"Serious Misfortune"

With the U.S., under a Republican Administration, preparing to talk turkey with Red leaders, the political opportunity is obvious for Democrats to stake out a position from which they can, if things go sour, charge the G.O.P. with being "soft on Communism." Yet no Democratic presidential candidate in his prudence would ever get that far out on such a limb; Dwight Eisenhower's prestige is too great and, what is more, things might turn out far from sour. That being the case, the party position-staking last week was left to a Democrat who is not running for any office at all. And next year Democratic candidates may be claiming that they agreed all along with "that great Democratic ex-Secretary of State, Dean Acheson."

In Bonn for a privately organized German-American conference on East West tensions, Acheson fired the most critical shots to date against President Eisenhower for going even so far as to discuss the possibility of a Berlin settlement with Russia's Nikita Khrushchev. Said Acheson: "All the trouble in Berlin is caused by Mr. Khrushchev. The situation there could endure for the indefinite future. But he decided to upset the arrangement a year ago. I would tell Mr. Khrushchev that I would not discuss Berlin. Let's talk about other matters, but there is nothing to talk about there . . . The present occupation status is quite satisfactory. It is quite adequate--leave it alone."

First to place Acheson's criticism in a political context were not Republicans, but the liberal Democratic New York Post. Taking editorial issue with a byline story by its own Washington correspondent, William V. Shannon, who described the U.S.-Russian talks as nothing more than "another form of dithering by a weak, cowardly, reactionary Administration," the Post said: "We believe the issues [Shannon] raises are especially important because his position is undoubtedly shared by a number of Democratic leaders--most conspicuously, Dean Acheson--who seem so sorely tempted to 'open up' on the President and even to raise the cry of 'softness on Communism against the Administration. In our judgment it would be a most serious misfortune if that occurred."

But if the new negotiations with Khrushchev--the summit meeting, Eisenhower's visit to Russia, or whatever--should turn into trouble, or even into increased tension between the U.S.S.R. and the West, the position taken by Dean Acheson would become a valuable platform for a Democrat to stand on.

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