Berlin Overtures

Out of the tense four-power debate in Berlin this week came a "new" Soviet plan for the international control of atomic weapons. Containing features that on first glance seem highly enticing, particularly to the United states, the innovations are little more than paper improvements, apparently calculated only to feed the Russian propaganda mills.

Instead of calling for the destruction of the world's stock piles of nuclear weapons, as they have always done in the past, the Russians now advocate an agreement similar to the Geneva convention's on poison gas and chemicals: the major powers, while continuing to produce atomic bombs, would pledge to use them only in retaliation against an unprovoked attack by an enemy.

With the Eisenhower Administration banking heavily on a defense policy of highly mobile striking forces, relatively small in size and yet possessing tremendous atomic fire power, such a proposal seems satisfactory on casual inspection. If the old Russian plan for destroying atomic weapons without limiting other armaments had gone into effect, the United States might have found herself facing huge totalitarian armies with only the slim manpower provided in the present defense economy.

The earlier Russian proposals were inadequate because they made no provision for effective policing. Russia would not agree to foreign inspection of her industries. The new plan fails because it places only a moral barrier against a nation's use of atomic weapons for a sneak attack. In 1932, a country using gas would run the risk of retaliation not only from the state it quacked, but from a half-dozen other relatively powerful nations. The consequences of aggression with gas and chemicals were so staggering that even in World0-War II, although every country continued to stockpile such weapons, neither side dared use them.

But this is not 1932, and there are now but two nations capable of waging effective total war. And in a modern atomic war, the power striking the first blow has a tremendous advantage, for crippling damage can be inflicted simultaneously over wide-spread areas. It is naive to think that atomic attacks can be prevented by conventions similar to those established at Geneva, without a strong extra-national policing system.

Because the recent soviet proposals are so obviously ineffectual, they can only be regarded as propaganda devices. So far in the Berlin talks, Mr. Molotov has produced two diplomatic victories to wave before the Russian people. He has offered the West wholly unfeasible plans for atomic control and the unification of Germany and has accomplished what has long been a goal of Russian diplomacy: to make the West appear as opponents of peace. If anything constructive is to come from the Berlin talks, the West must insist that the conference confine its efforts to the important questions of Germany and Austria. Final decisions on disarmament can not be limited to discussions between the U.S. and Russia but must take place in the United nations where effective police action can be initiated. It is difficult to believe, however, that Russia has any real desire to see them there.