DIPLOMACY AND THE ALLIANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 54, 1 September 1943, Page 4

DIPLOMACY AND THE ALLIANCE

The invasion by the western Allies of western Europe remains a feature of Mr. Churchill's broadcast on policy.: The terms in which Mr. Churchill refers to the invasion neither bring it closer nor push it farther away. Like the sword of Damocles, the invasion remains suspended ,over Germany's; head; nothing actually falls on Germany's head except the rain of bombs, but this exception is vital, and may even prove decisive. While the air blitz continues to secure the important results that are being secured, it may: be profitable—from the exclusively military point of view—to keep the sword of invasion in its present suspension. Passing from the military to; the political standpoint, it is evident that steps are being prepared with a view to making the political alignment of Britain, America, and Russia sufficiently complete to reinsure a fully satisfactory political utilisation of the downfall of Nazism, if and when this downfall occurs. This intention, the purpose and the method are indicated by the Prime Minister's statement that "the President and I will persevere in our efforts to meet Marshal Stalin. In the meantime, it js most necessary and urgent that a conference of British, j American, and Russian Foreign Ministers should be held to take discussion to a point at which the heads of State might be able to intervene." The immediate need, which is being faced, is to undertake the diplomatic groundwork enabling the concrete issues to be themselves defined. In the long years of desultory peacetime conferences that characterised European policy in the unfruitful international period between the two Great Wars, it was more than once pointed out that a conference of heads was of little use unless diplomacy had first performed extensive spadework in the way of separating deadlock issues from issues on which agreement might be possible and useful. Where diplomatic groundwork failed to reveal any basis of agreement, a conference of heads almost, always failed; and a conference of heads had/much greater chance of success when the Foreign Ministers and their professional diplomats had cleared a track through, the land-mines and booby-traps of peacetime discussions. What was'-true of conferences then is probably true of conferences today; otherwise, the Prime Minister would hardly emphasise as he does the necessity and urgency of pre-conference exploration of complicated world-issues by the three Foreign Ministers. And let it not be thought that the explorers will find the task easy. Difficulties of alignment of the Big Three must not be underrated. Neither, of course,, must they be exaggerated. Nothing' suits Berlin's policy of ' "Divide and conquer" (or, rather, "divide and avert defeat") better than Allied overemphasis of the possible points of difference between Russia and her allies. Such over-emphasis by Press and radio —whether in Britain, America, or Russia—plays Hitler's game. A realist view shows that the common aims and vital interests of Russia, Britain, and America vastly outweigh their policy differences, -r An alliance that survives the hard knocks and ill fortunes of war is far from being out of danger. Adversity often unites; prosperity sometimes 'separates. When the battle is uphill, peace settlement problems look distant; but they come more and more into the mental picture as the victory of allies draws nearer. Then comes the golden moment for the enemy's diplomacy to work dissension among allies by contrasting their peace objectives. Indeed, the failing power of the enemy's sword is actually the opportunity of his propaganda, which overlooks no opportunity to raise provocative questions, and which profits by misrepresenting the candid criticisms as well as the ruthless analyses which democratic liberty allows to appear in the publicity channels of allied countries. There is no possible democratic alliance which is not vulnerable to the damaging effect of free public criticism of one ally by the Press and radio of another. Long ago the Goebbels propaganda prepared to make the utmost use—and abuse—of AngloAmerican and Russian freedom of discussion,' Goebbels calculating that military success would sharpen, rather than abate, mutual criticisms among Germany's enemies—criticisms that could be intensified by circulating them, in garbled form, in the country criticised. Now that the war has reached a stage at which Anglo-American-Russian relations are susceptible to misrepresentation by Berlin and Rome, it is important to the Allies to guard against over-emphasis pf international differences. The exploratory work of the Foreign Ministers, foreshadowed by the Prime Minister, is helped by the central fact—-that the points in common far exceed the points in dispute. But exploratory diplomacy has greater chances of success if it proceeds in an atmosphere that is conciliatory, not tinged with recrimination. i