Peace in September

San Francisco, where the United Nations began, will be the place where the war with Japan is formally ended. Last week the State Department named the site and the date: Sept. 4. Not likely to accept State's invitation: Soviet Russia. Not to be invited: Nationalist and Red China. Because of U.S. and British differences over which government rules China, it will be left up to Japan to decide with which Chinese regime she later wishes to sign a peace treaty.

The China compromise, drawn to fit both U.S. and British positions, was a good example of the complex problems which faced Ambassador John Foster Dulles when he drew up the treaty draft. He was just back from Europe, where he talked fast to overcome British and French objections. The U.S. wants a "peace of reconciliation," e.g., no reparations, no strictures on Japanese trade. The British, worried in particular by competition from the Japanese shipbuilding and textile industries, wanted a more punitive peace. The French indicated that they wanted to do nothing to irritate Russia. Dulles' reply to the French: if the U.S. has, to choose between abandoning its terms on the Japanese peace treaty or breaking openly on this issue with France, the U.S. would choose to go ahead with the peace treaty. His firm talk carried the day. These problems licked, State scheduled just four days in San Francisco for the treaty-signing ceremonies.

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