Commenting on Stalin's answers to the questions submitted to him by the diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, Mr. Reston, regarding future Soviet-American relations, the New York Times, in its editorial entitled 'Deeds Needed, Not Words' on December 26, opined that "unfortunately, at first sight, and viewing Mr. Stalin's words in the light of the Soviet record, there is little reason to hope that they represent anything more than just another psychological warfare maneuver in the phony Soviet peace offensive and another attempt to deceive the world."
Pointing out that Stalin, by issuing some soothing pronouncement to cover up his aggressive designs, "fooled two - American Presidents, and he may be hoping to fool a third," the paper maintained that "it is imperative for the new administration to be on guard against the wily Georgian, who, by such tactics, has made himself ruler not only of all the Russians but of one-third of the, human race. Now more than ever is it necessary, for the sake of our own safety and of peace, to insist that before Mr. Stalin's words are taken seriously they must be matched with deeds. On that score, however, the latest Soviet actions permit no encouragement."
"He has never left any doubt, however," the paper went on, "that both he personally and his regime are still dedicated to the 'world revolution' which aims to crush all free nations and subjugate the world to Communist rule under the Kremlin's direction. Any separate negotiations between the United States and Soviet Russia could therefore succeed only if we were ready to make a deal, such as Stalin made with Hitler, to divide the world into two spheres, to surrender the nations within an expanded Soviet orbit to Mr. Stalin's mercy, and to give the Soviets a free hand for further conquests-until our own turn has come. Since Mr. Stalin knows that such a deal is out of the question, his present maneuver can only be regarded as a trap designed to divide the free world….
"Stalin's statement can scarcely be taken as a change of mind," commented editorially the New York Herald Tribune on the same day, "when there still echo the crude Russian attempts in the Assembly's closing hours to wring a final drop of propaganda poison from the deaths of Communist prisoners of war. The normal channels of diplomatic communication are open to Stalin; there are ample occasions for him to illustrate by word or deed through his representatives some change in attitude or policy. That the answers to a correspondent's questions should be made a vehicle for the expression of any significant or novel views seems at best a far-fetched idea and in actual circumstances a hope without substance. The West as a whole and the President-elect in particular will search for any favorable sign in these words of Stalin or elsewhere in Soviet communications. But for the moment it appears that nothing has changed. At the, worst, Stalin had his little Christmas joke; at the most, he has emphasized anew the shape of the dilemma which men of good will seek to resolve."
The New York Journal-American editorialized on the next day along the same line: "This is one of the, things that make us doubtful of Stalin's sincerity. When the head of a powerful state wants sincerely to open negotiations of tremendous importance with another state, he does not do it through the medium of the press."
The Christian Science Monitor in its editorial on December 27 observed that "in view of the fact that the door has never been closed and Stalin at any time could have had peace on reasonable terms we are inclined to view his move as an effort to repair Russia's propaganda position. Moscow suffered a sharp setback in its effort to capture neutral opinion when it rejected India's plan for ending the war in Korea Stalin might well feel that he had to make a spectacular personal move to repair his propaganda position. But it is questionable if he has scored very heavily in face of the reply John Foster Dulles has made after talking with General Eisenhower. This gets right down to 'brass tacks' in asking the Russian leader for concrete proposals few observers expect to hear any which offer any reasonable basis for negotiations.
"The essence of the Soviet attitude, however," pointed out the New York World-Telegram in its editorial on December 26, "was contained in Stalin's answer to the question. Wherein lie the sources of present world contention, in your judgment?' 'Everywhere and in everything,' Stalin replied, 'wherever the aggressive actions of the policy of the cold war against the Soviet Union find their expression. This is tantamount to saying that the price of peace is unconditional surrender to everything Russia wants, since he seems to regard any action resisting Soviet aggression as an act of aggression against Russia The only aggressive actions since the beginning of the cold war have been Soviet-inspired and supported, such as the Red invasion of South Korea and the Communist outrages in West Berlin."
