SOVIET NOTE TO WEST

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27191, 7 November 1953, Page 7

SOVIET NOTE TO WEST

Change Seen In Attitude (Rec. 8' p.m.) WASHINGTON, Nov. 5. United States officials said in private today that the new Soviet regime appears to have gone back to the tough attitude towards the West which prevailed before Stalin’s death. After two days’ study of the Soviet Note rejecting the Big Four invitation to an early conference on Germany and Austria, the officials are reported to believe that the outlook is for continued tensions and further cold war. The United Press- says the Soviet reply seems to mark the end of, the so-called “softening” of Soviet policies that followed Stalin’s death last spring. There was a flood of minor conciliatory gestures in that period, but it now appears that this phase has ended. The agency says Washington officials believe that the latest Soviet Note, has not closed the door on chances of arranging a Korean peace conference. American experts are impressed by the Note’s thorough expression of Soviet policies on world issues, the tough words used and the general attitude of inflexibility on East-West .negotiations at this time. The officials are quoted as saying that they could see no point in pressing Moscow further for a conference on Germany and Austria.