Through the Iron Curtain

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28523, 28 February 1958, Page 8

Through the Iron Curtain

The United States’ proposal of an exchange of visits by highranking American and Russian officials to supplement the cultural exchange programme is a good one. While the future of Eastern Europe remains unsettled, tension between East and West will remain; but it can be reduced. The American plan is an excellent means to the end. Theatrical companies, scientists, students, farmers, businessmen and others moving between Russia and the West have shown the scope for greater understanding. Dr. Kun Mendelssohn, Reader in Physics at Oxford, commented after a recent visit that if the Soviet Government had the good sense to let his Russian colleagues travel abroad more freely they would make excellent ambassadors. The Russians have also profited more materially from the exchanges. There is, for instance, little doubt that Mr Khrushchev’s new plan for Communist agriculture is based on what a Russian delegation saw in the cornfields of lowa in 1955. Even so, the Russian bureaucracy likes to play safe by keeping international contacts to a minimum. Dr. Mendelssohn related an interesting example. “ Last year the Rus- “ sians were invited (with “plenty of notice) by the “Italian Physical Society to “ a conference at Lake Como ”, he said. “Their own authori- “ ties issued the exit visas

“two weeks before the meet- “ ing ; and this interval was “ then deemed insufficient by “the Italian Government to “ issue the entry visas. Thus “the international co-operation “of bureaucrats had defeated “ that of the scientists ”. This is not the kind of co-operation that the American plan for closer contacts of bureaucrats is intended to encourage. The hope must rather be that the officials will see the need to lessen their interference with others. A broadening of their horizons should serve national interests, too. The cold war has gone on so long that officials on both sides of the Iron Curtain have tended to acquire a vested interest in their own particular part of it, though that may now be outdated by the trend to economic as opposed to military competition. As a footnote, it may be added that the need for planned exchange programmes is a symptom of the gap between East and West. The Soviet Ambassador in London (Mr Malik) recently asked for “ a firm basis ” and “ concrete measures ” on which Anglo-Soviet exchanges could expand. Mr Mayhew, chairman of the Soviet Relations Committee of the British Council, in a letter addressed to the editor of “ Pravda ”, said that far from there being any obstruction in London there was nothing the British would like more than “ the normal free “communication we have with “ the other countries of the “ world ”. We do not know if “ Pravda ” published the letter. It is the Russians who insist on ’he planning of these visits. But if that is the way they want to manage the business, the British and their friends have little alternative to accepting it.