DIVISION OF GERMANY

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28268, 4 May 1957, Page 11

DIVISION OF GERMANY

Adenauer’s Appeal To West

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) BONN, May 3. The West German Chancellor, Dr. Adenauer, is anxious that the 15 Foreign Ministers of N.A.T.O. should today make a more than usually intensive study of the German reunification problem. The Foreign Ministers will go into secret session to discuss the problem.

West German appeals to Russia to discharge the responsibility which Russia shares with the three Western Allies for ending the division of Germany have not succeeded.

Dr. Adenauer feels that a new Four-Power meeting would be of no use in these circumstances and this opinion is likely to be shared by several of his N.A.T.O. partners.

The final communique of the three-day conference, which will end tomorrow, is expected to contain some emphatic reference to the impossibility of a true easing of tension while the division of Germany persists. Yesterday several Ministers criticised the British White Paper on defence.

The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Selwyn Lloyd, made an unexpected speech to dispel what he said were misapprehensions that Britain planned to switch to nuclear pushbutton forces entirely, and to leave her Allies to provide the footslogger. The Cyprus question is also playing an important part in discussions on the edge of the formal meetings.

Some diplomatic sources believe that America may be contemplating some new initiative towards a solution of the British and Greek dispute. Speech by Mr Dulles

The United States Secretary of State (Mr Dulles), in a speech at the first working session, said that if Russia would agree to adequate controls and inspection in a disarmament plan very real progress could be made on this problem.

If the Russians did not like the N.A.T.O. alliance strengthening its military position, he said, the best way for them to change that was to accept some limitation of armaments.

On Britain’s arms cuts, Mr Dulles said that a possible “chain reaction” had been feared, but he went on to give this assurance: “President Eisenhower has told me to tell the N.A.T.O. council that no change whatever is contemplated in the disposition of the United States forces beyond the plans which were outlined at the Ministerial meeting last December.”

These plans had said that while there would be minor cuts in the numbers of the American forces in Europe as part of the atomic age reorganisation, defensive power would not be reduced. Middle East Plans On the Middle East, Mr Dulles said there had been a good deal of co-operation in recent months to help European countries to survive the interruption of oil supplies without offering a major economic crisis. Plans were under way to ensure that, by building larger tankers and more pipelines, Europe “would not again be as depend mt on a single artery, subject to a single arbitrary rule.’’

The common resolution of the Senate and Congress on the Eisenhjwer doctrine would enable the United States to play a more active part in the Middle East. There were already indications that that policy was producing useful results, said Mr Dulles. For Britain, Mr Lloyd said that the Soviet warnings (to West Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Greece) about the consequences of nuclear warfare “betrayed their worry and v concern over the cohesion of the West and its ability to adapt itself to new military developments.” Mr Lloyd said he believed the West was right to base its entire defence plan on the nuclear deterrent. He wanted public opinion to understand Russia respected that deterrent. Both the Greek Foreign Minister (Mr Evangelos Averoff) and the Danish delegate (Mr Ernst Christiansen) reported that Soviet atomic warnings to their countries had failed to achieve their purpose.