As I write, the world is waiting for another round of diplomatic
conferences between East and West. A full scale summit meeting is
scheduled for Spring; later on, President Eisenhower and Premier
Khrushchev will have further talks in the Soviet Union. And we are told
that this is only the beginning of a long-range American policy to try
to settle world problems by “negotiation.”
As the preparations for the Spring meetings go forward, I am struck by
a singular fact: no one on our side claims--let alone believes--that
the West will be stronger after these new negotiations than it is
today. The same was true last Summer. We agreed to “negotiate” about
Berlin--not because we hoped to gain anything by such talks--but
because the Communists had created a “crisis,” and we could think of
nothing better to do about it than go to the conference table. After
all, we assured ourselves, there is no harm in talking.
I maintain there _is_ harm in talking under present conditions. There
are several reasons why this is so. First of all, Communists do not
look upon negotiations, as we do, as an effort to reach an agreement.
For them, negotiations are simply an _instrument_ of political
warfare. For them, a summit meeting is another battle in the struggle
for the world. A diplomatic conference, in Communist language, is a
“propaganda forum from which to speak to the masses over the heads of
their leaders.”
Of course, if the Communists can obtain a formal agreement beneficial
to them, so much the better. But if not the negotiations themselves
will provide victory enough. For example, when the Soviets challenged
our rights in West Berlin, we handed them a victory by the mere
act of sitting down at the conference table. By agreeing to
negotiate on that subject, we agreed that our rights in Berlin were
“negotiable”--something they never were before. Thus we acknowledged,
in effect, the inadequacy of our position, and the world now expects
us to adjust it as proof of our good faith. Our answer to Khrushchev’s
ultimatum should have been that the status of West Berlin concerns only
West Berliners and the occupying powers, and is therefore not a matter
that we are prepared to discuss with the Soviet Union. That would have
been the end of the Berlin “crisis.”
The Berlin situation illustrates another reason why the West is at an
inherent disadvantage in negotiating with the Communists. The central
strategic fact of the Cold War, as it is presently fought, is that
the Communists are on the offensive and we are on the defensive. The
Soviet Union is always moving ahead, always trying to get something
from the free world; the West endeavors, at best, to hold what it has.
Therefore, the focal point of negotiations is invariably somewhere
in the non-Communist world. Every conference between East and West
deals with some territory or right belonging to the free world which
the Communists covet. Conversely, since the free world does not seek
the liberation of Communist territory, the possibility of Communist
concessions never arises. Once the West did attempt to use the
conference table for positive gain. At Geneva, in 1955, President
Eisenhower told the Soviets he wanted to discuss the status of the
satellite nations of Eastern Europe. He was promptly advised that the
Soviet Union did not consider the matter a legitimate subject for
negotiation, and that was that. Now since we are not permitted to talk
about what _we_ can get, the only interesting question at an East-West
conference is what the Communists can get. Under such conditions, we
can never win. At best we can hope for a stalemate that will place us
exactly where we started.
There is still another reason for questioning the value of
negotiations. Assume that somehow we achieve an agreement we think
advances our interests. Is there any reason for supposing the
Communists will keep it one moment longer than suits their purpose? We,
and they, are different in this respect. We keep our word. The long and
perfidious Communist record of breaking agreements and treaties proves
that the Soviet Union will not keep any agreement that is not to its
advantage to keep. It follows that the only agreement worth making with
the Soviets is one that will be self-enforceable--which means one that
is in the Kremlin’s interest to keep. But if that is the case, why
bother to “negotiate” about it? If an action is in the interest of the
Soviet Union, the Kremlin will go ahead and perform it without feeling
any need to make it the subject of a formal treaty.
The next time we are urged to rush to the conference table in order to
“relax world tensions,” let our reaction be determined by this simple
fact: the only “tensions” that exist between East and West have been
created, and deliberately so, by the Communists. They can therefore
be “relaxed” by the Kremlin’s unilateral act. The moment we decide to
relax tensions by a “negotiated compromise” we have decided to yield
something of value to the West.