Diplomatic Approach To Talks in Moscow Called Correct One Russians Started Berlin Blockade as Means of Forcing Conference By David Lawrence The amazing thing about what happened at the conference between Stalin and the three Western am bassadors is not that they talked but that they didn't talk together long before this. The technique is as old as diplom acy. It has been suggested time and again. Instead of a conference under klieg lights, diplomacy has always explored the issues through regularly accredited ambassadors and either with the head of a state or his foreign secretary. Thf dispatches from Moscow indi cate that something unusual has happened—ambassadors have actu ally been talking to the head of another government about critical issues. Last May when the American Government sent a note which opened the door to discussion, there was a curious fumbling of the ball here in Washington. It was said that unilateral discussions would be bad for the Allied democracies. Nobody seems to have thought then of the idea of the ambassadors of Great Britain, France and the United States going together to the Russian government and laying all the cards on the table and issuing statements until conclusions had been reached. Indicated Desire to Talk. Again and again the Russians have indicated a desire to talk with the Western governments. Again and again the democracies have in dicated that there was little to talk about or else that the Russians couldn't be trusted or else that there had to be a four-power con ference if anything was to be taken tip to alter the existing situation. The Russians evidently started the Berlin blockade as a means of altering the existing situation and forcing some kind of conference. They have succeeded. The United States, Britain and France are in the position now of offering some kind of trade or concessions in ex change for a lifting of the blockade —a palpably artificial issue. Within recent weeks the situation had reached t{ie point where war talk was in the air. From Berlin there came dispatches telling of a plan to send in an armored train and dare the Russians to fire on it. All this was a sign that diplomacy had failed. Then public opinion began to look askance at the failure of diplomacy—people wondered why young men would have to be killed because somewhere there was not enough ingenuity to arrive at settle ments in a peaceful manner. It is unquestionably true that provocation by the Russians fias been considerable but any adminis tration that allowed American mili tary forces to be bottled up in the city of Berlin without an explicit agreement as to the military right to supply such forces certainly can not have been very alert. The Russians are admittedly dif ficult to deal with and undoubtedly they are materialistic to the extreme in trying to wangle money and ma terials out of the Western allies. But the evidence indicates they are not inclined to go to war about it. Under such trying circumstances any return to the type of interna tional conferences held in London and Paris would be a mistake. Approach Is Correct One. The latest approach is the cor rect one. There is no publicity dur ing the negotiations. Neither side Issues statements to the press or to the radio and there are not a half hundred aides standing around and then leaking information to the press so that the negotiators can not alter a position once taken. This time precautions have been taken to exchange views in earnest and to make public the agreements reached when there are agreements. The process of reaching an agree ment is often attended by retreats and concessions, and publicity fre quently prevents a successful out come of the negotiations. Evidently the four governments want to clear the air and start in a realistic manner to find a way to live to gether without going to war and without surrendering principles that are vital. There need be no “appeasement” In the Munich sense and no humili ating shifts in public position. But there are ways to adjust interna tional questions without threaten ing to go to war. If that formula has just been applied at Moscow in the critical circumstances of today, a milestone has indeed been reached In world affairs. iBanrnrtiirHnn Rights Reserved). Water Heaters GAS AND ELECTRIC All Makes, Sizes Installed p. G. O'BRIEN Phon* SH. 61 38 Finest of the Fleet TO PHILADELPHIA XEWYOBK j lv. Wo»hlngt©n .... 1.43 PM (Standard Tima) Only S40 taka* yaa ta yarn ckaic# al IS piacat in Naw York and iraaklya Phan* ITdrllni lor tnfanaatian This Changing World Future of Nation May Well Be Decided In Diplomatic Discussions at Moscow By Constantine Brown - Any substantive discussion of the 2-hour diplomatic conversations Monday night between Prime Min ister Stalin and the representatives well be decided, for unless events operate now in a positive way for peace, the only other prospect is conflict and the only remaining question wiK be—How long? In the second place, the approach to Prime Minister Stalin this time was made by three Western Allies in unison, contrary to the fiasco of last April when Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith, apparently as the re sult of imperfect decisions in the State Department, and/or the White House, made what many persons be lieve was an overture to get negotia tions started again with the Rus sians without giving any hint of weakness. Gross ineptitude in our whole approach at that time pro vided the Russians with propaganda ammunition which they promptly used against us. to me western j powers in the Kremlin must | await disclosure of the subject matter of the discussions. It is not likely that any word of the outcome of the confer ence will be forthcoming un til complete a greement has been reached on the matter of noiaing a sweep- conunllne Brown, ing Big Four conference which could have for its purpose a settle ment of all outstanding issues be tween East and West. Such an agreement will necessi tate, from our standpoint, the lift ing of the Berlin blockade. If Prime Minister Stalin has agreed to do that, it Is possible to look ahead to what could develop in the I immediate future. It is partieul : ariy desirable to do this, because j of the extreme secrecy which the State Department has thrown around the whole matter of even approaching Prime Minister Stalin. Deductions Can Be Drawn. It was known in Washington last week—but was unprintable under conditions attached to the disclos \ ure—that an attempt was being made to carry the Berlin crisis to Prime Minister Stalin. Some at 1 tempt has even been made to throw i newspapermen off the scent as to what will be taken