THE UNLIFTED CURTAIN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 775, 28 May 1954, Page 13

THE UNLIFTED CURTAIN

SOVIET POLICY IN THE. FAR EAST, 1944-1951, by Max Beloft; Oxford University Press, English price 21/-. SHORT assessment of this book would be that it gets the reader nowhere.. With all the resources of the Chatham House library of press clippings, Mr. Beloff has shown that he can’t find enough precise facts about Soviet policy in the Far East to draw any conclusions, and he says as much. In a world where propaganda demands

that we be right and they be wrong, we can be thankful that a suspended judgment is prescribed. The difficulty is that Mr. Beloff doesn’t stop at that. Three or four years ago he wrote a paper on .the subject, and his friends unfortunately advised him to expand it into a book. Accordingly he puts in his references to newspapers and other secondary sources (some very questionable), weaves a discussion round the events reported, shows by his attitude what he thinks is the case, sometimes makes direct statements which, though untrue, are generally acceptable to an uncritical audience, and then says that what precisely happened "remains obscure." His discussion on Korea is poor, Mr. Beloff obviously knows little about the United Nations and even less about the documents which show authoritatively the UN background on Korea. One doesn’t expect Mr. Beloff to be de-tached-to have a sense of humour or to be a brilliant political scientist, but he has a reputation for plodding through the detail. In this‘ case, however, he simply hasn’t done the work necessary for a serious book. Mr. Beloff is allowed his pot-boiler, but it is a chastening thought that the promotors of the book

feel it will boil pots.

W.B.

S.