The Russian Reply
Russia does not wish to discuss the future of Germany with the Western Powers. This emerges from the Note that has been delivered by the Kremlin five days before the Lugano meeting was due to take place. It is not inherently surprising; at least since the East German revolt of June 17th, there have been fey signs that Russia wanted to negotiate with the West and no signs whatever that it wanted to negotiate about Germany. What now ? One possibility is that new efforts should be made to find out whether Russia is interested in talking about any- thing else—armaments, for example, or Korea or any of the other issues which have appeared, irrelevantly, in the exchange of Notes about Germany. This would mean a return to the idea of a high-level meeting such as Sir Winston Churchill first proposed in the spring. On the whole, there is still very little to be said in its favour—even its author seemed to be in retreat in the House of Commons on Tuesday. It might do harm. It might either paralyse public opinion by a false impres- sion of security or lead it on to folly by an exaggerated impres- sion of hopelessness. Another possibility is that the West should boldly break the stalemate by making a move of its own —that is, by rearming Western Germany. This also means taking a risk, but of a different order—that the Russians would be driven into a " preventive " war. But the West has success- fully taken that risk before—in the Berlin blockade, for,‘ example—and it cannot cease to take it now.
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