The Three Issues

Before Nikita Khrushchev made the U-2 the summit's principal topic, there were three official agenda items: 1) disarmament, 2) East-West tensions, 3) Berlin and the fate of Germany. Of these, disarmament was the only one remotely expected to produce concrete achievement.

By the eve of the Paris meeting, representatives of the three-power (Russia, U.S. and Great Britain) nuclear-controls conference in Geneva had come close to an agreement banning nuclear tests. Despite the obvious pitfalls for the West, an agreement would be the first break in Russia's long refusal to accept international inspection, and one inspection might lead to another. Even Khrushchev, with a wary eye on Red China, might have reason to welcome it: a nuclear test ban would provide him with an impeccable excuse for refusing to help Mao Tse-tung acquire nuclear weapons.

Chief dissenter might be Charles de Gaulle. Since France has no long-range missiles with which to deliver an atomic punch, De Gaulle has long argued that the first step toward nuclear disarmament should be a general scrapping of "means of delivery." This would mean that the U.S. would have to do away with its long-range rockets and bombers--which it is not prepared to do without ironclad assurance that the Russians would do likewise. Failing such an agreement, De Gaulle was determined to push ahead with his program to build a French H-bomb by next year. With 500,000 of his troops tied down in Algeria, De Gaulle was also unenthusiastic about another disarmament measure likely to be proposed: the long-discussed general reduction in conventional military forces.

De Gaulle's pet summit projects were just as unenthusiastically received by his colleagues. As one of his chief ploys, De Gaulle planned to challenge Khrushchev to cooperate with the West in a joint program of economic aid to underdeveloped nations. Both the U.S. and Britain feel that this would pervert and weaken Western aid programs. And De Gaulle's dream of a ban on arms shipments to such troubled areas as Africa is frowned on by the U.S., which argues that proud new nations will insist on getting defensive armaments somewhere--and it might as well be from the West.

The Berlin Bone. But the stickiest agenda issue was the one which precipitated the summit in the first place: Berlin.

West Berlin, said Khrushchev to Hubert Humphrey, is "a bone in my throat.'' As an island of freedom and prosperity .(see box), West Berlin constitutes a damning and unsettling contrast to the drabness of life in East Germany--a fact attested to by the 2,500,000 East German refugees who have poured into West Berlin in the last decade. Khrushchev is under pressure from his East German puppets, who complain in effect: "We cannot control these people forever unless something is done to eliminate the escape hatch that Berlin provides."

Khrushchev marched up to the summit still talking tough about Berlin. At Gorky Park last week, he repeated his threat to sign a World War II peace treaty with East Germany, thus "abolishing" Western occupation rights in Berlin. "Some say that the Western powers will try to force their way into Berlin," he added. "I want to make it clear: our military units stationed in the German Democratic Republic will counter the force of the violators."

Logic's Lesson. The Western summiteers were determined to make no real concession at all on Berlin. For Berlin has become both a symbol and a vital test of the West's determination to resist Communist encroachment against the free world. The legal foundation on which Western possession of the city rests is complex and to tamper with it is risky. As De Gaulle observed during his visit to Canada last month: "If we do not want an easing of tensions, then we can try for a solution in Berlin. But if we want an easing, we must not try for one."

Any change in the status of Berlin raises the problem of the reunification of Germany. Admit it or not, many Frenchmen and Englishmen feel that West Germany is big and powerful enough as it is. Instead of pushing for reunification, they would prefer to concentrate on completing West Germany's integration into Western Europe. Even some Germans are not eager to jeopardize their prosperity by taking on the poor farm that is East Germany. But the U.S. remains convinced that so long as Germany is divided, it will be a flash point for war. And, as a matter of conscience, the West feels strongly that East Germany's 17 million oppressed people must not be abandoned. Reunification is their last, best hope of freedom from Communism's grey tyranny, and the West, however long a decision might be postponed, cannot and will not give up the. effort.

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