conventional, of the nations.
Khrushchev. Meanwhile, back in Moscow, Khrushchev was making it plain that his policy of smiles means really no fundamental change in Soviet affairs. “We were born Communists. We live as Communists, and we shall not die but we will keep going ahead as Communists . . . We are prepared to sink all rockets. But let me tell you—and may they take note of it abroad; I don’t hide it—in one year a rocket factory has mass-produced 250 rockets with hydrogen warheads.”
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