EAST-WEST SUMMIT

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29082, 19 December 1959, Page 13

EAST-WEST SUMMIT

Debate On Agenda

PARIS, December 18 The Western Big Four are likely to reject any idea of separate negotiations on Berlin with the Russians at the projected East-West summit, according to informed N.A.T.O. conference sources.

The tentative agenda for an East-West summit, which the N.A.T.O. Ministerial conference will hand to the four Heads ot Government, puts disarmament at the top of the list of topics and links Berlin with the German problem as a whole.

This corresponds closely to the agenda which the West Germans, supported by the French, have long advocated for the East-West summit Britain and the United States have seemed to favoui separate talks on Berlin.

The sources said yesterday’s meeting of the N.A.T.O. Council showed no opposition when the West German Foreign Minister, Dr. Heinrich von Brentano, spoke bluntly against ■ any separate solution for Berlin.

After his speech there was a strong impression in some delegations that the West would return to the “package” plan submitted to last summer’s Foreign Ministers’ conference in Geneva by the American Secretary of State, Mr Herter.

Later Western proposals on the Berlin situation alone—which were only in the form of working papers and which were rejected by the Russians—thus seem to be abandoned as a starting point for East-West summit talks.

If this is confirmed by the Western summit talks, it will be a major tactical victory for the West German Chancellor, who has made no secret of his uneasiness over the later Western proposals. Dr. Adenauer is also expected to have the satisfaction of seeing his own main proposal for the East-West summit agenda—disarmament—generally accepted by the other Heads of Government.