EAST EUROPE
SIR,—Our "interference" in East Europe is, we are being told, the prime cause of Russia's "suspicion," and so of the poor prospect for World Order. If so, we may have to face the alternative of giving up the one or the other. In that case it will be all-important to know what we should be sacrificing by "pulling out" from East Europe—would it be a sacrifice of self interest in a more or less narrow sense, or one of high principle? To put it another way round, what is the real motive behind our action when we press for free elections or protest against repressive measures by the people in power? Are we primarily con- cerned to see that the country in question is not dominated, if we arc able to prevent it, by a political group unsympathetic to our national interests, or are we battling against the evil itself—the suppression of liberty—as we did through six years of war? (A test would be if the relative position of the local parties were reversed as, some would say, is actually the case in Greece.) Of course it is hard to define where calculated self-interest ends and .idealism (or "enlightened self-interest" to use the fashionable term) begins in government policy as in our actions in private life. But it seems essential at this critical juncture to know what it is that we are asked to surrender by the advocates in the Press of an agreement with Moscow or reciprocal "non-intervention" in our respective spheres.—Yours
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