The Evening Star (March 27, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
Compromises for Big Three unity always favor Soviets
By Dorothy Thompson
As I write this article, I do not know what will have developed in the discussion of the Iranian question by the Security Council, before it is printed. There is hope that the issue will not cause a break, and there is determination that whatever settlement may have been reached between Teheran and Moscow should not compromise the independence and territorial integrity of Iran.
But such compromises as have hither to been made for the “unity” of the Big Three have resulted in the Soviets getting 90 percent of what they were after. The independence and freedom of the East European states, except for territories annexed by the Soviets, were also mutually agreed on. The Western Allies conceded that the Soviets had a right to “friendly governments” in these areas, but learned to their chagrin that being “friendly” to the Soviet Union means being unfriendly to Britain and the United States.
We know that Soviet demands on Hitler included Iran, Iraq, the Dardanelles and enough of Saudi Arabia to control the Persian Gulf. For these the Soviets were willing to conclude a military alliance with the Axis. One may assume that the object of the Soviet offer was to prevent the Germans. who had abandoned the hope of a successful invasion of Britain, from attacking Britain by the backdoor of the empire through the Dardanelles. Russia did not want German troops in an area where she herself would be exposed. The Germans did not want the Russians where they would be exposed, and unable to conduct their own campaign. So the pact broke.
No great power must control these areas, which does not mean that all great powers should not have a fair share of access to their oil reserves, or that Russia should not have free access to the western seas.
Russia, like Britain and ourselves, does not want war. But wars happen when, as the result of a series of appeasements, great powers are encouraged to overreach themselves. That point has come with the Soviet Union. Russia has been an expansionist power for three centuries – contrary to current myths – but her history shows her always to have been cautious; to have expanded into vacuums without major risks.
Nor is Russia to blame for taking fullest advantage of the “Security Sphere” concept which was accepted by western leaders also. It was a dangerous idea in the first place, and the Russians have fought it whenever it was of advantage to the security of the west. Western Europe is more important to British – and American – security than Eastern Europe, without Germany, is to Russian.
But the idea of a western bloc has been howled down by the Soviets and the Soviet parties abroad. What is needed is an independent Europe throughout all its parts, under such conditions that it cannot be dominated or used by Russia against the west, or by the west against Russia, which means, among other things, a much stronger world organization than the present structure of UNO.
Real peace between the west and the Soviets also will not come to pass as long as Communist parties act as outposts for the Soviet Union and conspire to weaken the internal order of all Russia’s “potential” enemies, which seems to mean everybody. Peoples regarded and treated as “potential” enemies usually become real enemies, and the Communist parties abroad are not Soviet assets but the Soviets’ worst liabilities, from the standpoint of peace – as the German-American Bund in the United States was Germany’s worst liability.
The Canadian spy case spreads more alarm among the average American citizen than does the case of Iran. German Communists created almost as many Hitlerites as Hitler himself. American or European parties may reasonably advocate the nationalization of productive property, but when they act as agents of a foreign power they turn every decent patriot against their masters.
Unity requires mutual concessions, not continual one-way appeasements, and no one is a true or intelligent friend of the Russian nation or people who encourages them to believe the contrary. The theory of the all-wisdom of Soviet leaders before and during the war is another myth. Had their mouthpieces in this country succeeded in keeping America disarmed and unprepared. Russia would have lost the war. If Churchill had not held fast in a dreadful moment for Britain and rejected the Hess mission, Russia would certainly have lost the war.
Iran is not the only danger spot. There is Turkey; there is Trieste. If UNO is to be a whole series of crises, relations inevitably will deteriorate.
This country, and every citizen of it, will respond to every move that the Soviets make toward creating under standing on a mutual and reciprocal basis. But we have too recently had bitter experience of peace talk accompanying aggression, direct or indirect, to place our trust in words alone. We remember too well that in all of Hitler’s published speeches, everyone except the Germans was a warmonger. And if Stalin reaffirms his loyalty to UNO, could he well have said the contrary?