"We are dealing with the same Stalin," the paper concluded, "who bowed before Hitler because he knew that Hitler was willing and prepared to fight. It is the same Stalin who pled with us for a second front after he was attacked. He has respect for strength, and only for strength, because it is the one law in the jungle world in which he lives.
The Washington Evening Star editorialized on December 28 that "John Foster Dulles has struck a proper note of reserve and firmness in his brief comment on Premier Stalin's Christmas Eve statement," "This so not only because of such hard facts as Moscow's continuing hate-America campaign and its rejection of reasonable Korean peace proposals," the paper stated, "but also because of the vagueness of Stalin's views as expressed to the New York Times-a vagueness with a familiar and almost tiresome ring, a thing that seems to do little more than echo what he has stated in many past newspaper interviews."
While granting that "the Kremlin may really want to end the Korean war and ease world tensions," the paper was of the opinion that "there are many signs that suggest otherwise--signs indicating that this is merely another Soviet maneuver in a propaganda drive aimed at spreading confusion in the free world with a phony and divisive peace offensive calculated particularly to lull the Western powers into relaxing their guard and upsetting their defensive build-up. Caution is obviously needed because of the world of difference between peaceful Soviet words and warlike Soviet deeds. As long as that difference exists, and as long as our side is deficient in the military balance of power, only the incorrigibly wishful will be cheered much by dovelike noises from the Russian dictator:
The British press also received Stalin's latest peace talk with scepticism and caution. The two leading papers which devoted editorials to the subject on December 27 all warned the democracies against playing into the hands of the Kremlin.
The Manchester Guardian editorially commented that Stalin's "willingness to meet General Eisenhower is an echo of his offer to meet President Truman, which he made in another batch of replies to a Western journalist in January, 1949. The meaning of this latest utterance is as hard to puzzle out as that of the earlier ones. The statement of January 1949 seemed to fit in with a spurt of Soviet propaganda against the then nascent North Atlantic Treaty and the setting up of the Federal German Republic; The replies in which, in April of this year, the oracle gave his blessing to the unification of Germany, a meeting of the leaders of the Great Powers, and the 'peaceful coexistence' of capitalism and Communism to fit in with the Moscow Economic Conference and with Soviet demands for a Germen peace treaty. Though this latest statement of goodwill scarcely fits in with recent Soviet moves it will have to be studied with the usual mixture of hope and scepticism."
"Experience has taught the world to treat with some scepticism Mr. Stalin's lapidary answers to newspaper questionnaires," observed the Daily Telegraph in its editorial, "and it would be imprudent to adopt any other attitude towards the latest batch. When Mr. Stalin declares his belief that war between the United States and Russia is not inevitable he may mean no more or no less than Hitler meant when he told the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, 'I believe in a long peace.' He has given a similar answer to similar questions before, without even following it up by the smallest step calculated to minimize the risk of war. Reassurance is certainly not stimulated by his cynical reply to the second question, which is on a par with his previous Utterances in the same connection. The cold war would never have existed if he had not himself started it and pursued it by every resource available to a truculent and explosive diplomacy."
2. Churchill's Washington Visit
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The London weekly, the Economist, in its January 3 issue, while conceding that Mr. Churchill was no ordinary mortal, questioned the wisdom of his Washington visit,"American public opinion is sensitive to any suggestion that wily foreigners are trying to bounce the Eisenhower administration into commitments before it had had time to discover all the facts of life. Moreover because individual Englishmen in America don’t feel themselves to be, and are not treated as if they were, 'foreigners' Whitehall is rather too apt to assume that Britain is not, in Washington's eyes, a foreign power. In fact, it is in some ways the most suspect of all America's allies, just because is the most powerful and occumenical.
"None of this, of course, means that personal reconnaissance of Republican Washington may not be very valuable. Clearly the relationship between Prime Minister and incoming President has to be established on a new footing; the latter is now the former military person. But the visit will have value in the degree to which it remains personal and informal.... Indeed, one of the results of the visit may be to induce in Whitehall somewhat less self-assurance about the wisdom of planning a big formal visit in a couple of months or so. Old personal friends can safely announce themselves; delegations might do well to wait for spontaneous invitation."
