Meeting at the Monument

In Geneva's Palais des Nations, an immense pillared monument to man's previous failure to legislate peace, the top statesmen of the free and Communist worlds will sit down together next week to talk peace in Asia. The prospect is not a meeting of minds, but a collision.

The sound and flurry of preparations stirred the glistening lakeside city where the League of Nations died of neglect and its own fears. Carpenters hammered.

Electricians wrestled with festoons of wire. Vacuum cleaners whined. Hotel proprietors wrung their hands over the flood of demands for rooms--more than 3,000 in all. For the top men--Dulles of the U.S., Eden of Britain, Bidault of France, Chou En-lai of China--villas by the lake were temporarily vacated by the owners and refurbished for the occasion. For Russia's Molotov, a wealthy Geneva aristocrat reluctantly gave up his palatial suburban chateau. The Russians promptly had it ringed with barbed wire.

Aching for Peace. But the important preparations were those that went on last week outside Geneva, in the councils of the Western powers. Geneva presents more hazard than opportunity to Western diplomats. At Berlin the democratic allies faced a Russia on the defensive and were themselves negotiating from strength; on the eve of Geneva they stand less tightly united. France aches for negotiated settlement of the war in Indo-China. Britain is in a mood to talk concessions--perhaps U.N. membership for Red China--if it can get something in return.

Cabled TIME'S London Bureau Chief Andre Laguerre: "Berlin was kid stuff compared to Geneva. The Communists are playing for big stakes. They are aiming at nullifying, if not destroying, the Franco-American alliance around which U.S. policy in Western Europe has had to be built, and at tipping the balance of power in Asia (and therefore in the world) against the West. Some Europeans are fascinated by the idea of talking to real, live Red Chinese and real, live Viet Minh rebels. But theories about separating Communists through diplomatic maneuvers spring from wishful thinking.

"There may be bitter rivalries between Chinese and Russian leaders, just as there doubtless are inside the Kremlin itself. But these men are united in their will to dominate the world. The questions of recognition of China or her admission to the U.N. are side issues. The Communists will not give up North Korea unless forced, because they intend to use it to conquer the rest of Korea and then Japan. The Communists will not give up Indo-China, because they intend to use it to conquer India."

Jolting the Despair. Dulles' call for "united action" against Communism in southeast Asia and his fireman's trip to London and Paris to accept unity statements that promised far less (see below) had an important psychological objective: to jolt the French and British out of their concession-bent state. The first essential is that the French should not, out of despair, give in at Geneva. On this score, Dulles' attempt to "internationalize" the war has already made it more difficult for France to pull out. There were signs last week in London and Paris that his efforts were having a spine-stiffening effect.

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