Word: bevins
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...everyone had expected, Andrei Vishinsky turned down the West's proposal for a Germany united on the basis of the Bonn constitution. He took two days and a lot of his beloved Russian proverbs to do it. Britain's Ernie Bevin grunted impatiently as Vishinsky hammered away: France's Robert Schuman fidgeted in his chair. But Dean Acheson, knowing that Vishinsky was talking-and had to talk-for the record, coolly waited till the Russian had run down. Then he submitted a proposal for settling the Berlin dispute...
Meanwhile, the conference had even achieved something approaching humor. Once, when the going got dreary, Bevin told his colleagues: "I feel like an orphan at the table. I am the only one here who wasn't brought up as a lawyer." When the lawyers tried to set an hour for the start of the secret meetings, Vishinsky said: "If we meet tomorrow at 3, I think I will have had enough sleep...
...Bevin: "Mr. Vishinsky spends so much time looking up proverbs and quotations, I wonder he has any chance to sleep...
...Bevin: "Some of my most restful sleeps have been at conference tables...
After four days' debate on his proposals, Vishinsky asked the Westerners for their ideas. Acheson, Bevin and Schuman hammered out a proposal. Highlights: unity under the Bonn constitution, no more reparations out of current production, no Russian ownership of German industry, four-power control through a High Commission bound by majority decision "save in exceptional circumstances...