The German Note

In the Kremlin last week, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky handed out identical notes to the Ambassadors of the U.S., Britain and France, proposing a Big Four conference, not later than October, on the question of an all-German government and a German peace treaty. This was the latest of many Kremlin attempts to weaken the alignment of the Bonn government with the West by holding up the illusory prospect of "unification." More & more Germans are waking up to the fact that the only unity Russia really wants for Germany is the graveyard unity of total Soviet control.

Last spring the Western powers informed Moscow that before Germany could be "unified," free and fair elections would have to be held all over the country. The U.N. Assembly had already set up a commission to determine whether such elections could be held in West Germany, Berlin and East Germany, but the commission was denied access to the Soviet zone. Last week Moscow grudgingly accepted discussion of an election commission as part of the agenda for its proposed Big Four meeting, although denouncing it as an "insult" to the German people. On the surface this looked like a change of stance for the Russians--but the gimmick was not hard to find. The election commission was relegated to Item 3 on the proposed agenda. Items 1 and 2 would deal with the framing of the all-German government and the peace treaty. Thus, in a Panmunjom type of marathon, the Russian negotiators could haggle and stall endlessly over Items 1 and 2, meanwhile holding up the European Army.

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