THE PARIS TREADMILL
What happens then ? Presumably the treadmill comes round once more and the Foreign Ministers go through all the same questions again. Such a prospect is utterly repellent to all reasonable observers throughout the world. The only hope lies in the fact that it must be even more so to the Foreign Ministers themselves—or at least to the three Western Ministers. From that fact springs the possi- bility that, even if the same process must be gone through again, it may be gone through in a slightly different way. There will be no point whatever in the three Western Ministers' repeating that the Bonn constitution must be extended to all Germany. There will be no point in Mr. Vyshinsky's attempting to get back to Potsdam. The fact is that agreement at these extremes was known to be impossible, as a short term aim, before the conference began. It is its plain :.s it can be that the West will not budge. But—and this is the real crux—it is also plain that it was the Russians who asked for this conference. The Berlin air lift was a sufficient demonstration —even to a Russian—that the West had reached the sticking point. Consequently if there is any realism whatever in the Kremlin—which is likely enough—there is still a faint chance that some Russian concession is contemplated. And if Mr. Vyshinsky was unable to make it during the set speeches and flat contradictions of the first round, he may possibly bring himself to disclose it during the second. But if he does not—or if no Russian concession is contemplated— the Foreign Ministers might as well go home. Nothing but a Russian concession—the promise to raise the Berlin blockade—could secure the original meeting of the Council. Nothing but a further concession should prolong it.
