Molotov's Address to Bermuda
Mr. Molotov has given the Bermuda Conference an un- ambiguous send-off, and for this alone the. West has reason to be grateful to him. In his attempt last Friday to make it appear that Russian intentions had been misunderstood, he made them so patently clear that only fools and rogues can any longer fail to understand. Russia, he said, will not nego- tiate about Germany or any other outstanding issue at least until the West has abandoned each one of the defences that it has built up to secure itself against further encroachments. Until tension has been relaxed—that is, until America has deserted its bases in Europe, until the West has promised to leave Western Germany unarmed, until NATO has disintegrated —Russia cannot be expected to discuss, in any forum, at any level, any of the causes which have created tension. Those who would continue to misunderstand, to agitate for Sir Winston to go to Moscow, and to be nervous about American strategy in Europe, must have forgotten what those causes are and who was responsible for them. They are, first, the Kremlin's deli- berate declaration of the cold war after its refusal to participate, or to allow its satellites to participate, in the Marshall Plan; secondly, the build-up of Russia's forces while the West was dissipating nearly all the strength it had amassed by the end of the war; thirdly, the Russian obstruction of the Four Power control of Germany agreed on at Potsdam, tl—!ir attempt to isolate Berlin and their decision to seal off the Russian Zone (only this week the West has made another bid to reopen the frontiers). Not until all this and much more had occurred in the East, did the West start to defend itself.. Mr. Molotov now demands that without any alteration in Russia's achieve- ments, the West should dismantle its own. He received the inevitable answer in the Western Note delivered in Moscow on Monday—it takes two to make a change.
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