End of a Conference

"The four Ministers were unable to reach agreement," the final Berlin communique said bluntly. Where there was division when the Ministers met--in Ger many, Austria, Europe--division still stayed when they parted. The conference broke up cleanly, and exactly on schedule. No unhappy cleanup party of subcommittee specialists was left behind to carry on. The hard fact was that in Europe at least, nothing was left to discuss. On Asia, the Big Four agreed to meet again, this time with Red China and the other nations who fought in the Korean war, on April 26 in Geneva.

On matters European, the final week of the conference gave Russia's Molotov a dialectical drubbing that he would not soon forget. France's nimble Georges Bidault, whom Molotov tried hardest to woo, tore into Russia's plan for an "us Europeans" pact that would shove the U.S. out of Europe, and leave all of Russia in. Snapped Bidault: "Lake Baikal and Vladivostok are no more European than the Mississippi and Chicago."

Fear of Freedom." The width of the chasm between East and West on such matters as free elections in Germany and Austria could be measured by two remarks. One was Molotov's aside to An thony Eden: "What matters is not elections, but what kind of government comes out of the elections. We could not toler ate a government that would be hostile to us . . ." The other was John Foster Dulles': "We were willing to place trust in the German and Austrian peoples. The Soviet Union was not . . . The Atlantic Charter to which we all subscribed called for 'freedom from fear.' Today, unhappily, the dominant note in much of the world is 'fear of freedom.' "

Invitation to Peking. Eight weeks from now the Ministers will gather again in Geneva. Their agenda is already agreed upon, and at U.S. insistence, confined to specific issues: the Korean peace conference (which 48 days of wrangling at Panmunjom failed to bring about), and "the problem of restoring peace in Indo-China."

The Geneva Conference was most of all a victory for France. By agreeing to sit down with the representatives of Red China, John Foster Dulles was deferring not to Molotov but to Georges Bidault, whose performance at Berlin had earned him U.S. gratitude. Time and again, the little Frenchman had risked his political neck by rejecting Soviet blandishments (e.g., that France and Russia could "solve" the German problem between them) in defiance of opinion back home. And when Molotov had tried to speak over Bidault's head to the French, Bidault sharply replied: "I would remind Monsieur Molotov that I am the Foreign Minister of

France, and so long as I hold that office, it is for me to interpret French opinion." Now Dulles was alarming U.S. allies in Asia (Syngman Rhee and Chiang Kai-shek), and risking the displeasure of many Americans (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), in agreeing to talk about Indo-China.

Sooner or later, Dulles knew, the war-weary French public would force its Foreign Minister to seek negotiations with the Communists. In a European city, with the U.S. and Britain at his side, Bidault would be in a far stronger position than he would alone in Asia. And U.S. participation would make it difficult for the French to make the settlement too easy on the Communists.

"It is understood," said the Berlin communique, "that neither the invitation to nor the holding of the conference shall be deemed to imply diplomatic recognition [of the Red Chinese regime]." This left Dulles free to discuss specific Far Eastern issues with Peking, without admitting the Red China government to the status of a world power.

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