COEXISTENCE DEFINED

JUDGMENTS & PROPHECIES

SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE HAROLD E. TALBOTT, to the National Press Club:

I AM afraid that the new phrase, "peaceful coexistence," means just this: You exist, if you are too tough to tackle. You perish, if you are weak or unready.

U.S. MUST GET CLOSE TO REDS

MRS. ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, in an interview published in Paris' L'Information :

I DON'T think that the Soviets have changed their policy; I don't think that they want war, because of the terrifying character that it must have. That doesn't mean that we ought to stop having troops; they will remain necessary if only to control the organizations which are watching over disarmament. I think the Soviets want to negotiate and have a great desire to increase their commerce with us. It is certain that we will be obliged to throw ourselves into a policy of coexistence with the East. I don't agree at all with Senator Knowland, who wants us to break off relations with the USSR. We ought to have a special policy toward the Russians, in order to study the best manner of getting close to them.

EUROPE'S BASTION IS STRONG GERMANY FORMER PRESIDENT HERBERT HOOVER speaking to the German press in Bonn:

THE tensions of military conflict with Russia seem to have abated in these recent months. I believe we can have at least a gleam of hope. Moscow has made many declarations of "peaceful coexistence." I would rather they had spoken of "peaceful cooperation." It may be that they want more time to consolidate their gains. It may be that internal forces are working to restrain them from within. Some revolutions have the bad habit of devouring their young. At least their successors are less violent.

But from our many years' experience with the Communists, we must await works rather than words. We should not be lulled into the abandonment of our means of defense. The German peoples have before now been the bastion of Western civilization which deterred its destruction by the Asiatic hordes. My prayer is Germany may be given the unity and freedom which will restore her to that mission in the world.

RUSSIANS PREPARING TO FORM SUPERSTATE

DAVID DALLIN, author of Soviet Russia's Foreign Policy, in a letter to the New York Times: vYACHESLAV MOLOTOV'S repeated warnings are intended to prepare the West for a significant new move on the part of the Soviet Union. In the first years after the war it was expected, both in Russia and abroad, that the newly emerging satellite states would be incorporated into the Soviet Union.

Moscow has now arrived at the conclusion that for a time extension of the Soviet system over new lands and nations must come to a halt because of the growing power of the non-Soviet world. A middle road between the extremes of formal sovereignty and outright annexation will be found, if only in order to maintain votes in the U.N.

A new executive body with far-reaching power, together with a sort of congress, will be created. When prestige grows out of bigness and physical power, a superstate of unprecedented size which would embrace almost half of humanity is in itself a forceful weapon.

MAO BIDS TO LEAD WORLD COMMUNISM

FRANZ BORKENAU, author of World Communism, in the Jewish monthly Commentary: