Condemned to Talk

It is a cold-war truism that any real break in the ice pack must come from the Kremlin--and recent drips of thaw have raised hopes that Russia may actually be ready for the break. How realistic are such hopes? Part of the answer can be found in the history of past disarmament negotiations, atomic test-ban talks, and attempts to achieve peace in the world through the medium of summitry.

Disarmament: Attention now centers on an 18-nation conference, due to convene in Geneva on March 14, to discuss disarmament under United Nations sponsorship.

Throughout the 20th century civilization has looked toward and talked about disarmament not only as an escape from war's agony but as a method of channeling mankind's substance toward productive means.

Beginning with the Hague conference of 1907, international disarmament talks, at one level or another, have been held again and again.

Among the few occasions on which any sort of agreement was reached were the 1921 Washington Naval Disarmament Conference and a similar London conference in 1930. As it turned out, those agreements in effect enabled Germany and Japan to cut into the naval superiority of Britain and the U.S., with results that became tragically apparent during World War II.

Since 1946, cold-war disarmament proposals and counterproposals have been presented in an unceasing stream. Last week, at his press conference, President Kennedy reiterated the vital U.S. demand for the "effective inspection, which, of course, must be part of any effective disarmament agreement." But this is precisely the issue on which disarmament negotiations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have bogged down countless times in the past--and there is no indication that the Kremlin is ready to give way. The outlook, therefore, for Geneva: more talk about disarmament, but no agreement.

Atom Testing: Almost since the moment that the first atomic bomb burst upon Hiroshima, the free world and the Communists have been talking--and disagreeing--about control of nuclear weaponry. In October 1958 the U.S., the U.S.S.R. and Britain began test-ban talks in Geneva. The conference finally broke up, after 353 sessions, without the slightest sign of substantive agreement. The U.S. and Britain have insisted on control by inspection; Russia has not been willing to allow meaningful inspection.

Yet even while those talks were under way, both Russia and the U.S. announced that they were voluntarily suspending atomic tests. The U.S. lived up to the moratorium in word and deed. But Russia used the interim to make vast preparations for the series of Soviet atomic tests in the atmosphere that began last September. Studies of those tests have made it critically clear that the U.S. must itself resume atmospheric testing if it is to regain the huge lead it once held over the Soviet Union in nuclear weaponry. This week the National Security Council is scheduled to suggest a specific date, probably in April, for the resumption of atmospheric tests in the Pacific.

Even if the U.S. and Russia were able to arrive at some sort of test-ban treaty, it would be worth less than its weight in paper if it did not include other nations--as, for a prime example, Red China. Asked about this problem at last week's press conference, President Kennedy replied: "It is a question which waits for us before the end of the road is reached, and it would be a very difficult one." Summitry: Inevitably, the talk about possible breakthroughs led toward proposals for person-to-person conversations at the summit. Nikita Khrushchev was already insisting that the Geneva disarmament meeting be turned into a summit session. The U.S. and Britain last week sent mild refusals, saying in effect: not until the delegates to the Geneva conference can report some evidence of progress toward a disarmament agreement.

The history of cold-war summitry is one of hopes raised, then dashed.

In 1955 came the "Spirit of Geneva" and in 1959 came the "Spirit of Camp David"--yet the cold war continued. In 1960 came a summit meeting in Paris--which Khrushchev deliberately torpedoed with his yowlings about the U-2 incident.

In June 1961 came the Vienna meeting between Khrushchev and President Kennedy; Khrushchev used the occasion to lay down anew his ultimatum about Berlin.

Last week, as Communist troops remained on the offensive in South Viet Nam and as Russian jets buzzed Allied planes in the Berlin air corridor, there seemed little likelihood that international talks could lead to anything beyond more talks.

The truism remains; the break must come from Moscow. And although many observers sense a ferment of liberalized thought within the Soviet Union itself, the U.S.S.R. is still a captive of its satellite system, which would almost certainly break up in the event of a substantive cold-war breakthrough anywhere on earth.

Yet for all that, discussion--even without agreement--has positive values. It can furnish clues to developing Communist policy. Far more important, it is necessary to keep the Kremlin fully informed of basic Western positions, thereby minimizing the chance of war-through-miscalculation in the age of the atom.

In a strong sense, then, the great cold-war adversaries are condemned to keep right on talking.

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