Paris Revisited

Last April, TIME'S Washington Bureau reported: "The U.S. delegation is going to Paris with some hope, but fully prepared for failure."

Last week, TIME'S Washington Bureau reported: "Byrnes and his aides look forward with hope but no expectation of success to the Paris meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers."

The world could not escape the haunting feeling that it was reliving a past experience. The same diplomats with the same assistants were going to the same city, now only a little warmer and profusely decorated with roses (which the hospitable National Office of Art and Creation calls an "essentially French" flower); the same gilded chamber in the Luxembourg Palace was being dusted by the same attendants. The same Foreign Minister's Deputies were deadlocked in nearly the same hopeless rut, and were ready to hand back to their bosses nearly the same agenda.

There was Germany, on which Byrnes proposed a four-power pact to enforce her demilitarization; the Russians were still "studying" it. There was Austria, on which Byrnes had prepared a draft peace treaty; it was still ignored by the Russians. There was Trieste, still claimed by the Russians for Tito's Yugoslavia. There were Italy's reparations, still demanded by the Russians regardless of U.S. protests that they would have to come out of the U.S.'s own pocket.

In one major aspect, Paris II would be different from Paris I; in the interval, Frenchmen and Italians had strongly rebuffed Communism at the polls. This political defeat reinforced Russia's faith in military pressure, made her more intent than ever on maintaining her occupation forces by delaying the final peace treaties. But at the same time, Communism's setback had strengthened the bargaining position of Messrs. Byrnes and Bevin.

The West's patience was wearing thin, and Russia could hear the drumming of exasperated fingers on the world's council tables. Byrnes and Bevin were determined to press for a full-dress peace conference. This time, if the Ministers again failed to agree, the Western powers would reluctantly go as far as they could in writing a peace without Russia.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.