Russia's offer
Sir: 'Russia', Colin Welch writes in an excellent article (Centrepiece, 7 January), `has still in her gift an enormous bribe — in exchange, say, for German neutrality, nothing less than the reunification of Germany...' The offer was once formal and explicit. By the end of 1954 the Russian leaders had, in a series of well publicised diplomatic notes, agreed to all the western terms for the holding of free elections in East and West Germany, for the signing of a peace treaty with a reunited Germany and for the withdrawal of all occupying forces. The only condition on which they insisted was the exclusion of either western Germany or a reunited Germany from the western military alliance. The same terms were agreed and honoured in Austria in 1955.
Why this extraordinary opportunity was thrown away less than two years after the death of Stalin becomes clearer with every new revelation under the 30-year rule. Churchill's stroke in 1953, Eden's own serious illness at the same time and the postponement of the summit conference Churchill desired with the new Russian and American leaders seem to have allowed the policy of including the German Federal Republic in the western alliance to become irreversible. The Americans, as Lord Salisbury noted at the time with some misgiving, were uninterested in compromise, even though Kremlin policy
was regarded by our own ambassador in Moscow as having undergone a dramatic change under Stalin's successors. David Carlton (also writing in the Spectator for 7 January) is perhaps unduly gratified by the fact that Eisenhower and Dulles regarded British influence as that of a relatively insignificant world power.
Geoffrey Strickland
Department of French Studies, University of Reading
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