Negotiating on Germany
The Russians are taking their time about replying to the Western invitation to a Foreign Ministers' meeting on Germany —presumably for the same reason that President Eisenhower saw fit to have a public correspondence with Dr. Adenauer. East and West are vicariously engaged in the forthcoming elections in West Germany (which are discussed in an article by Ernst Friedlaender on a later page). Thus the Pravda article commenting on the Washington proposal for a Four Power meeting concentrated on those parts which could be construed (and were construed by the British opposition last week) as pure political propaganda. Washington, it said, had once again suggested negotiations in terms that were tantamount to a demand for sursender. President Eisenhower, for his part, concentrated on the East German rioters as proof that the Russian regime must go, and on the West's intention to continue Dr. Adenauer's policy of incorporating West Germany, or even all Germany, into the European Defence Community.
This does not necessarily mean that there will be no nego- tiations or that any negotiations are doomed in advance to failure, since there is still reason to suppose that, if Western diplomacy gives them the chance, the Russians may, by the autumn, see some advantage in agreeing to the unity of Germany on terms that the West could accept. It only means that the Russians do not yet see how or whether it can be done without loss of their international " face " and of their inter- national security. And it also means that the West must spend the intervening time in working on just this problem. The West must be prepared to consider the threat that a rearmed and united Germany inside the Western bloc would prejudice the security as well as the prestige of the Eastern bloc. It was this that the Washington communiqué did not discuss. It is this that the Russian reply, when it comes and if it is not entirely negative, will insist upon. And it was this that Sir Winston Churchill had in mind when he talked about an Eastern Locarno. In a tentative way, President Eisenhower, Dr. Adenauer and Mr. Nutting have all, in the last week, published statements which suggest that they recognise this. They have suggested that Germany's member- ship of the EDC could in itself be made to serve as a guarantee against German aggression in the East, since EDC was originally designed as a way of allowing Germany to rearm under international supervision. Whether this is a more constructive suggestion than Sir Winston's idea of a system of treaties, or whether either will really meet the Russian case, is a matter for considerable doubt. But that the West must be ready to devise something which will meet their case, is a matter on which there can be no doubt.
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