U.S. GRAVE CONCERN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22314, 26 April 1947, Page 5

U.S. GRAVE CONCERN

SOVIET REJECTION FOUR-POWER TREATY DISARMING GERMANY (10 a.m.) LONDON. April 25. Mr, George Marshall, at the Foreign Ministers’ conference in Moscow last night, told M. Molotov that the United States Government regarded very seriously the Soviet Government’s rejection of the four-Power treaty for the disarmament of Germany. He said he used the word “rejection” because the redraft that M. Molotov had introduced sought to include in the treaty nearly all their fundamental differences on Germany and in that way made an agreement on a specific treaty, as proposed by the United States, impossible. The United States found it very difficult to understand the reason for that rejection, but it was not dropping the proposal Character Misinterpreted M. Molotov claimed that the character of the Soviet proposals had been misinterpreted. If legitimate amendments were not to be considered and if the treaty had to be accepted exactly as proposed, by the United States, then Mr- Marshall should say so.

The United States draft, M. Molotov added, envisaged a treaty which would fail because it was on 100 narrow a basis and it was the United States’ refusal to consider Soviet amendments that led to the treaty’s rejection. Mr. Marshall briefly replied that the real state of affairs was clear from the record of the conference. A Washington message says that the collapse of the Moscow conference has been followed by the recall for consultation of the Ambassador. Lieut.-General W. Bedell-Smith, and the announcement that the Secretary of State, Mr. George Marshall,

is returning to the United States at the week-end. Wanted for Conference The State Department gave the customary explanation that General Bedell-Smith is wanted in Washington for a routine conference with Government officials. The United Press points out that this explanation by-passes the fact that Mr. Marshall, to whom General BedellSmith would normally report, is now in Moscow and could handle routine consultations on the spot. It is considered possible that General BedellSmith has been ordered home by Mr. Marshall himself to assist in the preparation of a report to President Truman on American-Soviet relations.