(3 of 3)
"Wild Men." West Germany was delighted with De Gaulle's performance. Bonn is equally upset over the Moscow negotiations, fears that a combination of the test ban treaty and a nonaggression formula would raise the diplomatic status of East Germany, thus eroding the stubborn hope of eventual German reunification. Kennedy sought to soothe this worry by restating the U.S. pledge of peaceful reunification. Moreover, he pointed out that countries that do not recognize each other nevertheless sign treaties. (One example: the Laos truce agreement, signed by the U.S. and Red China.) The fact remains that a non-aggression agreement, beyond the unilateral pledges already made by NATO, would be taken as a formal recognition of the European status quo, and that could only help Khrushchev unless the West were to obtain significant concessions in return.
In a personal letter to Kennedy, Khrushchev asked the President to realize that he, too, was up against political pressures. Meeting in Moscow, Comecon, the pallid satellite version of the West's Common Market, formally approved the test ban treaty, with Rumania somewhat belatedly in line after a brief flirtation with Peking. As for the Chinese, they denounced the treaty as nothing less than a U.S.-Russian alliance, accused Moscow of perpetrating "a dirty fraud," and of "selling out" Communists everywhere, "including the people of China." The Soviets replied in kind, called the Red Chinese "wild men" who borrow their arguments against the test ban from De Gaulle. "Sooner or later," said Pravda, "the madmen will have to shut up." And Khrushchev optimistically and probably accurately told Test Ban Negotiator Averell Harriman that it will be "a long time" before Peking has its own nuclear bombs.
Meanwhile the West continued its somewhat halting ring-around-the-rock-ets. Arriving in Moscow (his first visit), Dean Rusk struck a neorealistic note: "This test ban is an important event. It could become a historic event. That depends upon what follows." Then he settled down with Britain's Lord Home and Russia's Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko for a series of conferences to see where, after the opening sequence of the test ban, the new Moscow script might lead.