Negotiating with the Reds

Report Outline
Upcoming Negotiations on East-West Differences
Pattern of Soviet Conduct in Peace and War
Soviet Tactics in International Negotiations
Negotiating from Weakness and from Strength
Special Focus

Upcoming Negotiations on East-West Differences

With the Prospect that simultaneous negotiations will begin this autumn on political settlement of the Korean war and the future status of Germany and Austria, the United States is entering a new phase in the long postwar series of international negotiations between East and West.

The United States, Britain, and France have proposed to the Soviet Union that the Big Four foreign ministers meet at Lugano, Switzerland, on Oct. 15 to consider new steps toward a German settlement and conclusion of the long delayed Austrian peace treaty. The political conference on Korea is still scheduled to meet before Oct. 28 by terms of the armistice agreement and a United Nations resolution of Aug. 28, although last-minute efforts by the Chinese Communists to reopen the question at the present meeting of the U. N. General Assembly in New York may cause delay.

Not since the first efforts at peacemaking in 1945–46 have representatives of the great powers faced a more intensive period of diplomatic negotiations. Throughout the upcoming meetings, as in previous postwar conferences, the aims, tactics, and techniques of Soviet Russia will stand out as crucial factors in determining whether the issues which now divide the world can be settled at the conference table.