ADENAUER'S PRISONERS
WHETHER by virtue of his uninhibited talent for clowning in public, or his conversational persuasiveness in private, Mr. Mikoyan seems to have done a remarkable softening-up job on Mr. Dulles, who surprised his press conference on Tuesday by saying that free elections are not the only way towards the unification of Germany, and that he never said they were, and by the sweet reasonableness of his argument that the Soviet Union could hardly be expected to yield military advantages to its potential enemies, and that this was a simple, elementary fact. For the first time ' since the Berlin blockade, and earlier, the two greatest powers are vying with one another in talking good sense, in a conciliatory tone of voice, and with some sort of respect for, and frankness about, each other's point of view. The newspapermen at Mr. Dulles's Washington con- ference can hardly have been more surprised than the newspaper readers of Moscow, picking up their copies of /zvestia on Sunday, and finding there uncommented upon, and unattacked, the whole of the British Note of December 31—sum- mary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and all. At Geneva, not only have the Russians dropped their insistence that agreement on the banning of nuclear tests must be for ever (a proviso the Western powers were not yet ready for), but they have themselves amiably requested the resumption of the other conference—on the pre- vention of siirprise attacks—which we had thought they were being stickily uncooperative about.
The awkward customer that faces the West now, in fact, is not so much the Soviet Union, which will strike hard bargains, but is clearly anxious to come to an agreement about Germany, but West Germany itself or, at any Tate, its present Chancellor, whose current attitude makes it virtually impossible even to try to do so. All political parties in West Germany (and in Britain) agree with Dr. Adenauer in opposing the establishment of Berlin as a 'free city,' but opinion in Bonn is nothing like so unanimous in opposing the Soviet suggestion of framing a peace 'treaty before reunification. The Social Democrats in particular, and even some Christian Democrats, such as the President of the Bundestag, believe that a peace treaty would do much to weaken the, East German regime, by obliging it to stand on its own feet, instead of relying on Soviet military and political support; it is to the advantage of the Soviet Union to put the treaty first, or it would not do so, and here is a case, they say, where the advantage is not all on one side, and where the Russians are prepared to take a chance for the sake of putting off free elections. Dr. Adenauer has always set his stubborn face against a treaty first, but facts are facts, and after fourteen years the regime in East Germany is almost one of Mr. Dulles's 'elemental, primitive facts of life'; obviously, the men in power there, and the men in the Kremlin to whose interest it is that they should remain in power, are not going to allow free elections to bring it to the ground if they can possibly help it. All this is perfectly clear to the United States, British and French Govern- ments, and it is to be hoped that they can bring ' Dr. Adenauer to see reason--perhaps by showing how convenient is the Soviet offer to swop guaranteed access to West Berlin for recognition of the Ulbricht regime—and by pointing out the further possibility of a consequent withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany. This balancing and bargaining, not intransigence, is the way to the reunification of Germany, upon which Dr. Adenauer has set his heart. If it is argued that the latest Soviet proposals, for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from both Germanys within the year, is militarily dangerous to the West, because it still leaves Soviet tanks- within a petrol-fill of Berlin, can it really be argued, too, that the present position is any less dangerous? Better a position of some military delicacy between satisfied powers that have done a deal than between powers that are still fencing, and still frustrated. But Dr. Adenauer holds the whip hand. Loyalty to an ally prevents our doing a deal with the Soviet Union over his head, or behind his back—which is to say with hi S political opponents. The West is as much a prisoner of Dr. Adenauer as the United States is of General Chiang Kai-shek. It is implausible to pretend that Germany can now be unified as though the past fourteen years had never been; East and West must accept that some sort of federal or confederate system, and not a unitary State, is the most suitable form of all-German government for som,., time to come. * * Perhaps Mr. Mikoyan will persuade Mr. Eisen- hower, when he sees him in the course of the next_ few days—and this meeting is in itself a diplomatic success for Mr. Mikoyan—to agree to an early meeting with Mr. Khrushchev; and per- haps a conference at this level, anxious to come to an agreement over Germany, as a forerunner of other agreements, will find means to persuade Dr. Adenauer to make such an agreement possible—. or to arouse enough West German enthusiasm' for his fellow-countrymen to do the persuading. A present difficulty is that Mr. Eisenhower is clearly not fit for talks of this kind, with men of this calibre, and is probably just as aware of the fact as are the American people, who are almost too mindful of Yalta, Potsdam, and how smart- aleck Soviet leaders can run diplomatic rings round ailing and elderly American presidents. Mr. lvfikoyan's personal success in the United States may turn out to be a less helpful factor in promoting a summit conference than the Russians must obviously be hoping. It is only a step from saying, as American businessmen have been doing, and adMiringly,, that this is a clever fellow, who knows what's what, to wondering whether he isn't a sight too clever for poor Ike.
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