GENEVA: Acid Test

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¶After reunification of Germany, zones would be established on both sides of the border between unified Germany and the Communist countries to the East. Armed forces in these zones would be controlled to maintain "a military balance." As a further protection against surprise, each side would be permitted a radar network in the other's zone—the Russians in the Western zone, on or close to the Rhine; the NATO members somewhere in Poland. This was no impractical talk of a neutral zone, but a fresh contribution to the tired old lexicon of "demili tarized areas" and "buffer zones," and conceived in large terms.

¶Signers would presumably include the U.S., Britain, France and a united Germany on one hand, Communist Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia on the other.

¶The West also offered a guarantee that if any pact member "which is also a NATO member" attack "any party which is not a NATO member," the others would agree to go to the victim's aid. In other words, if a united Germany joined NATO, the U.S., Britain and France pledged themselves to go to the aid of Communist Russia, Poland, or Czechoslovakia in case Germany attacked them. For the U.S., this was an unprecedented commitment. Secretary of State

John Foster Dulles called it "momentous

and historic."

¶The offer was good only if Russia

agreed "concurrently" to accept the Eden

plan for unifying Germany through free

elections.

Though the West had no hope the Russians would accept it, the plan was not mere propaganda. It was an honest offer honestly made—honest because each Western power was prepared to live with it if it were accepted, and convinced that Russia could live with it, too. Said one top German diplomat: "Here is something big and historically important. If the Russians reject this, they in effect abandon the pretense that European security is of any importance to them."