Two Planes

History moved tensely on the wings of two planes that passed last week in opposite directions over the wreckage of Europe. One, an Army transport, brought from Venezia Giulia the bodies of five U.S. flyers whose unarmed plane was shot down by Yugoslav fighters in America's first major postwar crisis. The crisis had passed, but the international tensions of which it was a peak continued. The five bodies, all crises past, lay flag-draped in the chapel of a Roman airport.

The other plane suddenly whisked Minister Vyacheslav Molotov from Paris to Moscow. He had taken French leave of his fellow peacemakers. Diplomats speculated: Had Molotov finally walked out on the conference? Would he come back? Or did his flight portend a major review of Russian tactics in face of the new tough U.S. stand? Whatever the reason, the conversations in the Kremlin must be among the most stimulating (and possibly among the most decisive) in history.

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