TROUBLE AT THE SUMMIT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29206, 17 May 1960, Page 15

TROUBLE AT THE SUMMIT

Khrushchev Seeks U.S. Apology (NX Pros Association—Copyright) (Rec. 1130 pun.) PARIS, May 16. TJj®. first summit conference for five years opened at l ans morning after an unexpected postponement of an hour at the request of the Russian delegation. No reason for the delay was given immediately, but it was reported that Mr Khrushchev had declined to sit down with President Eisenhower for intimate talks. A Soviet source said there was no reason, however, why Mr Khnisnchev should refuse to face Mr Eisenhower across the formal conference table.

The unexpected hitch emphasised the growing East-West tension over the spy plane incident as the summit conference got under way.

Beaters reported that Mr Khrushchev demanded that the United States publicly renounce espionage flights over Soviet ter* ritoqr. The news agency attributed the report to a “well-informed summit conference source.’’

Reuters quoted the source as saying the Soviet leader called upon Britain and France to dissociate themselves from the United States policy of flying spying missions over the Soviet Union.

Reuters reported later that Soviet correspondents covering the summit said that unless the United States promised to call off intelligence flights over the Soviet Union "we go home tomorrow.”

Mr Khrushchev is reported tn Western quarters to have made dear in talks with the French and British leaders. President de Gaulle and Mr Macmillan, yesterday that Soviet thinking is still dominated by the spy plane incident Mr Khrushchev, after arriving * day early in Paris, drove his pofat home in tough private talks with his French and British partners but pointedly ignored the American President

Then, a Soviet source said. Mr Khrushchev indicated that he was not prepared to sit down in intimate talks with President Eisenhower until he received satisfaction over aerial intelligence.

News of the postponement came as President Eisenhower and Mr Macmillan met over breakfast today, only two hours before the opening of the conference. The two leaders discussed the summit outlook in the light of the reported tough talking by Mr' Khrushchev in bis meetings yesterday. It was their first meeting since Mr Macmillan visited Washington and Camp David only six weeks ago to discuss the banning of nuclear weapon tests. The one-hour postponement meant there would be no morning session restricted entirely to

the Big Four leaders, as had originally been planned. Instead, the conference began with all the four delegations present in full strength—heads of Government, Foreign Ministers, and other delegates.

The impression prevailing in Western conference circles is that Mr Khrushchev is likely to prove a much less conciliatory partner at the conference than had been hoped.

Overshadowing all the topics at the conference is the spy plane incident, but tough talking is expected over Germany and Berlin. Western officials see better chances of progress on general and complete disarmament under effective international control and a nuclear weapon test ban treaty. On his arrival in Paris, Mr Eisenhower said: “The hopes of humanity call on the four of us to purge our minds of prejudice and our hearts of rancour. Too much is at stake to indulge in profitless bickering. “The issues that divide the free world from the Soviet bloc are grave and not subject to easy solution. But if good will exists on both sides, at least a beginning can be made. “The West, I am sure, will meet Mr Khrushchev half way in every honest effort in this direction. America will go every foot that safety and honour permit”

Mr Macmillan said that today errors of judgment, based on ignorance or anger, could lead with dreadful speed to the extinction of civilisation. All that man has strived to achieve through the centuries could be obliterated almost overnight. "That alone must compel us to do our work with care and thoroughness,” he said. “Yet, at the same time as science offers us self-destruction, it also offers opportunities for a life fuller and richer than we have known before. It would be madness indeed if we threw away a future so rich with promise. “Of course the problems are dif-

ficult and we cannot expect to solve them in one meeting. What we can do is to set in motion an orderly process of discussion and negotiation. _ “If that is done and if we continue to meet and negotiate in full recognition of the magnitude

bf the responsibility resting on us. then I think that over a period of time we may well find that the difficulties are less innumerable than perhaps they now seem to be.

“The thing to do is to make a good start here in Paris. If we do that, the meeting may well be acclaimed by history.”-