PEACE PRIORITIES
Sta,—For more than a year we have been reading in your paper, and in almost every newspaper, magazine or journal published in this country, a series of very patient and forbearing accounts, more and more gloomy, of the intransigence of Russian displomats, and of their apparent refusal to co-operate in any of the efforts towards peace-making at London, Paris or
New York. This subject has, quite justifiably, been given a "leading- article " priority. Side by side with this, there have been various hints and statements, sometimes substantiated on good authority, about events far more important and far more terrible, which, if they are true, would turn the whole business of peace-making into nothing more than either a roaring farce or else a gigantic tragedy. For instance, Sir, in the article entitled Greece's Northern Neighbours, by Derek Patmore, in your issue of November 29th, we read that in Bulgaria " Official American sources estimate that at least 20,000 sincere democrats and intellectuals were executed during 1945."
Very few people have any direct means of knowing how far such state- ments can be trusted. But at any rate we have no reason to doubt them. There is one question which ea eryone is taking, and which must be answered sooner or later: Is it, or is it not, true that in those parts of Europe which are under Soviet control or influence a policy of oppression, and in some cases " liquidation " or mass murder, has been or is being carried out? If so, I find it impossible to believe that H.M. Government is not in possession of some of the facts. Why, then, are they not published in full? Is it because the facts are not true, or is it because the Government is afraid to inflame public opinion against these outrages? I hope, Sir, that you will continue to pursue the policy of making known every available fact which will help us to judge how far the Russians are sincere in their desire for peace, and what they mean by that word, if indeed they mean anything worth while—aware as you are that the most insidious form of propaganda is not the invention of lies, but the conceal- ing of truth.
I suggest that if these things are going on in Europe it is surely fantastic that negotiations and conferences are carried on, and treaties signed, in an atmosphere when' such events are not even mentioned, as if peace- making were a matter of dialectical gymnastics or gigantic blue-prints, and not of human lives ; that the Foreign Ministers should be discussing questions of procedure, when no one is quite sure that behind the scenes thousands of people are not being murdered, outraged, exiled or starved. Mr. Harold Nicolson, in one of his broadcasts from Paris, succeeded in bringing home to us the simple fact that Trieste is not just a piece on a chess-board, but a real place where people live--people whose happiness and whose lives are at stake. The pity of it is that we had really reached a state of mind where it was necessary for us to be told.—I am, Sir, yours
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