DIPLOMATIC FRONT: Proceed with Caution

For throwing his peace grenade, Russia's Malik had chosen his time well. These factors made for maximum effect: 1) it was the week in which General Ridgway had firmly asked the United Nations for more ground troops, a request that had been heard with markedly little enthusiasm; 2) it was the week in which the West had broken off Paris talks, and Russia was temporarily without a seat at any active negotiations table.

New Tone? Malik chose an innocuous U.N. radio program as his platform, delivered a 14-minute speech which promised to start off like most of his past blasts at the West. But this time, there were some differences in tone.

For one, Malik spoke to his American listeners not in Russian but in English, heavily accented but clear. For another, the speech had been stripped of the more heavy-handed terms normally used by the Russian oratory: no one was called a "lackey" or "assassin" or "barbarian."

Malik, while denouncing Western warmongers, did his dogged best repeating Soviet Russia's familiar contention that the West, not the peace-loving Communists, is driving the world to the brink of war. Said he: "The ruling circles in the United States, the United Kingdom and France are endeavoring to convince their peoples that... to maintain peace, it is necessary ... to create a so-called 'position of strength'... The policy ... contains within itself the seeds of a new world war. The North Atlantic Military Alliance ... is directed against the U.S.S.R "

The Western peoples, continued Malik, were themselves suffering "the consequences of the policy of an armaments race . . . The only people to benefit from the armaments race are those who make enormous profits from military contracts . . . The Soviet Union threatens no one . . . The efforts of the Soviet people are directed toward peaceful construction. The Soviet state is ... expanding civilian industry . . . bringing into being the giant hydroelectric power stations and irrigation systems . . .

"Hundreds of newspapers and journals in the U.S. are . . . openly calling for an attack on the Soviet Union . . . No one can name a single U.S.S.R. newspaper which called for an attack on the U.S.. . . The Soviet Union bases its policy on the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of the two systems, socialism and capitalism."

Then, after thus making mincemeat of the facts, Malik casually got down to the point:

"The Soviet people further believe that the most acute problem for the present day—the problem of the armed conflict in Korea—could also be settled . . . The Soviet people believe that, as a first step, discussions should be started between the belligerents for a ceasefire, and an armistice providing for the mutual withdrawal of forces from the 38th parallel. Can. such a step be taken? I think it can . . ."