DISARMAMENT QUESTION

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 17

DISARMAMENT QUESTION

SOVIET AND WESTERN ATTITUDES DIFFICULTIES IN WAY OF RECONCILIATION [By RICHARD SCOTT, Diplomatic Correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian”] The disarmament question—or, to give it its full title, the question of the regulation, limitation and balanced reduction of all armed forces and all armaments —has again come up for discussion in the United Nations. This question has been on the agenda of the United Nations Assembly since its inception and more time and discussion have been devoted to it than to any other subject. It is not, of course, the first time that the nations have attempted to reduce and limit their armaments by international agreement. The attempt was made in the years between the two World Wars. But no progress was made; and perhaps little could have been expected at a time when, of the world's great Powers, three—Germany, 1 Italy and Japan—were patently conducting a policy of aggressive expansionism under totalitarian governments.

And this same problem has clearly been responsible for preventing progress during the last eight years in the United Natiorjs. Soviet policy has never given more than a passing glimmer of hope that she would put her signature to a programme of disarmament and the limitation of armed forces based on an effective system of international inspection and control. And it has long been obvious that this is the only possible basis for dealing with this subject.

International confidence is the essence of the problem of disarmament. Such confidence palpably does not exist today between the Soviet Union and the Western Powers. Nor does recent history do anything to convince the free world of the genuineness of Soviet peaceful intentions or her reliability in carrying out her international obligations. Since the end of the war we have seen the extension of Soviet control through political-military coups sponsored and directly assisted by Russia over a vast area of Western Europe and the Far East. We have seen the failure of Soviet-assisted groups to seize power in Persia. Greece, Malaya and Indo-Chlna. In Korea, the United Nations itself has had to take up arms against Communist aggression supported from the Soviet Union. Russia still refuses to implement her war-time commitments and conclude peace settlements with Germany, Austria and Japan. We can read in official Soviet publications such senti-

ments as “We do not intend to abandon the war theme . . . We must write of war so that the generation of young people that comes after us can love arms.”

None of these facts and statements leads the Western Powers to risk the safety of their peoples by basing their dis-armament programme on nothing more reliable than the Soviet word or Soviet good faith. Invective and Propaganda No more encouraging 5s the fact that in the discussion of no subject do Soviet spokesman so resort to invective and propaganda as over disarmament. Mr Vyshinsky employed more immoderate, bellicose language during the recent debate on disarmament at the United Nations than has perhaps been used by any Soviet spokesman since the death of Stalin and the rise of hope in the free world that a new policy of limited Soviet co-operation might have opened. Mr Vyshinsky made great play with the contention that it was the West and not Russia which was today so energetically building up its armed strength. It is perhaps something that Mr Vyshinsky recognises the great efforts that the free world is making in this direction . . . But, of course, he failed to mention that the Western Powers carried out a massive reduction in their armed forces after the war and that Soviet Russia did not. The United Kingdom, for instance, reduced her forces from more than 5.000.000 in 1945 to a little more than 750,000 in 1948; and the United States from more than 11,500.000 to less than 1.500,000. Russia has taken great care to prevent the world from knowing the size of hdr forces. They were estimated in mid-1951 at more than 4,500.000. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has come into being to try to re-establish the balance that had ceased to exist in Europe.

Another major point made by Mr Vyshinsky was that the disarmament plan of the Western Powers did not provide for the simultaneous prohibit tion of atomic weapons and the establishment of effective control. But Mr Vyshinsky himself made it clear that what he was really demanding was that the declaration of the prohibition should come first. Since no wise Government passes a law before it has assured itself of the means of mentorsing it, it seemed clear to the Western Powers that the control system had to be functioning before States could undertake solemn moral declarations which would depend entirely upon the effectiveness with which they were carried out by all parties concerned.

Assurance by Britain Contrary to what Mr Vyshinsky claims, the Western disarmament plan does contemplate the unconditional prohibition of atomic weapons. Indeed, the British Minister of State two years ago gave a solemn assurance to Mr Vyshinsky on this point on behalf of the three Western Powers. Mr Vyshinsky can hardly expect the Western Powers to accept his verbal assurances when he refuses to accept theirs.. The difference between the Soviet and the Western Governments is clearly in substance the same as it was when the discussion of the disarmament problem was first begun eight years ago. ' It is simply that the Western Powers insist that an effective system of international control and inspection shall be in force before they can undertake any moral undertaking concerning the specific prohibition or reduction of arms since such an undertaking could only be effective and therefore acceptable to them if supported by international control and inspection. The Russians want to bind the Western Powers to the prohibition of atomic weapons and a one-third reduction in armed forces without any effective international control or inspection. In other words, they want to use the natural desire for disarmament to increase and perpetuate their own military advantage over the West.