GERMANY AND A-TEST BAN

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28895, 15 May 1959, Page 11

GERMANY AND A-TEST BAN

Western Plans At Geneva Talks (WJC. Presa Association —Copyrightj (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) GENEVA, May 14. The Soviet Union and the West will hold vital talks today on two of the world’s most pressing problems—the future of Germany and a ban on nuclear weapon tests. Britain, France and the United States will put a three-stage “package plan” on Germany to the Soviet Union at the Foreign Ministers’ conferencce in the Palais des Nations, Geneva. The plan, which would be carried out in phases over several years, is reported to combine a German settlement with big reductions in American and Soviet armed strength. At the end of the three phases, a peace treaty would be signed with a reunited Germany, and American and Soviet forces would then each be limited to 1,700,000 men.

Conference sources said phase one covered the setting-up of a bipartite German council to expand administrative and technical contacts. After two and a half years, a country-wide plebiscite would be held to define an electoral law for free all-German elections to reunify the country. Ground control and inspection of both sides’ armed forces would be instituted, and free elections would be carried out in East and West Berlin as a pilot plan for later German reunification. In phase two, Germany would be reunited on the basis of free elections controlled either by the Big Four, by neutral Powers or by the United Nations. The reunited Germany would have the choice of joining either the North Atlantic Alliance or the Warsaw Pact or of remaining neutral. A zone, of inspection, in which ceilings would be imposed on both sides’ armed forces, would be set up to cover the area proposed in the Polish Rapacki plan—East and West Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The main feature of phase three was reported to be the signature of a peace treaty with the reunited Germany. The treaty would define Germany’s final frontiers, but the plan did not mention where these should be. During phase one American and Soviet forces would each be limited to 2,500,000 men. At the beginning of phase two they would be limited to 2,100,000, to be reduced later to 1,700,000. Slight Hopes Hopes of the Soviet Union accepting the scheme are slight. Western observers believe the Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Gromyko) virtually rejected it in advance at yesterday’s conference when he ruled out any attempt to “muddle together various political problems into one tangle.” A few hours before today’s Big Four session, Mr Gromyko will meet Mr Selwyn Lloyd, of Britain, and Mr Christian Herter, of the United States, to consider the next moves in negotiations on a nuclear test ban. This will be the first time the Foreign Ministers have discussed this issue since three-Power talks began at a lower level at Geneva last October. These talks were adjourned yesterday after making considerable progress, and are expected to be reconvened by June 8.