Peace, But Not at Any Price

Peace But Not At Any Price

The uncertainty and negation were over. Last week, in the most important speech he has made since he took office, Secretary of State Acheson said firmly that the U.S. was intending no new appeal to Russia-- and explained why. In doing so,Acheson sought to quiet those Americans who wanted some kind of spectacular new approach to the Kremlin. Just as emphatically, he rejected Russian hints that it might be possible to divide the world peacefully into two spheres. The U.S., said Acheson, was willing to "coexist" with the Communists--to use the current Soviet phrase for it--but only on realistic and hardheaded terms.

Even as the four-engined Sacred Cow roared bumpily westward from Washington, Dean Acheson was mulling over the lines of his speech so that no phrase would be lost in rough-edged delivery. In the ornate presidential suite of San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel, he was at it again, reading it over to his aides, experimenting with tricks of rephrasing and deciding precisely where an upsweep of his spectacles-case would lend the best visual punctuation. The Secretary of State wanted no misunderstandings of what he had to say.

What separates Russia and the U.S. "is a moral issue of the clearest nature," he told 8,000 intent teachers and students jammed into the University of California's cavernous men's gymnasium--and another 2,000 who sprawled on the grass outside, listening to booming loudspeakers. "It cannot be evaded. Let us make no mistake about it." The West was now, and would always be, at odds with a philosophy which claimed "a monopoly of the knowledge of what was right and what was wrong for human beings . . . Yet it does not follow from this that the two systems, theirs and ours, cannot exist concurrently . . ."

Cooperation Takes Two. On what terms should the U.S. be willing to "coexist" with Russia? Not on Russian promises, said Dean Acheson coldly, for they would not be kept; Russia must prove its good intentions by its conduct. Thereupon the Secretary of State laid down seven conditions (see box).

"These are some of the things which we feel that the Soviet leaders could do . . ." he said. "They are not things that go to the depths of the moral conflict. They are not things that promise the Kingdom of Heaven. The United States is ready, as it has been and always will be, to cooperate in genuine efforts to find peaceful settlements. Our attitude is not inflexible, our opinions are not frozen, our positions are not and will not be obstacles to peace. But it takes more than one to cooperate . . . We are always ready to discuss, to negotiate, to agree, but we are understandably loath to play the role of international sucker . . . We want peace, but not at any price . . ."

No Miracle Expected. Obviously, Dean Acheson did not expect the Russian bear to roll over and play dead. What he was demanding was, in effect, that Russia abandon its inordinate ambitions and its determination to enslave the world, and of course he expected no such miracle. In fact, the preceding day, addressing an overflow luncheon at San Francisco's famed Commonwealth Club, Acheson had spoken with new forthrightness on the need for bold counter-measures in Asia, where the vast empire of China had already fallen to Communism while the U.S. stood helplessly by. And he pointedly warned the Chinese Communists that they would risk "grave trouble" and would violate U.S. interests if they reached beyond their southern borders. More plainly than ever before, the U.S.S.R. had been told where the U.S. stood on all fronts of the cold war.

The reaction in Moscow came as quickly as a bludgeon could be raised. The Russian press paid Acheson the compliment of its ugliest abuse.

He was called a "simpleton," a "Fascist-minded diplomat," an "incorrigible and unceremonious liar" and a "hired lackey of the warmongers." Soviet Playwright Anatoly Surov (whose Mad Haberdasher, the story of Harry Truman, is a government-blessed hit in Moscow) contributed the final touch to such state occasions --the comparison of the villain to the animal world:"Squirming in the mud of his own inventions, getting entangled in absurd statements, gushing with slander, Acheson crawls to the end of his speech like a grass snake."

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