Aftermath

Big & little voices throughout Europe icily reported last week what the failure of the Moscow Conference meant to them:

Said a ragged girl, representing Austria in a Vienna cabaret act: "I am the Cinderella of Europe, doomed to indefinite poverty and slavery because of the jealousy of my four suitors."

In Budapest, members of the Small Holders' Party (known as the Salami Party) were saying: "This will give the Communists time to slice the Salami right down to the end."

Said an old Berlin bricklayer: "Failure of this conference means we'll starve, and there is no need to hold conferences about a corpse."

In Berlin a shopkeeper said to an American woman: "I suppose you're packing now." "Why?" she asked. Said the shopkeeper: "You mean to tell me that you don't realize the consequences of Moscow's failure? Why, any day now it will happen and you'll have to leave as fast as you can."

Said a diplomat in Italy: "It is a little academic for Marshall and Molotov to chat about peace terms ending one war when they are really thinking about the most advantageous terms for waging another one--with or without guns."

Said the Paris Combat: "The world stands at the edge of an abyss. Germany will be divided into two blocs, and there will be iron curtains on both sides."

The most graphic irony of Moscow's failure was epitomized in the picture of the week--a gift from grim Foreign Minister Molotov to dogged Secretary of State Marshall. The painting, by Russian Landscape Painter V. N. Baksheev, 85, titled Toward Evening, showed a peaceful wooded scene whose tranquility was untroubled by a single human figure.

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