Russia: The Adventurer

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Note to Moscow. In order to get some kind of deal on bases, the Russians might well dangle concessions on disarmament. Western negotiators are already intrigued by Khrushchev's offer to allow inspectors to verify the dismantling and removal of the Soviet missiles, even though in the end, the U.S. may not be able to rely on outside inspection in Cuba. The West's insistence on inspection has always been a stumbling block in the tedious talks on a nuclear test ban as well as on general disarmament. There is no real reason to believe that this adamant position has changed; it is one thing to agree to let inspectors—and from the Red Cross, at that—on Cuban soil, another to let them into Russia. Still, Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan rushed off a note to Moscow suggesting that the way might soon be opened for the first stage of disarmament.

Even as the U.S. and Russia were exploding small rocket-borne nuclear weapons at high altitudes, the Russians dropped hints that they might accept a system of unmanned seismographic inspection posts inside Russia. In them, a world body would install tamper-proof boxes containing recording apparatus that would be regularly studied for signs of underground nuclear blasts.*

History's Guide. By offering their sealed boxes, the Russians were of course conceding nothing of value. Indeed, they gave scant support to the hopeful new thesis now abroad, that Khrushchev after Cuba might take a genuinely new, flexible approach to negotiation of the major East-West issues. Some Westerners excitedly spoke of grasping new opportunities while Moscow was off balance: an access deal for Berlin, perhaps even some kind of German reunification.

If history is any guide, the dreamers are in for sharp disappointment. Nikita Khrushchev is as flexible a maneuverer as any Communist who has studied Lenin's line: "If you are not able to adapt yourself, if you are not ready to crawl in the mud on your belly, you are not a revolutionist but a chatterbox." Occasional appearances to the contrary, Khrushchev is no chatterbox. Over Cuba he had to do some crawling, but it will not be easy to keep him down.