FOREIGN RELATIONS: Poles & Honey

Both candidates last week made for foreign-policy statements whose significance went far beyond campaign oratory. The two statements showed vastly different approaches to the No. 1 U.S. problem: how to deal with the Soviet Union.

Eisenhower, resting for two days in Denver after his 5,000-mile swing through the West (see above), issued a Pulaski Day statement paying tribute to the great Polish patriot, who fought in the American Revolution. Recalling a pledge in the Republican platform, Eisenhower urged "the repudiation of the Yalta agreement, which, through the violation of the principles of the Atlantic Charter and through its unilateral violation by the Soviet government, has resulted in the enslavement of Poland. Thus we will give hope to the people of Poland and to all the American friends of Poland . . ."

Stevenson also dealt with the Soviet Union. In a speech at Oklahoma City, he said that U.S. foreign policy "has worked so well that we may well be seeing—this week in Moscow—a shift in Russian policy which may be of the greatest importance. The Russians may have decided that their aggressive policies have been too risky, and that they have more to gain by honey than by vinegar . . . We must not be deluded by Soviet attempts to re-establish the united front. But I do see a chance of long-run improvement." (A few days before, Secretary of State Dean Acheson expressed a similarly optimistic opinion despite the recent setbacks to his hopes marked by the barring of Ambassador George Kennan from Moscow.)

So far as the public knows, the only evidence in support of Stevenson's suggestion is contained in newspaper reports of a new pronouncement by Joseph Stalin (TIME, Oct. 13). Stalin assured his Communist readers that the capitalist nations were bound to war eventually among themselves, and added that war among the capitalists was more likely than war between the capitalists and Soviet Russia. Some newspapers concluded that this might be the beginning of a new, more peaceful phase of Soviet policy.

On the other hand, the Moscow meeting to which Stevenson referred produced considerably more vinegar than honey. Samples:

¶When the text of Stalin's statement became available (several days before the Acheson and Stevenson pronouncements), it was found to contain the usual violent attacks on the U.S., plus a call to America's allies to desert.

¶Georgy Malenkov, Stalin's "No. i%" man, said that the U.S. had assumed Hitler's mantle and was planning world domination by means of a third world war (see INTERNATIONAL). "The leaders of the United States . . . knew from the experience of the Hitlerites . . . that it was impossible even to dream of world supremacy without the use of force . . .They decided ... to prepare a new war ..." ¶Lavrenty Beria, boss of the Russian secret police, said that the U.S. is working for world domination and is sending its agents, recruited from "degenerate elements," into the Soviet Union. ¶Marshal Nikolai Bulganin proudly said that it is "no secret" that the Soviet economy can be switched, in record time, "to war purposes." ¶The congress cheered the pledge of a North Korean delegate "to achieve final victory over the hated enemy—the American interventionists."