The Central European Crisis: A Proposal for Western Initiative

Abstract

There can be no yielding to force on the question of Berlin; but, before eventual force is met with force, any interference with Western access to West Berlin should be laid before the court of world opinion in the United Nations. There can be no satisfactory solution to the problem of a divided Berlin except in the broader context of a solution to the problems of a partitioned Germany and a divided Europe. The first steps toward such a solution consist of military and political disengagement in Central Europe. Military disen gagement means the gradual, carefully controlled withdrawal of foreign forces, a limitation of indigenous armaments within the evacuated area and the debarment of any state or states within the evacuated zone from military alliance with East or West. Political disengagement means an East-West hands-off agreement—that is, a renunciation by the Western powers and the Soviet bloc of any interference in the political or economic future of the militarily neutralized states. Without such mili tary and political disengagement there can be no reunification of Germany and no gradual liberation of Eastern Europe from coercive domination. The process envisaged will necessarily be slow, with each step tested by experience. The important thing is to get it started.