The Fading Smile

Russia's Andrei Vishinsky was all unaccustomed smiles, good humor and friendliness during the first three days of the Big Four meeting in Paris. The mood carried over into the working week's one big social interlude--a state dinner given by French President Vincent Auriol for 40 top delegates and their wives. A military quartet played Debussy. Everybody wore evening clothes except Vishinsky, who showed up in a dark blue lounge suit. One of his aides apologized: "We worked so hard up to the last minute, the Minister had time only to change his shirt. We are always working, you know. In that respect we live on a plane different from that of you Westerners."

The Maximum. The different planes from which West and East looked down on Germany became more evident as the week wore on. The courtesy wilted steadily. By Thursday night the talks had reached the level of restrained acerbity. The three Western powers were asking Russia to quit stalling and tell precisely what it wanted out of the conference that it had requested as a condition for lifting the Berlin blockade. Vishinsky was snapping back that no one could "impose" on him any topics of discussion.

The Western delegates believed that Russia was pursuing the tactic of a maximum, impossible demand at the outset. Vishinsky wanted: 1) re-establishment of a four-power Control Council to exercise "supreme power" in Germany; 2) re-establishment of the Inter-Allied Kommandatura in Berlin; 3) creation of an "All-German State Council"; and 4) reestablishment of the All-Berlin Magistrat.

Clearly this meant trying to revive the corpse of the Potsdam agreement. U.S. Secretary of State Acheson called it "turning the clock back." French Foreign Minister Schuman said it would mean "returning to the point where our paths diverged . . . whereas what we are trying to do is find a point where our paths can converge again." Vishinsky retorted: "Until the peace treaty, Allied control of Germany must be as inevitable as the sun. You cannot prevent the sun from rising." Countered Schuman: "No, but you cannot return to the dawn once the sun has risen."

The Minimum. The Western delegates had no intention of losing what had been gained in Germany. German unity, they insisted, must come within the democratic framework of the Bonn constitution (see FOREIGN NEWS).

The West was not sanguine that Russia would accept this position. It expected no dramatic general settlement. But it felt reasonably sure that the Russians wanted a limited agreement. If so, at what point?

The West suspected that the point was economic. The Allied counter-blockade had hurt Russian-controlled East Germany and East Europe more than the Soviet blockade of Berlin had hurt the West. Therefore Moscow wanted to resume trade between Eastern and Western zones.

The economic point was the week's touchiest. Acheson bluntly said that, to the best of his knowledge, East Germany was a deficit economy in which the Russian state had taken possession of a third of all industrial enterprise. Vishinsky painted a different picture of East Germany. Its industrial output, he said, was 96.6% of 1936--more progress than the 90% claimed for West Germany. Britain's Ernest Bevin, cigarette drooping from a corner of his mouth, thanked Vishinsky for "this tableau of Oriental prosperity," promised to bring it to the attention of the "thousands of refugees" from Soviet Germany.

The Next Step. Should the West, too want an economic arrangement? Allied views differed. Some ECAmericans, led by European ECA Chief Averell Harriman, believed East-West trade would bring more benefits to the West (in raw materials, less U.S. aid, loosening of the Russian hold on satellite nations, etc.) than to the East. Others held that a restoration of trade would not pay off unless it was accompanied by an eastward advance of Western ideology. In return for economic benefits Eastern Europe must grant democratic political reforms.

After four days' debate on his proposals, Vishinsky asked the Westerners for their ideas. Acheson, Bevin and Schuman hammered out a proposal. Highlights: unity under the Bonn constitution, no more reparations out of current production, no Russian ownership of German industry, four-power control through a High Commission bound by majority decision "save in exceptional circumstances."

Vishinsky's reaction was unfavorable, but not immediately vitriolic. He commented that it "seems too one-sided" and said he would study it. The next step seemed to be a debate on the Western proposals. After that, some bargaining might begin.

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