The Daily Telegraph took a different views: Some commentators have painted a picture of Mr. Churchill as a kind of arch-mendicant going to the American President-elect cap in hand and asking for favours. What mischievous nonsense this is! There is everything to be gained on both sides by an early meeting between the two men. Britain and the British Commonwealth have much to contribute the efforts that must be made both to strengthen the forces of freedom throughout the world and to promote the expansion of international trade.
"Points on which it is essential that President-elect and Prime Minister should reach mutual understanding are many, and there is no time to lose. What has General Eisenhower in mind in relation to the Korean war? What are his views on the delicate question, of the pace bf Western European rearmament? What plans is he framing for arresting the Communist advance in the Far East, and how far are these plans likely to affect the military, situation in Europe? Should the Western Allies seek to provide against the long continuance of the cold war rather than against a sudden Russian onslaught in Europe? These are a few of the immediate topics which Mr. Churchill and General Eisenhower will want to examine together. A preliminary survey at their coming meeting might do much to ensure the success of the Anglo-United States conference planned for the spring."
In connection with Churchill's thesis that the real center of gravity is Western Europe - in front of the Iron Curtain," the New York World - Telegram commented editorially on January 6 that "no responsible critics of the limited war policy we have been pursuing in Korea since General MacArthur's recall has suggested using ground troops in China, as Mr. Churchill's remark would imply. Air attacks upon Chinese and Manchurian bases have been suggested, as well as a sea blockade of the China coast. This latter course might interfere with rubber shipments from the British dominion of Ceylon, But it would deprive Red China of other war munitions as well.
Few Americans would have the temerity to argue the geopolitics of either hot or cold war with a master of that subject, such as Mr. Churchill. But wherever the real center of gravity may be, we know that Korea is where we are being shot at. Hence Korea has top priority with us. To agree with Mr. Churchill that a prolonged stalement isn't as bad as an outright defeat is not to accept the inference that it has to be one or the other. That was not his attitude during the Battle of Britain, and it is not the American attitude now."
"Since the beginning of the cold war," observed Constantine Brown in the Washington Evening Star on January 7, "America's efforts have been directed far more toward Europe than Asia. It was Eisenhower and his principal advisers who broke this line of thinking when they declared during and after the campaign that they considered the Far East at least as important as Europe. They held this view because the Muscovites, while still rattling the saber in Europe, are fighting a shooting war by proxy in the Far East. To many American students of military and political history the Far East appears at least as much of a ‘center of gravity’ as Europe. It is understandable that Churchill should be chiefly interested in the periphery west of the Iron Curtain, after Britain had to give up control of its once great empire in the Indian Ocean.”
"What Prime Minister Churchill said in his press interview," commented David Lawrence in the New York Herald Tribune on January 6, "dramatizes the reason why the alliance between Great Britain and the United States is weak today and why the United Nations is even weaker. With surprising disregard for the amenities of the hour- when it is presumed Moscow is anxious to learn what might be done by Eisenhower about Korea-the British Prime Minister definitely spells out the limits of international action and virtually washes his hands of any responsibility for getting the American troops home from Korea any time in the next quarter of a century."
With reference to Churchill's remark that Britain would not withdraw her diplomatic recognition of the Peiping regime, the columnist stated that "this has been the viewpoint of London for a long time. It has, however, rankled in many an American breast, and to have the British Prime Minister reiterate it publicly doesn't sound like the tact of a Churchill. It sounds like a warning to Eisenhower that Britain will continue to clasp the hands of the Red Chinese in friendship while American boys are being killed by the Communist Chinese arms.
"All these contradictions between the American and British viewpoints now emphasized publicly by Mr. Churchill are supposed to come under the heading of resisting aggression. It certainly makes psychological warfare difficult when there is no united front. It is reminiscent of the way Prime Minister Chamberlain at Munich in 1938 thought that 'peace in our time' would be obtained by appeasing' the aggression of Hitler in central Europe.”