I Won't Play

". . . It is common knowledge," snapped the Moscow radio, "that four powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, China and Great Britain secured victory over the aggressor Japan with their armed forces. . . . The Council of Foreign Ministers, formed at the initiative of the United States, was created precisely for the preliminary work on the preparation of peace treaties and cannot therefore be ignored in the preparation of the peace treaty for Japan."

With these words the Russians last week rejected the U.S. proposal that work on a Japanese peace treaty be begun by the eleven nations of the Far Eastern Commission. The rejection caused no racing pulses in Washington. There was no sign that it would change U.S. plans to conclude a treaty with Japan as quickly as possible.

There was no validity to the Russian claim that the Foreign Ministers' Council should have jurisdiction over a Japanese treaty. The Potsdam Agreement setting up the Council was made while Russia was at peace with Japan, and is therefore concerned only with European peace settlements. Nor was it true that Russia, together with the other powers of the Foreign Ministers' Council, had borne its share of the Pacific war. Australia and the Philippines had both done more to defeat Japan than the Russian Johnny-come-latelies.

Meanwhile in Korea, where U.S. delegates had been saluted by parading leftists with clenched fists, Russians and Americans were still deadlocked in the Joint Commission. Peace for Korea was still remote. The possibility of political violence was imminent. Said a high U.S. official of this danger: "This is no longer a trend. It is a definite movement." It was so definite that U.S. authorities in Seoul had made plans to evacuate 1,000 Army families and more than 1,000 War Department employees if trouble started.

The Russians still talked optimism. Said Colonel General Terenty Shtykov, head of the Russian delegation to the Joint Commission: "There is no stalemate that may not be broken." Everybody wondered how and when the break would come.

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