up in a^ pros pective Big Four conference, and it was even vigorously denied that anything broader than the question of Germany is being suggested as the topic. Mistakes Being Avoided. The mistakes of April are being avoided this time, and care is be ing taken to avoid providing the Russians with fresh propaganda am munition. In the third place, even if we are informed that agreement has been reached on lifting the Berlin block ade and the holding of a Big Four conference, the prospects of agree ment in such a conference have two strikes against them, on the basis of past experience. Tha* is to say, simply, that genuine optimism over prospects for peace must await the Big Four meet ing. It would be the gravest kind of mistake to assume that East West relations are definitely on the road to settlement if in return for negotiation the Russians lift the Berlin blockade. Resumption of negotiations is, of course, the first necessary step on the road to settlement, but it has nothing to do with actual solution of the issues. vigilance muse dc maintained. Restoration of the national defense must go on. The American people must not let themselves become psychologically disarmed to the ex tent that failure of the prospective Big Four conference will come as a terrific jolt and cause for despair. We will all feel a lot better in the long run if we receive the news from Moscow with just a little skepticism and a disposition to defer any re joicing until we see what finally comes from this new approach for peace, and above all how the Rus sians carry out their part of any definitive agreement. Against tnis whole background ol mystery and secrecy it is not likely that - any conclusions will be dis closed until they are final and com plete. However, certain deductions can be drawn from the known facts of what has gone on in Moscow. In the first place the strategy of carrying the whole question to Prime Minister Stalin suggests the climactic nature of the whole discussions. We are at a crossroads of history where the course of our whole future may On the Record Youth in Wallace Movement Called Assemblage of Problem Children By Dorothy Thompson Miss Rebecca West's description of the youth at the Wallace con vention as ‘'horrible” has brought vehement reactions from some of their parents and friends, who %: have ripfpnded Ck, There was nothing wrong, either, with the intellects of the Nazi leaders. Intelligence tests showed many of them to be on the “genius” level. They also Combined a pathological capacity for cruelty with extreme sentimentality. Goer ing loved animals; Hess was a mys tic; Hitler’s massacre of the Jews was justified as a crusade for “purity.” Robespierre, Marat and Lenin were all idealists, with only a painful predilection for cutting off heads. And Miss West, who covered the trials of the British traitors and the Nuremberg criminals with un surpassed insight into their psy chological maladjustments and re ported their stories in “The Mean ing of Treason,” apparently recog nized prototypes of these in the Wallace convention. To her, this recognition in Amer ica would, indeed, be “horrible.” (Released by the Bell Syndicate, Ine.) them as “un usually alert, ex ceptionally fine young people, and exceedingly well-read.” One indignant moth er asks, apropos their “joining hands in broth erhood with their Negro fel low Americans”: “Whe n has friendship ever Dorothy Thompson, maddened instead of placated?” Miss West is castigated as "pour ing out her bitterness." Miss Mar garet Halsey (whose “With Malice Toward Some” revealed cruel an tagonism to the British) wants to know how Miss West looked to the youthful delegates whom she found, lacking in pulchritude. Another suggests that Miss West was cover ing her own cynical philosophy of life rather than a political conven tion. In this country, youth is treated with exceptional tenderness, and to, suggest that any part of it can be “horrible” shocks American sensi bilities. But I shared with Miss West the impression of distinctly disagreeable characteristics. Self-Righteous, Impertinent. Two of these were self-righteous ness and impertinence. I already have spoken of the admonitions of one young woman that I “tell the truth,” with the obvious implication that this was not my usual pursuit. When Paul Robeson appeared, a crowd of young women, who had poured into the press field, greeted him with delighted shrieks. Another characteristic was their avid response to hatred. A fourth was susceptibility to sentimentality; and a fifth was an extraordinary lack of humor. Although these young people "joined hands with their Negro fellow countrymen,” they gave frenzied applause to speeches spitting class hatred; yet they mooned with delight at Sen ator Taylor's barber-shop rendition of "I Love You As I've Never Loved Before.” It repeatedly was made apparent that their love for one part of the population was matched by ven omous hatred for another, so their “friendship” could, indeed, "mad den” as well as “placate.” My impression was that of a re markable assemblage of problem children, who were finding in the Wallace movement sublimation for personal frustrations and revolts. They were distinctly the “intel lectual” type of know-it-all which manages to get itself heartily dis liked by its contemporary com rades, and thus be pushed off into an isolated clique. Young people of this caliber congratulate each other that they are not like other boys and girls. Instead, they live their lives on a “higher plane” than the baseball-playing, date making, moviegoing “Philistines,” | who, nevertheless, they uncon-1 sciously envy. Cases of Maladjustment. This type supplies the ranks of revolutionaries in every country, and is immediately recognizable to the practiced eye. Miss Elizabeth; Bentley, who testified last Friday; that she had joined a Communist I spy ring and now has turned to tell all, also was an ‘alert, excep tionally well-read” young woman educated at Vassar and abroad, convinced for a long time that in prying into state secrets she was serving a “higher good.” 1116 chief defendants in the Canadian spy case also were of this type. Hiere was nothing wrong with their in tellects. but they were distinctly cases of psychological maladjust ment. FIRE means LOUIE —By Harry Hanan McLemore— Right if Wrong, Wrong if Right By Henry McLemore \ 1 ! "* START AT I THg.TQP Ml A XHEUUdtSS 4^ CAREER. rr^rur to— T jB.Sk>5>BY ANKARA, Turkey.—The Crown Prince of Trans-Jordan arrived here in the capital of Turkey just when I did. In fact, we reached the Ankara Palas Hotel at .. the same mo ment. He stepped out of an out size Mercedes Benz