Architect of Neutrality

The only man who ever talked the Russians into letting go of some real estate is portly Julius Raab, 69, Chancellor of Austria for the past eight years. He is the architect of Austria's prosperous neutrality, and, in fact, of its postwar independence. Last week, ailing with diabetes and the aftereffects of a 1957 stroke, Julius Raab decided the time had come to retire.

Back in 1953, when it still looked as if the Russians were going to occupy their zone of partitioned Austria forever, grassroots Politician Julius Raab in a friendly but firm way ousted his People's Party colleague, Leopold Figl, from the chancellorship. And although pro-Western Figl was kept on as Foreign Minister, Austria's relations with the Western powers were judiciously permitted to deteriorate until Raab, hat humbly in hand, could travel to Moscow as something of a neutral. On that trip in 1955, he took with him a delicate proposal: an offer of Austrian neutrality in return for his country's independence.

Molotov stared at Raab through his pince-nez, and let him wait a spell in Moscow. Presently, for reasons that Raab professes still mystify him, the Russians consented to give Austria the state treaty that they had denied it for ten years. Molotov personally went to Vienna to sign the document, and when he did so (with a U.S.-made, gold-plated fountain pen at 11:34 a.m. on May 15, 1955), it marked the apogee of Julius Raab's career.

The neutrality that Raab conceded the Russians (after prior clearance with John Foster Dulles) even proved lucrative. The U.S. has given Austria aid totaling $1,200,000,000 since 1945, and the Russians have countered by permitting the Austrians to keep at least some of the reparations Russia had originally demanded as the price of independence ($152 million in goods plus 1,000,000 tons of Austrian oil annually for ten years). The Russians had nationalized most of the economy in their zone. Though a free-enterpriser by inclination, Raab deferred to his Socialist coalition partners who wanted to keep it that way. Austria today is one of the most nationalized non-Communist countries in the world.

In the eight years under Raab, the national income doubled, gold and foreign-exchange reserves rose to $672 million. The tourist industry, Austria's most important, is currently sluicing in wealth at an annual rate of $239 million. Vienna, no longer a divided city, shook off its Third Man atmosphere of shabby spies and furtive black-marketeers, is once again one of Europe's gayest capitals.

Raab picked and groomed his own successor--jovial, Tyrol-born Alfons Gorbach. 62, a longtime People's Party leader in the province of Styria. Contented Austrians hope that their new Chancellor will keep things pretty much the comfortable way Julius Raab left them.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.