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BERIA FALL OPENS NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR WORLD PEACE. Said the New York News: BERIA'S BOOTING COULD MEAN WAR—GRUENTHER. Warned the good grey New York Times: NO CHANGE IN POLICY SEEN. Diplomats the world over interpreted the event in the light of their own problems. Said Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: "A new convulsion is under way . . . Inherent weakness is disclosed." British Foreign Under Secretary Anthony Nutting called it "the dividend of our strength." In Bonn, Adenauer's rivals saw Beria's fall giving them an edge in the coming elections. In Yugoslavia, Tito's henchmen saw it as proof "that the Kremlin was introducing Titoism into the satellites." In India, Beria's fall was seen as justifying Nehru's thesis that Peking cannot be controlled by Moscow forever.
The Real Stage. Foreign comment, even in the Communist press, measured the event in terms of its possible effect on foreign policy; but the real stage and the most important audience was the Soviet Union. The reason for the delay in announcing Beria's arrest was soon apparent: the masses had to be prepared. Mass meetings were now being held throughout the Soviet Union. Pravda in hand, party workers and activists were haranguing the workers and peasants. Lesser party members quickly picked up the line. Said the director of Moscow's Hammer & Sickle factory: "We . . . demand that the severe hand of Soviet justice should mercilessly punish this freak deviationist." Said girl Plasterer Tamara Demicheva in Evening Moscow: "It was with enormous indignation and wrath that we, the youth of the University construction project, learned of the repulsive activities of the despised hireling of foreign people."
But Associated Press Correspondent Eddy Gilmore, just out of Moscow after a twelve-year stint, had a more realistic picture of Russian feeling: "It is as clear as the face on the Kremlin clock that throughout the Communist world tonight party members from the highest to the lowest feel the terrible hand of political terror clutching at their necks. The enormity of Mr. Beria's disgrace is an inescapable reminder that, but for fate, they might be sitting where he is."
Where was Beria sitting? Said Gilmore: "Unless the formula has been changed, Beria, high chieftain of the Soviet secret police, sits in one of his own cells in Lubianka prison . . . Oddly enough, that is where Mr. Beria has his own office. I have seen him entering and leaving many times. He would get out of his black car and, with policemen on either side and others leading the way and bringing up the rear, disappear into the depths of the place." Where were Beria's bodyguards on June 27? Was he indeed still alive? What was the meaning of his arrest, and what would be its effect? There were more good questions than good answers. But something of what went on could be measured by a look at Beria's position and actual powers.