Thwarted Pilgrim

The big news out of Britain this week is that Winston Churchill has given up his long hopes of a "parley at the summit" with Malenkov soon. His most influential Cabinet advisers talked him out of it--with an unexpected assist from, of all people, Vyacheslav Molotov.

For more than a year Sir Winston had been rumbling in public and private about his desire to see Malenkov in a last, dramatic attempt to bring peace to the troubled world. The atmosphere of Geneva got him all stirred up again. He broached the idea to his Cabinet, which heard him in grim silence. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Lord Salisbury, leader of the House of Lords and Churchill's longtime adviser on foreign policy, objected strongly and bitterly.

Halfway House. Churchill was insistent, and the Cabinet finally gave grudging assent to Churchill's meeting Malenkov at some halfway house such as Switzerland, Sweden or Germany. The Russians, secretly sounded out at Geneva, seemed interested. Within a few days the answer came back from Molotov. Of course, Malenkov was willing to meet Churchill--but he would meet him only in Russia.

In the Cabinet, critics quickly pointed out that a solitary journey all the way to Moscow would have the appearance (particularly to the U.S.) of a "pilgrimage of surrender." If Malenkov had any intention of meeting the West halfway politically, they argued, he should surely be willing to meet Churchill halfway geographically. Churchill insisted he would go all the way to Moscow if need be.

Salisbury was ready to resign in protest, and said so. So, according to friends, was Eden. Though Eden is inclined to think that many things can be solved by friendly talks with friendly Communists, he, as Foreign Secretary, wants to do the negotiating. And in Churchill's present erratic state of health, he and many others feared that the old man might make some unwise commitment which would hobble the future Eden government. In London, on his way home from Geneva, U.S. Under Secretary of State Bedell Smith added his voice to those that were determined to keep Britain's First Minister out of Russia. U.S. intelligence believes that Malenkov is not really head man in post-Stalin Russia, he told Churchill, but shares power almost equally with Party Secretary Khrushchev and Molotov. Therefore, talking with Malenkov alone might well be a waste of time.

Moment of Defeat. The decisive argument was provided fortnight ago by the Russians themselves. Molotov dispatched a note asking for a new conference after Geneva on European security (TIME, Aug. 2). It was a clumsy and obvious piece of propaganda. In the Cabinet. Salisbury and Eden pointed out incisively that it added nothing to the very same suggestion the Russians made (and the West rejected) six months ago in Berlin. If that is all the Kremlin is ready to put forward, there was no point in a Churchill-Malenkov talk.

After these two senior colleagues had spoken, there was a moment of silence in the room. Churchill looked around slowly. "Well," he grunted, "doesn't anyone else have anything to say?" Then everyone spoke at once: they were solidly opposed to Churchill's trip.

It was a moment of defeat for the old man. and he shrugged his massive shoulders in weary recognition of it.

Grandfather's Time. Molotov's devious part in torpedoing Churchill's trip suggested that he too was not anxious for the meeting. Possible explanation: Molotov has had a large measure of personal control over Soviet foreign policy since Stalin died, perhaps has no wish to let Malenkov meddle.

But no one believed Churchill would abandon the idea for good. Some even thought he might go to see Malenkov after he had stepped down as Prime Minister (see below). He had a precedent. In the mid-1880s his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had a comparable notion that nothing but a personal pilgrimage to Russia would ease the tension between Britain and Czar Alexander III. Lord Randolph's principal opponent: Lord Salisbury, the present Lord Salisbury's grandfather--then Prime Minister--whom the Czar called "the implacable enemy of Russia." Lord Randolph resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer, a little over a year later went off to Moscow to see the Czar. He wrote from there: "Lord S. [Salisbury] may or may not be angry, but I am certain that my going to Russia has had a good effect and can at any rate do no harm." Last week son Winston was of the same mind. But, for the time at least, and probably for as long as Sir Winston is P.M., the pilgrimage is off.

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