Not Just "No"

Faces and days grew longer as the Foreign Ministers' Conference went into its seventh week. In the uncertain weather of a belated Moscow spring, delegates laid aside their fur-collared coats, put on trench coats or mackintoshes as delegations prepared to leave.

Time to Call. Early last week, things had looked hopeful. U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall went quietly, at 10 o'clock at night, to make his long-postponed call on Stalin. He stayed an hour and a half. At week's end what passed between the two was still a well-kept secret.

The day after the visit, those who thought the Marshall-Stalin talk would speed agreement seemed to be right. The Foreign Ministers ticked off, with minor disagreements, 15 minor articles of the proposed Austrian peace treaty. Then the sessions bogged down again. On every major question, Russia and the U.S. were at odds. Russia asked that a slice of Austria (southern Carinthia) and $150 million in reparations from Austria be given to Yugoslavia. The Western powers refused. Russia wanted "German assets" in Austria (available for seizure as German reparations) defined to include all property transferred by Austrians to Germans during the Anschluss. The Western powers wanted to except assets transferred under Nazi duress.

To Marshall, the Molotov plan meant such Russian control of the Austrian economy that Austria would become "a puppet." U.S. estimates showed that Russia would thereby control 100% of Austria's Danube navigation, 70% of her crude oil industry, 99% of her hard coal industry.

Time to Register. When Molotov once suggested that a dispute be referred to the Deputy Foreign Ministers, who should be given three days to report back, Marshall caustically replied: "It should not take them more than two hours to register their disagreements."

By week's end, the Foreign Ministers themselves had taken 43 days to register their disagreements on most issues of the peace settlements. But these disagreements, unlike those of previous conferences, were not merely repetitive U.S. "noes" to Russian demands.

The Moscow Conference marked the emergence of a positive U.S. policy which everyone, including the Russians, had known was bound to come sooner or later. Moscow understood that the Truman Doctrine implied that the U.S. would move swiftly toward the democratic reconstruction of Europe, including western Germany.

As the conference drew to a weary close, one agreement was reached that lighted up the new situation: Secretary Marshall and Foreign Ministers Bevin and Bidault concluded an agreement giving France coal from British and U.S. occupation zones of Germany. This was further evidence that the U.S. really meant to help build and guarantee a stable Europe (see below). Such moves as the French coal pact would speak more persuasively to the Russians than all the voices in all the conference rooms.

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