In & Out of the Potatoes

It was 6 a.m. in Moscow. Factory workers on their way to their jobs queued up, as usual, for their morning papers. Then they saw the headlines: America had proposed a conference to "compose differences." Through the grey dawn, the news spread rapidly. Before Moscow's huge notice boards, in trolleys and subways, people happily nudged each other and said: "Good, huh? Good!" Cried a young teacher: "There are many honest fellows in America who don't want war." An engineer told an American: "Molotov will get together with you folks yet, you just see."

Hope in the Morning. With the rising sun, the sudden glare of urgent, unreasoning hope spread. Said a Greek government official: "This may mean the end of the civil war." Said the Manchester Guardian: ". . . An act of statesmanship." In Paris, Canard Enchaine kidded happily: "General de Gaulle has sent a message to Maurice Thorez, saying the door remains wide open . . . Gaston Palewski [one of the general's chief aides] has stated he is ready to engage in conversations with Jacques Duclos' chambermaid . . ." Newsboys brandished their headlines like victorious flags. "No more cold war," cried Franc-Tireur, "the ice is broken."

For 36 hours the world lived in strange, unreal excitement, spoke in lavender & top-hat terms of "demarches" and "settlements." It even seemed as though Moscow had toned down its radio attacks on the U.S. "They"--the dread pair of antagonists--were going to get together to talk out their differences, as if only the wrinkle in Molotov's forehead and the puff of George Marshall's lips had prevented complete agreement between the U.S. and Russia all these months. An anonymous Nanking man-in-the-street was more realistic: "Heng hao" (very good), said he. "Now will the price of rice go down?"

Other people began to wonder about the price of rice--and of peace. Was the U.S. indeed striving for peace--or for appeasement? The U.S. had not told any of its friends what it was doing; some Western European diplomats felt as though a vague but vast doublecross was going on over their heads. One Paris theory: that the U.S. would withdraw support from Western Union in exchange for a Russian promise to muzzle Communist parties outside Russia and the satellite states. The other, more widespread-guess among Europe's startled statesmen was that the U.S. was merely trying to beat Moscow to a propaganda pedestal: we-love-peace-more-than-you-do. But when Washington finally got around to "clarifying" its action, it turned out that both these schools of thought had vastly overestimated Washington's foxiness.

Bitterness in the Evening. It was teatime in London when Secretary of State Marshall announced that the U.S. note had been distorted by Moscow, and that no bilateral talks were envisaged (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). The letdown was sudden and bitter. The Manchester Guardian began writing its next-day editorial: ". . . It begins to look as though the U.S. Government has sadly bungled . . ." The London Times defended the U.S. in the manner of a kindly adult speaking of a backward child: "The Americans seem to have acted unwittingly [but] the Russians must have known what they were doing."

It was evening when the news reached Berlin: MARSHALL DOES NOT WANT DISCUSSION. A Berlin factory worker spoke for most Europeans: "These Allies! Damn them all. First they put out peace feelers, then they withdraw them as soon as the other fellow takes them seriously. 'Rin in die Kartoffeln, 'raus aus die Kartoffeln!" (Into the potatoes, out of the potatoes).

Between Naivete & Scheming? Britain's Ernie Bevin came to Washington's help. "If an Ambassador cannot go to a Foreign Minister in another country and discuss quite frankly . . . without publication," said Bevin in the House of Commons, "the situation is not only intolerable but peace is impossible." But a lot of Europeans had the feeling of being America's puppets rather than its partners, along with the old suspicion that the U.S. was forever oscillating between naivete and inept scheming.

As the fantasy of quick and easy peace faded out, people in the West could blame themselves for their own share in the fantasy. They remembered--as Harry Truman and George Marshall floundered last week to remind them--that if Moscow had indeed changed its dogmatic objectives, those new and friendly purposes could be proved, overnight, on a dozen fronts from the Elbe to Korea. The West would do well to wait for such proof. With second thoughts this week, people could acknowledge that the U.S. had been neither scheming nor malign.

It was easy to see, now, that the Kremlin had merely achieved for awhile, and by a diplomatic trick, the propaganda pedestal of Peace Lover No. 1. But the U.S. had ineptly given the Kremlin the perfect setup for its trick. Nothing could alter the fact that the world's most powerful country, the West's defender and champion, could on occasion look unprepared, irresolute and not quite bright.

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