Inside Story

What really happened at the Washington foreign ministers' conference was very different from what was reported in the world press. The positions actually taken by each of the three ministers throw a lot of light on the failure of the Western powers to develop a new approach to the struggle with Communism over Europe.

The background of the three foreign ministers' talks on Europe was this: the old policies are running out; mutual assistance ("donation diplomacy") will face its end next-year; the European Defense Community is in grave trouble; if the French refuse to ratify EDC, the whole question of what to do about Germany is wide open again. Two months ago Sir Winston Churchill proposed direct talks between the heads of Western governments and the head of the U.S.S.R. This suggestion was enthusiastically approved by all the European neutralists and wishful thinkers. The U.S., instead, approved a French plan for a Big Three meeting at Bermuda. Churchill's illness canceled the Bermuda meeting, and the Washington conference was substituted.

The ministers failed to agree on a top-level, open-agenda meeting with the Russians, and the press generally interpreted this as a victory for the American view. London's anti-American New Statesman and Nation was particularly bitter in charging Acting British Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury with "surrender" to the Americans.

Germans Bearing Arms. The fact is that the position taken by Realist Lord Salisbury was the one least in favor of an early meeting with the Russians. He insisted that any move toward such a meeting be postponed until after the German elections and after the ratification of EDC. Those two steps, he argued, would put the Western powers in a stronger bargaining position against the Kremlin.

Most opposed to this was the French view. Georges Bidault argued that thee was no chance of getting the French Assembly to ratify EDC as long as many French leaders see a possibility of a general agreement with Russia, especially an agreement on Germany, which will avoid the necessity of letting Germans rearm as members of EDC. Bidault argued that if the Russians refused the conference, or if the conference broke down, it would be easier to get EDC through the French Assembly.

Russians Bearing Concessions? An invisible fourth party at the conference was West Germany's Chancellor Adenauer, who sent a letter advocating that the foreign ministers invite the Russians to a parley. Adenauer argued that such an invitation would help him in the German election and would help the ratification of EDC.

Somewhat surprisingly, John Foster Dulles agreed more with Bidault and Adenauer than with Salisbury. The Briton continued to argue in favor of what was expected to be the U.S. line, that it is useless and dangerous to enter into talks with the Russians on Europe until a strong Western position has been built around EDC. Finding himself alone, Salisbury reported the situation to the British cabinet, which authorized him to accept the U.S. and French view with one condition: that the French agree to go ahead with EDC regardless of the outcome of the proposed conference.

Formally, Bidault accepted this proposal, but he told the conference that in the unlikely event of the West and Russia agreeing on Germany, EDC would become unnecessary.

The conference adds up thus: Salisbury had the clearest long-range line. Dulles seemed to have few positive ideas of what the conference should do. Bidault had a narrow, short-range view, looking more toward the appeasement of the French neutralists than toward the construction of an anti-Communist Western Europe.

In the big decision of the conference, Bidault's view was more influential than the others'. By agreeing to invite the Russian foreign minister to a limited conference, the foreign ministers gained some short-run tactical advantages in French and German internal politics. For this, the price was the unreality of inviting the Russians to a conference which all three Western ministers think will fail. If the Russians are smart enough to play it the other way, a few concessions on their part might finish EDC's chances.

The most hopeful result of the conference was the discovery that in Salisbury Britain has a Foreign Secretary who can stand up for a strong line.

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