CONFERENCES: Tough Going

The Council of Foreign Ministers, established at Potsdam to carry on for the Big Three, had scarcely warmed the red leather chairs in London's Lancaster House before the members began wrangling over procedures. They stayed in session a fort night, progressed only in the sense that they strangled over progressively more important matters.

When China's Wang or France's Bidault was in the chair, the going was relatively smooth. Table-thumping began when one of the other three took the gavel. Byrnes and Molotov did not get along well, and Molotov disliked Bevin.

Had all five been warm personal friends, agreement might have proved almost as difficult. The mass of issues served up to the Council at its first meeting simply could not be digested in a fortnight.

Turnabout. To expedite a peace treaty with Italy, the U.S. proposed waiving virtually all Italian reparations. On the question of Italian colonies the three powers reversed the positions each had taken at San Francisco on trusteeships. Then, the U.S. (thinking of Pacific is lands) and Britain had stressed one-power administration of dependent areas; Russia (playing to world opinion) had fought for joint trusteeships.

Molotov in London switched over to a demand that Russia get some Italian colony (Tripolitania or Eritrea) under a one-power trusteeship. The U.S. and Brit ain promptly plumped hard for joint trusteeships.

The Russians promptly claimed a foul. At San Francisco, they said, former U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius had promised in a letter that the U.S. would not object to Russian participation in "administration and trusteeship." Molotov at London interpreted this phrase to mean a one-power mandate for an Italian colony, not merely a share in multipower supervision. In the Russian view, the "and" was all-important.

The U.S. proposed that after ten years all Italian colonies, except Somaliland, be granted independence.

Names on a Rock. Trieste was the other big unsettled issue of the Italian treaty. From Trieste came a story: when the Yugoslav Partisans seized the city they wrote "Tito" across the word "Duce," lettered on a rock overlooking Trieste harbor. After the Yugoslavs withdrew, someone had rubbed out the "Tito," failed to rub out the "Duce."

The yarn was an allegory of conflicting Big Power attitudes in Eastern Europe. The Anglo-Americans contended that in the Russian-dominated countries one kind of dictatorship had replaced another. The Russians answered that if their Balkan regimes fell, the men who had welcomed the Nazis would creep back into power, just as "Duce" had reappeared on Trieste's rock.

Russian proposals for a treaty with Finland had easy sailing. So had their peace terms for Hungary—until the U.S. and Britain discovered that Russia had signed a trade treaty under which the U.S.S.R. might monopolize half of Hungary's trade. Rumania and Bulgaria were still tougher cases. Secretary Byrnes submitted treaty drafts insisting upon democratic processes in both countries. After skillful maneuvering by Molotov, the Russian drafts were made the basis for study by the deputies.