Black Bands of Mourning

As the four Foreign Ministers shook hands and left for home, the West Berlin Freedom Bell, donated by Americans as a tribute to Berlin's fight against Communist encroachment, pealed forth in somber tones across the snow-covered city that now was doomed to more years of division. The bell tolled for heavy hearts on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Most disappointed of the Europeans were 7,000,000 Austrians. Their hopes of a treaty had been highest. For a year, Austrian Chancellor Julius Raab had been dickering with the Russians behind the allies' back, offering to neutralize Austria in return for the evacuation of the Red army. Now Raab was humiliated. The fiasco at Berlin had moved his countrymen like few events in their national experience. People's Party newspapers appeared with black bands of mourning. The Socialists, who opposed Raab's playing footsie with the Communists, would not let him forget it.

But Austrians still endorsed their Chancellor's final rejection of Molotov's Berlin proposals. Wrote the Socialist Arbeiter: "Molotov suggests that Russian troops should no longer form an army of occupation. Would that mean we could . . . prosecute violators of Austrian women if, as usual, they took refuge in Russian barracks?"

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