Coo

Whatever his chief target may have been, Generalissimo Joseph Stalin's peace talk, like a swivel-mounted machine gun, raked world affairs from a variety of interesting angles last week. The talk consisted of answers to nine apparently prearranged questions by London Sunday Times Russophile Correspondent Alexander Werth.*

Stalin's three chief points: 1) there is no real danger of war; 2) Western capitalism could not encircle Russia, if it tried; 3) Russia and the West can collaborate peacefully under the "Communism in one country" formula.

Some of the things Stalin said were pure eyewash--such as his claim that foreign Communist Parties are not controlled by Moscow, and that certain "military-political agents" (ostensibly in the U.S.) are stirring up war rumors in order to delay demobilization (actually, the U.S. is disarming at a far more rapid rate than Russia). Some were self-contradictory--such as his swaggering assertion that the atom bomb was merely a weapon to "intimidate weak nerves," but that it nevertheless constituted a threat to world peace./- Other things, such as his assertion that Russia was not planning to use Germany against the West, were made suspect by current Soviet policy and pronouncements. Three days after Stalin's statement, Pravda called for an "offensive against the ideology of the capitalist world."

Tactical Maneuver. Even most skeptics believed that Stalin really wanted peace, for the time being. But few believed that his assurances marked more than a tactical change in Russia's expansionist drive. In their opinion, the statement was designed:

1) To calm the war-weary Russian people's own jittery nerves;

2) To give timely aid & comfort to the miscellaneous followers of Henry A. Wallace and others of their ilk abroad, thus stirring up a popular clamor to make Western Governments appease Russia further;

3) To drive a wedge between the U.S. and Britain by making a honeyed special appeal for smoother Anglo-Russian relations.

Said Britain's Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin: "A little lifting of the clouds. . . . But . . . it is the approach in the conference room to actual problems . . . that matters." Cried Otto Grotewohl, leader of Germany's Communist-run S.E.D.: "Here speaks a man free of atom-bomb - psychosis. . . . " Said Paris' L'Epogue: "Stalin must not take us for moujiks. . . ." Said L'Aurore: "Stalin says: 'My hammer works for peace.' We reply: 'Then stop sharpening your sickle.' "

One fact stood out clearly: the universal sigh of relief that greeted Stalin's peace coo showed how well the world understood that the only possible threat to peace came from Russia. Most reassuring point: the statement seemed to remove for the time being the greatest source of war danger--the possibility that the Kremlin might underestimate the power and purpose of the U.S. and Britain, and rashly precipitate a situation which would make war inevitable.

* Werth was not permitted to file his story until Radio Moscow broadcast it. That put the -whole world press ahead of Werth's weekly paper (it has no connection with the daily London Times'), which had to wait five full days before printing his "scoop."

/- General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower disagreed. Said he: the atom bomb is the most destructive weapon in the history of warfare.

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