It was hard being Vyacheslav Molotov last week. Under the pounding of the West's three foreign ministers, Molotov retreated all week long. And his instructions from the Kremlin were to do it with good grace, which comes hard to Vyacheslav Molotov.
The West began the week with a show of generosity that was hard for him to match. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced that the U.S. was immediately lifting the passport restrictions that have prohibited U.S. citizens from traveling to Russia and its satellites without special permission. The U.S. was also easing the procedures that control trade with the Soviet bloc, Dulles added. He offered more, if the Russians would reciprocate: distribution of Russian films, books, newspapers in the U.S.; establishment of regular Russian commercial-airline flights, even a monthly exchange of radio commentaries on world developments to be broadcast over U.S. networks.
No matter what the subject, Old Iron-bottom was not as nimble as he used to be. In the past, he could always cover up his defeats in his false-premise logic and steal the headlines by explosive charges of warmongering. Last week he seemed sadly hampered by the new rules imposed by the Spirit of Geneva. The relaxation it had produced in Europe was serving the Kremlin well, and Molotov was apparently under strict orders not to spoil this pleasant atmosphere.
"Parallel Thinking." Again and again he talked of security; again and again the West brought him back to the reunification of Germany. Molotov abandoned his "all-Europe" security plan and produced a new one based on a tactical error committed by Prime Minister Anthony Eden at the first summit meeting. Eden had tentatively proposed zones of controlled armed forces on either side of the present East-West German border—instead of on the eastern border of a reunited Germany, as the West now wants. Britain's Macmillan forcefully rejected both Molotov's proposal, and, by implication, Eden's earlier idea: "We ... do not believe that there can be any real security in Europe as long as Germany is divided."
Dulles, giving Molotov no chance to blame the West for a failure at Geneva, chose to emphasize the points of seeming agreement ("a quite remarkable degree of parallel thinking"). "There is before us a realizable vision of security in Europe . . . provided—and of course this proviso is of the utmost importance—we can make similar progress with respect to the unification of Germany," Dulles declared. Molotov was forced to a "fallback position" that free elections would deprive East Germany's loyal citizens of the joys of Communism.
"I am really surprised that Mr. Molotov should assume, as he apparently does, that under conditions of free elections, where the people have the right to see and examine what is going on, they will reject the East German regime," said Dulles. France's Pinay sardonically pointed out that the East Germans themselves did not seem to appreciate the "social achievements" Molotov wanted to protect. "Three million Germans have fled from Herr Grotewohl's paradise since 1945," Pinay pointed out, "and the exodus is still going on, and increasing."