Slow Peace

The prospect of a Big Power conference no longer excited the naive hope and fear which would have attended it a year ago. It was unlikely that next week's Paris meeting of the Big Four Foreign Ministers would greatly ease or greatly aggravate the chronic competition between Russia and the West.

The job was to draft peace treaties for Germany's defeated satellites. In London, the Deputy Foreign Ministers had vainly tried it, six days a week, for twelve weeks. They failed because Russia wanted 1) to consolidate her already pre-eminent position in the Balkans, and 2) to push on into the Mediterranean. The Western powers were resisting that advance.

Specifically, Russia wanted sole trusteeship over Tripolitania, while the U.S. wanted four-power trusteeship. Russia wanted Trieste for Tito's Yugoslavia, while the U.S. and Britain wanted to leave it to Italy (with the port itself under international control). Russia wanted recognition of Bulgaria's regime, which the U.S. and Britain found unrepresentative.

One of Moscow's most insistent demands was $300 million worth of reparations from Italy--one-third to Russia, the rest to Yugoslavia and Greece. The U.S. and Britain contend that this would permanently ruin Italy, already bankrupt.

The U.S. delegation was going to Paris with some hope of progress, but fully prepared for failure. If the failure is complete, the peace conference, scheduled for May 1, would have to be postponed. The Russians had significantly requested that the word "peace" be dropped from its official title. And last week Paris, which had eagerly spruced up for the great occasion, sadly announced that the chance of accord was so slim that invitations to the waiting delegates would not be sent out yet. In 21 countries, some 800 peacemakers wondered when & if their services would be needed.

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