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Show Economic Highlights Happenings That Affect Dinner Pails And Pay Checks The lead article in Harper's Magazine for August is devoted ( to the important and much-misunderstood sHbjcct of "Negotiat-' ing With the Russians." Written! by James B. Reston, long-lime s diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, it casts a good deal of light on Soviet purposes, Soviet diplomatic techniques, and Soviet mentality. First of all, says Mr. Reston, "Negotiating with the Russians is like playing tennis on a court without lines or umpire. If the indefatigable Mr. Molotov hits one into the net (as he often does) i and cries 'good,' there is nothing you can do about it except argue. If you call in .the French, the British, and the Chinese, and they all say, sorry, it went into the net, Mr. Molotov is not only adamant but angry. Did we not, agree, he says, on 'the rule of unanimity'?" To the Soviet mind, this is not, apparently, either dishonest or unethical. The Soviet diplomats enter every debate knowing precisely pre-cisely what the result must be. As Mr. Byrnes, the former Secretary Sec-retary of State, once said to Molotov, Mo-lotov, "We start with the facts) and try. . . to reach true and fair conclusions, while you start with the conclusions you want and try to select and twist the facts to your own ends." But even that, Mr, Reston observes, does not tell all of the story. Russian policy, as shown in the various, conferences held since the war, is a morass of "contradictions. At one time, for instance, the Russians Rus-sians were completely ODposed to the inclusion of France in the Council of-Foreign Ministers, and the first meeting of the Council collapsed, having achieved nothing noth-ing whatsoever, over this issue. But, at the second meeting of the Council, the Russians demanded de-manded that France participate in the discussions. The obvious reason was that they then wanted want-ed to make a good impression on the French people, and the Soviet So-viet high-command could see no reason why it shouldn't abandon its first stand without explanation explana-tion or embarrassment. This has happened time and time again and, of course, is a main reason why hundreds of international meetings of one kind or another have been held without major result. One more difficulty lies in the fact that the Soviet diplomats, even including Molotov, are watched like hawks by Moscow, and a statement made by one of them one day may be disavowed dis-avowed by the Kremlin the next. When this happens, the diplomat simply reverses his position and the arguments start all over again. The . representatives of the other powers naturally find this maddening, but there's nothing noth-ing they can do about it. Cases are on record where the powers have accepted Soviet demands in all particulars and then the Russians have vetoed the final draft on some obscure technical question of phraseology. Mr. Reston gives several enlightening en-lightening reasons for the Soviet So-viet attitude. For one things, the Russians still feel that they were unjustly treated after World War I, when Allied troops were sent into Siberia, and the major powers pow-ers refused them formal recognition recog-nition for many years. The seeds of bitterness which were planted then still flower. Another, and perhaps more cogent reason, is that negotiation in the Anglo-American Anglo-American sense of the word is alien to the Russian mind. In the United States, as an example, labor negotiates with industry, industry negotiates with government, govern-ment, the President negotiates with Congress, etc. Negotiation of some sort is our traditional means of settling every difference. differ-ence. In the Soviet Union, to the contrary, everything is done by order, and a sort of gigantic chain-pf-command system pre vails which no one who values his neck opposes. As Mr. Reston says, "Even Molotov does not 'negotiate' with Stalin." From the Soviet point of view, practices are producing excellent results. Of major importance "nci iiiuiduit; ueiay in deciding almost every problem, from the smallest to the greatest. great-est. They thus constitute blocking block-ing tactics of remarkable effectiveness. effec-tiveness. And, while the weary talk goes on, the Russian empire extends inexorably outward Little by little and perhaps far faster than most of us realize - the Russians are getting what they want. Mr. Reston is too able and experienced ex-perienced an observer to ' offer any pat solution to the problem of negotiating with the Russians indeed, his whole article is designed to show that pat solutions solu-tions are worthless. He simply observes that, whether we like it or not, there are almost 200,-000,000 200,-000,000 Russians in the world, and they have a very high birth rale. It is obviously impossibe to Ignore them, and few people want lo fight them if a fight is unavoidable. Perhaps, through trial and error, some workable basis of negotiation between the Eastern and Western worlds will eventually be reached. But it looks like a long, tough job, and many more set-backs must ' be , expected. -0O0- Scnator Taft's forthcoming tour of the nation, which will take him to the Pacific Coast, will be the biggest move yel made in the Stop-Dewey drive. . |