Word: west
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Last week, in a long-awaited "counter-proposal," Gromyko made it clear that Russia had no interest in such a bargain. Instead, he brazenly announced that Moscow would "grant" the Western powers one more year of occupation rights in Berlin-provided they would reduce their forces in West Berlin to "symbolic" levels (about 50 from each nation), would liquidate all anti-Communist propaganda and espionage organizations in the city, and would agree, when the year was up, to accept an all-German committee (equal membership on both sides) to talk about "reunification." In a final burst of arrogance, Gromyko added...
...Forget. "This is an ultimatum." retorted Britain's Selwyn Lloyd-and, in fact, Gromyko's terms amounted to little more than a revival of the original "Get-out-of-Berlin" ultimatum that Khrushchev served on the West last November, to be effective after six months (May 27). U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter, in his outrage, made a solitary trip to Gromyko's villa to warn the Russian Foreign Minister that "the early days of next week will determine the outcome of the conference." Deliberately, Herter let slip the fact that his plane was on stand...
...within three days of Gromyko's bombshell, the West's first toughness began to erode. At a plenary conference session, Britain's Lloyd, in a boys-will-be-boys tone, suggested that everybody just forget "Mr. Gromyko's contribution of Tuesday and Wednesday . . . and get back to real business." Herter, in firmer vein, prodded Gromyko into publicly stating that he had not meant his "proposal" as an ultimatum. As Herter well knew, however, this did not imply an iota of change in Gromyko's stand. And as if to make that clear, the Soviet Foreign...
...being ready to negotiate. But the fact seemed to be that Herter & Co. were not only reluctant to accept the propaganda onus of ending the conference, but also shrank from the prospect that a breakdown of the negotiations might spur the Russians to some kind of action against West Berlin (whose Mayor Willy Brandt turned up at Geneva last week...
...undercut the Western position still further came unmistakable signals from Britain that, to Tories and Socialists alike, the Geneva stalemate simply made a summit conference more urgent than ever. Said Prime Minister Harold Macmillan: "We cannot abandon the people of West Berlin ... On the other hand, we have to be reasonable and try to work out new arrangements . . ." At a miners' rally in Wales before a crowd of 50,000, mercurial Aneurin Bevan, the man who would be Britain's Foreign Secretary if Labor should win the next election, cast responsibility to the winds. "There is no justification...