Things to Come

With the Big Four's Foreign Ministers bogged down in deadlocks at Paris last week, Jimmy Byrnes leaned forward in his armchair. He eyed the pile of papers before him on the green-topped table and waved aside the conflicts they contained. "Gentlemen," he smiled, "it appears that we all feel we cannot trust each other on small problems. Let us see if we cannot trust each other on big ones."

The Secretary of State then broke a 149-year U.S. tradition against entangling alliances, urged a 25-year renewable Big Four treaty to "insure that the total disarmament and demilitarization of Germany will be enforced as long as the peace and security of the world may require." The method: strip Germany of all war-making power, keep her stripped by setting up a four-power inspection system and military force to pounce on the slightest infringement. He also offered a similar treaty on Japan. The U.S. was willing to keep troops in both enemy countries until the four Allies agreed that an inspection and security system was functioning.

Byrnes almost pulled off something even rarer in diplomacy than in baseball--an unassisted triple play. He confirmed the world's growing belief that a strong, positive U.S. line is the best guarantee against a new war. He offered a specific solution for the German problem--the indispensable prelude to any real European settlement. Best of all, he forced a showdown on Soviet policy. Fear of German revival has been Russia's excuse for her expansionist policies in Europe. If Russia now refuses the Byrnes offer of joint big-power assistance in guaranteeing her security against such a reincarnation, she will have to find another reason for expansion that does not sound like Hitler's slogans. If Russia accepts, it should end her suspicions about U.S. cooperation.

Britain's Ernie Bevin and France's Georges Bidault approved the Byrnes plan in principle, but Russia's Viacheslav Molotov promptly countered that before he discussed a treaty to assure Germany's disarmament he would have to know just how far Germany had been disarmed. Tass, the Soviet news agency, was more explicit. It asked whether all Nazi military units had been "really dispersed" in the British zone and said that U.S. authorities, "for some reason or other," had let the Germans keep secret war enterprises.

Despite the Soviet smoke screen, Byrnes's clear affirmative had vastly improved the U.S. position; the burden of proof in a dozen international trouble spots was shifted to Russia, which would now have to show why a U.S. alliance was not a better security than land grabs. Byrnes, after months of feeble diplomacy, had boldly retrieved U.S. leadership.

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