The Russian Way

Judging by past performances, the Red delegation at the San Francisco Conference will most likely be a clamorous minority, crying foul and arguing noisily every play of the game. They will be hard to handle. However, a precedent exists for handling such difficulties, and Andrei Gromyko, head of the U.S.S.R. delegation, should be the first to recognize it. It was set by his boss, cynically shrewd Andrei Vishinsky, at the ten-power Danube Conference in Belgrade in mid-summer 1948.

That parley was designed to undo the work of the Nazis and restore freedom of navigation on the Danube. Vishinsky headed the Russian delegation, and six East European satellites followed his every cue. In the minority were the U.S., Britain and France.

U.S. Delegate Cavendish Cannon began by proposing English, as well as French and Russian, as an official conference language. Vishinsky remarked that most of the participants "loved and understood the Russian language," and by a simple majority vote of his stooges, that was that. Then Vishinsky offered a treaty which assured Russian control of the Danube as far upstream as Ulm. The three Western powers protested. Vishinsky snapped: "The door was open for you to come in; the same door is open for you to get out . . ."

The U.S. submitted a draft treaty of its own. Vishinsky brushed it aside. "What is acceptable in the U.S. draft," he said, "is already contained in the draft of the Soviet delegation. And what is not in the Soviet draft is acceptable neither to the Soviet delegation nor to the [satellite] states . . . The minority will either have to comply ... or do without. And this is your right and, I would say, this is your privilege."

The Western allies, outvoted, swallowed their right & privilege: the Russian draft was adopted without change.

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