STEP FORWARD AT GENEVA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 13

STEP FORWARD AT GENEVA

Big Four Agree To Private Talks

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(Rec. 10 p.m.) GENEVA, July 17. The Big Four Foreign Ministers are meetmg in private today—for the first time since Monday s resumption of the East-West" talks—over lunch at the palatial Villa Barakat, home of the former Aga Khan.

The Soviet Foreign Minister, Mr Andrei Gromyko who on Monday refused private sessions un es ®. 9 erman delegation was present, agreed to today s private lunch after a talk yesterday L l °y<1 ’ th * British Foreign

No plenary session of the conference has been fixed for today, so the four Ministers can, if they wish, talk late into the afternoon. The Western three are meeting before lunch to prepare for the discussion with Mr Gromyko.

They have been anxious to- resume private sessions with Mr Gromyko because it was at such meetings that the real business was conducted during the first phase of the conference, in May and June. No progress has since been made ih the open sessions. Mr Christian Herter, of the United States, yesterday suggested that the United Nations might observe the curbing of propaganda activities in East and West Berlin as part of a provisiona’ settlement for the city. He asked Mr Gromyko for serious talks on this, on keeping military forces m Berlin from being increased, and on guaranteeing Western access.

Mr Gromyko said in reply that the Western Powers must agre,e to Berlin becoming a free city before the United Nations could be called in. He was supported by the leader of the East German delegation, Dr. Lothar Bolz Mr Lloyd said he did not despair of the possibility of an agreement. Mr Herter warned that another Berlin crisis would revive the danger of a serious threat to peace which might be even more acute than the Berlin crisis of 1948 and 1949.