The Eighth Week

Breaking away from Geneva's torpid air, U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter flew to West Berlin last week to reassure 2,200,000 West Berliners that the U.S. had not forgotten its "binding commitment" to save them from Communist slavery. Said Herter: "I know that the people of West Berlin regard our troops and those of France and the United Kingdom as defenders of their freedom. I know, too, that the presence of these troops--which will be preserved--is indispensable to that freedom . . ."

The assurance was welcome to Berliners, and so was Herter. He returned to Geneva refreshed by his enthusiastic reception. The only dismaying thing about the trip was the need for it. As things were going at Geneva, a little reassurance all around was necessary. The West was being firm about defending Berlin "rights" but flexible about discussing Berlin "arrangements"; Herter worried that West Berlin morale might some day be affected by misunderstanding of such fine diplomatic distinctions.

"Mr. Gromyko," said Herter himself early in the week, "appears to mistake the moves we have made to meet him halfway as signs of weakness." And so Gromyko did. In the eighth week of "negotiations" at Geneva, with the mechanical insistence of a recorded time signal, he reiterated demands that the West could not agree to without, in effect, weakening Berlin and laying West Germany itself open to Moscow meddling. Early in the week Herter with lawyerlike logic spelled out Western objections, wound up by threatening to break off the talks unless Russia modified its stand. Gromyko then made a largely meaningless procedural concession, and agreed to discuss Berlin "simultaneously" with Russian plans for an All-German Commission. So eager is British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd to keep the talking going in Geneva so that he would not have to explain a breakoff to the House of Commons (before it adjourns July 30) that Lloyd persuaded his colleagues to forget their threats and return to the bargaining table.

By now the smoothies in every delegation who brief the gathered press at Geneva were finding it harder and harder to pretend that the allies all felt as one. The French were disgusted. The Americans were inclined to break off. The British used failure of the talks (as once they had hoped to use success of them) to argue for zooming right up to the summit. It looked as if the sad diplomatic phenomenon at Geneva might last at least two weeks more.

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