Lost Illusion

When the Paris Council of Foreign Ministers meeting ended last June, optimists crowed that it had settled the main differences between Russia and the West which had blocked an Austrian peace treaty. The ministers' deputies retired to London's elegant Lancaster House with instructions to draft a treaty for presentation to their bosses on Sept. 1. Last week U.S. Deputy Samuel Reber moved that the talks be suspended.

The Russians, the U.S. State Department explained, "are seeking to reserve to themselves war booty which they had previously agreed to relinquish, as well as the greater share of Austria's oil-refining capacity and oil-exploration areas, of which they were to have received only some 60% under the treaty document." So far, Russia's only "concession" has been to drop its support of claims to Carinthia made by Tito's rebellious Yugoslavia.

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