Neutral Mediation At Geneva

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29802, 19 April 1962, Page 12

Neutral Mediation At Geneva

Very little time remains for the Geneva disarmament conference to halt the perilous alternation of nuclear weapons tests by Russia and the West. Reluctantly, unless an understanding is reached with Russia, the United States plans to resume late this month the above-ground tests that were voluntarily suspended four years ago. Just how great an advantage was gained by Russia through its own cynical resumption of atmospheric tests last September is still uncertain; but it was sufficient to force President Kennedy to abandon the American moratorium. A joint appeal by the President and Mr Macmillan has failed to shake Mr Khrushchev’s rejection of Western proposals for a test ban treaty incorporating an inspection procedure that would prevent “cheating”. Now the eight neutral countries represented at Geneva have put forward compromise proposals for breaking the deadlock between the two atomic blocs. This is perhaps the most encouraging development in a conference that has seemed foredoomed to failure, if only because of the “ committed ” countries’ inability to sink their fundamental differences on safeguards for multilateral disarmament.

If the compromise scheme saves the conference from the fate of all similar negotiations since 1945, a major blow will have been struck for ridding neutrality of its more unpleasant connotations in “ committed” countries. Within the United Nations the neutrals already hold the balance between East and West. Neutrality —in theory, at least—implies distaste for armed conflict and its instruments. Bridging the ideological gap might therefore be regarded as an obvious task for neutral participants in •ny disarmament conference. At Geneva the un-

committed delegations have had their eyes opened to the difficulties of negotiating with Russia. Their efforts to contribute usefully to discussions have been consistently hampered by the Russian delegation. To the neutrals, however, considerations of Power politics are almost irrelevant to the overriding aim of freeing the world from menaces to health, security, and progress. High-sound-ing protestations of Russian concern for underdeveloped and allegedly repressed peoples will continue to ring hollowly in neutral ears while a repetition of last year’s enormous nuclear blasts remains in prospect. It is equally true that American tests will not win new friends for the United States; and the neutrals are unlikely to concede the urgency of repairing Western military deficiencies. Any atmospheric tests help to pollute men’s environment; and from this premise the neutrals proceed to condemn both East and West. What the neutrals must now achieve is to break down the mutual distrust that wrecked the earlier Geneva conference on a nuclear test ban. To a large extent instruments can supplant men in the detection of nuclear explosions; but in cases of doubt whether an event was an earthquake or an explosion, human verification is still necessary. It is on this narrow point that negotiations make no progress, although both the West and Russia have repeatedly professed their desire to abolish testing and thus to prepare for effective disarmament. By their disregard for humanity during the phenomenal test series of 1961 the Russians forfeited much goodwill, particularly in Africa. At the present juncture intervention by the neutral Powers may sway Mr Khrushchev more than anything else.