Three Surgeons

Kaiser Wilhelm had dreamed of the day when the world would be run from his ugly palace at Potsdam. Soon the world would be run from there--for a little while. The Big Three were headed there to draw some more lines on the future's blueprint.

Winston Churchill, had already left London. Tired out with campaigning (see FOREIGN NEWS), he rested at Hendaye, a pleasant town and international rumor factory on the Spanish-French border. President Truman planned to cross the Atlantic and then France without seeing Charles de Gaulle, who will visit him later in Washington. Since it would never do to give the impression of an advance Anglo-American caucus, Truman and Churchill decided not to meet before they reached Potsdam. Stalin was coming by train over rails recently changed, all the way to the Elbe, to the broad Russian gauge.

The British seemed to look to Truman to take the lead. Nobody knew what the Russians would bring up, but there was a general feeling in Moscow that they would undoubtedly take the initiative on such points as the early trial of war criminals and their own request for huge reconstruction credits.

Russia's need for postwar credit was one of Truman's bargaining points. What he might well ask in return from the Russians was: 1) as much cooperation as possible in Asia, during and after the Pacific war; 2) a pledge that Russia would not seek to communize all of Europe (see below).

Long resigned to the creation of a tightly held Russian bloc in eastern Europe, Britain has sought to strike a balance with a western bloc. Washington last week talked in other terms. It recognized that a western European bloc would always be weaker than the Russian sphere, and hoped instead for a really unified Europe, in which both the western powers and Russia would have a say.

Biggest factor in this problem of Europe was the control of Germany. Emphasis on separate zonal control would mean strong Soviet influence all the way to central Germany. Such a result at the center of European gravity might tip the scale so that all Europe would gradually slide toward Russia. Men close to Truman said that he wanted a highly integrated control of Germany, either abolishing the zones altogether, or setting policy for all of them by genuine joint action. Germany's reparations, deindustrialization, and borders were essential parts of the general question of Europe's fate.

In any event, Europe itself would have little say. Not since Charlemagne had the land between Russia and the Atlantic been so relatively weak--politically, economically, militarily. It lay, twitching but essentially passive, on the table. Three surgeons prepared to operate.

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