U.S. Awaits Macmillan’s Report On Russia

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28822, 17 February 1959, Page 13

U.S. Awaits Macmillan’s Report On Russia

[By FRANK OUVBBJ WASHINGTON, February 15. There is satisfaction in Washington that the British Prime Minister is going to Moscow later this month. There is a strong feeling that some highlevel figure should make the Visit, but no particular desire to see any American go in spite of Mr Khrushchev’s invitation to the President. At this stage, to judge from the American press. America does not want to appear to be hogging the stage in international affairs or to be carrying on bilateral conversations with Moscow. _ A* one paper has put it, neither Dr. Adenauer nor General de Gaulle has the necessary stature and Mr Macmillan stands out as the ideal person to assay the Moscow situation on the spot. Washington is depending on his report for what is called the “finalising” of its new policies concerning Russia in general and Berlin in particular. Mr Mikoyan learned a good deal about American thinking on world affairs and now Mr Macmillan. it is being said, can expect to learn something about Russian thought and whether Mr Mikoyan’s visit to America and his report to his colleagues have changed Russian thinking at all

Policy Changes There has been much thinking here on the German problem,- as policies which have been static a long time begin to be reappraised and reconsidered with the possible idea of changes. As was noted recently, there is a new ferment in thinking about international affairs. Mr Macmillan clearly got a complete briefing from Mr Dulles about the Mikoyan visit and Mr Macmillan's report on his visit to Russia will be received with extraordinary interest - Mr Dulles’s hints that a measure of conciliation on the German question is possible evoked interest and approval here, and are taken by many to mean that there is hope of acme Russian conciliation that could lead to the removal of this sore spot in West-East rela*4the race for missile supremacy

has dramatised the Struggle between East and West and the Western, or perhaps one should say American, optimism of three years ago has faded. It is being recalled that three years ago when the Communist Party was holding its twentieth world congress in Moscow, Mr Dulles told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Russians had made little progress and that if America had to go through such revision and change of programme as the Russians were going through, it would be advertised to the world that she had failed.

Indeed, he said: “The fact is they have failed and they have got to devise new policies.” In response to a question from Senator Fulbright (now chairman of the committee) Mr Dulles added that Mr Khrushchev’s speech at the twentieth congress indicated an admission of failure. He even said the Russians “have got to review their whole creed form A to Z.”. It is borne in upon more and more people here that events of the last three years, have not justified Mr Dulles’s optimistic assessment. It seems clear that American policy-makers are now engaged in, if not a revision, then certainly a searching re-examina-tion of Western policy on Germany and European security. New Mess Wanted Press and public comment indicate that Americans generally are getting a bit tired of the stalemate and want to hear of new thinking and new ideas on the subject of-the German problem. More important still, there are members of the Foreign Relations Committee who feel the same way, only more strongly. There is pressure in London for negotiation of a truce in the cold war and there is also a growing feeling that the West Germans should start being a little more flexible than they have been. There is no thought of any “giving in” to Russian demands, but there is much thought about the stalemate and a feeling that if both sides make concessions, cold war tension could relax and the world could contemplate the

future with a little more equanimity than has been possible for some years. It is noticeable that many now feel that too flexible an attitude from West Germany should not prevent anything as desirable as a cold war truce. While the Administration has been thinking a lot about the German problem and relations with Russia since the Mikoyan visit, the Foreign Relations Committee has been getting the benefit of varied thinking on these subjects. A recent important witness was Mr George F. Kennan, a former Ambassador in Moscow, and once chief of the policy planning office of the State Department. His testimony appeared to make a considerable impression. He suggests that the United States consider negotiating a neutral status for a reunited Germany in return for a Soviet pull-back from Eastern Europe. It amounts to his version of “disengagement” that has been much discussed in Britain and here.

The new status for Germany, Mr Kennan added, should be enforced by making it absolutely clear to Moscow that any violation of such status would be a provocation of war.

In response" to questions, he said he doubted that a Western withdrawal from West Germany would strengthen the Communists for an attempt to win control of the German Government. As a political threat he said, communism has become an ineffective force in Europe When it has had to work in a democratic milieu. “Dead Ideology" Mr Kennan, still regarded as the foremost American authority on Russia, said: “I think communism as an ideology' Is dead, not only in Western Europe but throughout a great portion of the European continent, and it will never.again be a great, pulling, emotional force." Mr Kennan expressed similar thoughts in lectures in Britain last year for .the BB.C. and they were denounced by both Mr Dulles and his predecessor. Mr Dean Acheson. Whether both critics feel the same today is not STTi e doe » seem certain that Mr Dulles has changed his view* on the [German problem and German policies in the Interim. 1