When Is a Neutral?

As the price for freedom. Austria pledged the Russians that it would remain "neutral." Chancellor Julius Raab argued that this meant not only military neutrality but also "ideological neutrality," and ordered the Austrian press and radio not to say anything that might annoy the Communists. If everybody spoke the Communists fair, he argued, the Russians might scale down the reparations exacted under the state treaty. Raab carried this notion so far that a commentator was cut off the government-controlled radio for giving a mildly pro-Western account of the Geneva Conference.

Raab's coalition partners, the Socialists, argued that nobody ever got anything by appeasing the Russians: Austria was sentimentally and emotionally in the Western camp and should make this plain. Many of Raab's own People's Party agreed. Last week Raab gave way to his critics. Foreign Minister Leopold Figl announced that Austria had decided to join the Council of Europe.

"We are militarily a neutral state," he declared, "but there is no neutrality of spirit for us, and therefore no 'neutralism.' " Simultaneously, Raab let it be known that Austria had decided not to accept Russia's offer of a $20 million loan, but had agreed instead to accept an American loan on the same easy terms.

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