Cold Finalities

Among the occupational temptations that befall diplomats is the desire to keep up appearances after it becomes impossible to keep up negotiations. Despite this itch to preserve a fictitious continuity, at certain moments in history pretense halts, and a cold finality can be plainly seen. Last week such a moment came.

In Geneva, where the spirit of Geneva was born, the spirit of Geneva was laid to rest. The man who laid it to rest was Vyacheslav Molotov. He not only destroyed the hope of a negotiated reunification of Germany, but did it with the air of a man who didn't care who knows it. In effect, Soviet Russia told the world that it had already absorbed the benefits of Geneva's relaxation of tensions, and felt no further need to feign amiability. Or, as former French Premier Georges Bidault, veteran of many arguments with Molotov, put it in an article for I.N.S.: "Molotov is saying to the Western nations : 'You are not ready to blow out the flame of hope and peace you have lighted among your own peoples. Consequently we are not worried.' "

Obliging History. The second cold finality of the week was the partition of Germany. Molotov made it plain that the Communists would not risk free elections throughout Germany, knowing they would lose. Even if West Germany were to leave NATO, the Russians would not be satisfied: the only kind of unification they could tolerate would be a united Communist Germany. This was said with the usual Communist implication that history is on their side, and they have only to wait. Perhaps the Kremlin's leaders believe that history will so oblige them; but other explanations are possible. Their decision to keep Germany divided is also an admission that they cannot control even their own section of Germany except by suppressing freedom in it, and to risk a free test there would be to risk a progressive retreat in all their satellites.

Yet some Western commentators, among them Walter Lippmann, acted as if Russia was bound, in time, to have its way in West as well as East Germany. The assumption was that once old Konrad Adenauer leaves office, other West Germans would be so keen for reunification that they would barter away their present freedom and prosperity just to be part of a poorer and Communist-dominated Greater Germany. But West Germany's preference for its own way of life is much deeper than one old man's will.

Voting with the Feet. In any competition between the two Germanys, West Germany has most of the advantages. It has 50 million people to the East's 17 million. It has absorbed 11 million people from 'the East in the past ten years, and, with its industrial miracle, has nonetheless achieved full employment. East Germany, though once a great agricultural belt, now has desperate potato queues.

In the only kind of voting that remains to the East Germans--what one British diplomat calls voting with their feet--they have chosen to flee the country at a rate which for the past three months has averaged a startling 1,000 refugees a day. And of those who are now leaving East Germany, more than half are any nation's most valuable treasure, young men and women under 25.

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