ASSURANCES TO SOVIET

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27165, 8 October 1953, Page 11

ASSURANCES TO SOVIET

Non-Aggression Pact Move (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 pan.) WASHINGTON, October 6. The United States Secretary of State (Mr Dulles) made it clear today that in talking about nonaggression assurances to Russia, the United States did not have in mind any sweeping treaty proposal. The United States would never consider underwriting in any such arrangement the Soviet Union’s hold on the satellite countries of Eastern Europe, he said. A London message reports that a Foreign Office spokesman said tonight that informal exchanges have taken place between London, Paris and Washington on the proposal for an anti-aggression pact with Russia. He said that these discussions stemmed from Sir Winston Churchill’s idea for such an agreement. Sir Winston Churchill first mooted this kind of “Locarno Pact” in a foreign policy speech to the House of Commons on May 11. The Foreign Office spokesman said the exchanges between the three Western Powers on the idea had been only tentative.

Mr Dulles had said earlier in Washington that the United States was considering a possible non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union as one of a variety of ways to ease world tensions. Mr Dulles emphasised that the United States and its allies were urgently looking for ways to ease these tensions, because of the constantly increasing destructive power of atomic weapons. He said the United States Government was working with a great sense of urgency on the entire question, realising that the stakes were greater now than ever before in history. “Primarily on Germany” He said that as the danger increased it became more necessary than ever to try to learn the Soviet capabilities and intentions. The idea of nonaggression guarantees was centred primarily on the problem of West German rearmament, he said, but tne United States might be willing to extend assurances also to cover Korea,

Germany, Korea and Austria were the areas of greatest concern, because Communist and non-Communist forces were in close proximity there. No details had been determined at this stage, but the problem of giving the Soviet Union an assurance against a German resurgence was being studied by the United States, West Germany, Britain and France.

Mr Dulles emphasised that the United States would not give up anything substantial in return for mere Soviet promises, unless the United States received firm assurances that the promises would be honoured.