Peace Is Possible

In a sweeping, ambitious and eloquent address, Sir Winston Churchill this week gave Britain's own answer to the Communist peace offensive. He went further than President Eisenhower did, and proposed that East and West should negotiate now, in detail and privately, at a big-power conference. The speech put into words his longtime dream of a grand conclave which might bring "a generation of peace."

The House of Commons was packed as the Prime Minister rose to speak, and in the visitors' gallery a phalanx of 21 ambassadors waited expectantly. Sir Winston explained that he was filling in for his ailing Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who will be away from his desk "for several months" after two gall bladder operations. But his speech was bold Churchillian, not cautious Foreign Office. "My knowledge, such as it is," said the 78-year-old Prime Minister, "is not mainly derived from books or documents about foreign affairs, but through having lived through them for a long time."

Big Power Conference. Stalin's death, he surmised, seems to have induced "a change of attitude and, we all hope, of mind" in the Soviet Union. So far, said Churchill, the Communists have merely "[left] off doing things which we have not been doing to them." But the Prime Minister regards "the internal manifestations ... as far more important than what has happened outside," and he solemnly warned the West not to underrate "what might be a profound movement of Russian opinion ... It would, I think, be a mistake to assume that nothing can be settled with the Soviet Union unless or until everything is settled."

Churchill proposed "a conference on the highest level . . . between the leading powers, without delay. There should be no rigid agenda, jungle of details or armies of officials. The conference should be confined to the smallest number of powers and persons possible. There should be a measure of informality and a still greater measure of privacy and seclusion."

New Locarno. The West should be prepared to offer Moscow assurances against attack from a united and rearmed Germany. He harked back to the 1925 Locarno Pact--"the highest point that we reached between the wars." Locarno, explained Churchill, "was based upon the remarkable provision that if Germany attacked France we would stand with the French, and that if France attacked Germany we would stand with the Germans."

Churchill proposed to apply the principle of Locarno to Russia and Germany, the West threatening punishment to whichever one first attacked the other. "Russia has the right to feel assured that the terrible events of the Hitler invasion would never be repeated and that Poland would remain a friendly power and a buffer, though not. I hope, a puppet."

Truce in Korea. In the Far East, Churchill was decidedly conciliatory. Said he: "I should be very content with even a truce and a cease-fire for the moment . . . Terrible injuries have been done each other by the North and South Koreans. But even if both sides only stood still where they were now and ceased fire and tried to replace foreign troops by Korean forces . . . time might once again prove to be a healer."

"There is no reason known to me at present to assume that [Peking's latest proposal] might not form the basis of agreement, provided always that it is put forward by the Communists in a spirit of sincerity . . ."

Stand Fast. In the Middle East, Churchill gave warning that Britain will stand fast until the Egyptian government signs an international agreement providing adequate defense for the Canal Zone. If the Egyptian army, "which is being aided and trained by Nazi instructors," tries any monkey tricks, Britain will defend itself. "Unfortunately," he growled, "it was necessary for Naguib to gain as much popularity as possible by the well-known process of taking it out on the British."

This was his most aggressive passage, and brought loud cheers. No such aggressive note marked his references to the Communists, but he warned that peace is not to be had simply by the seeking. "This would be the most fateful moment for the free nations to relax their comradeship and preparations," he said. "To fail to maintain our defense up to the limit of our strength would be to paralyze every beneficent tendency towards peace both in Europe and Asia."

"It might be," Churchill recognized, "that no hard and fast agreement would be reached" at a big-power conference. "But there might be a general feeling among those gathered together that they might do something better than tear the human race, including themselves, into bits ... At the worst, the participants would establish more intimate contacts.

At the best, we might have a generation of peace ... I do not see why anyone should be frightened at having a try."

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