To: Thomas M. who wrote (10500 ) 2/19/2003 6:04:27 PM From: Lazarus_Long Read Replies (1) | Respond to In 1952, the West rejected an offer by Stalin to unify the two Germanies by a national election. johndclare.net really think it's necessary to know what else was attached to that.By 1948, Russia controlled Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. Churchill was first to refer to this as an Iron Curtain that divided Europe. The Allies were angered that the free elections promised by Stalin at the Yalta Conference were not held and adopted a new foreign policy of containment to keep communism to the areas where it was already in affect. The Truman Doctrine of 1947 stated that America would help any non-communist country to resist communist pressure. The Marshall Plan involved sending large amounts of American money to help non-communist countries to recover from World War II. meme.essortment.com 1952 dhm.de On the same grounds, we can understand why the political leadership has often failed to pursue apparent opportunities to reduce the threat of superpower confrontation, and thus to enhance national security. One early example was in 1952, when the Kremlin put forth a proposal for reunification and neutralization of Germany, with no conditions on economic policies and with guarantees for "the rights of man and basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, press, religious persuasion, political conviction, and assembly" and the free activity of democratic parties and organizations. In reply, the U.S. and its allies objected that the West did not recognize the Oder-Neisse frontier between Germany and Poland, and insisted that a reunified Germany be free to join NATO, a demand that the Russians could hardly accept a few years after Germany alone had virtually destroyed the Soviet Union. The Western reply also referred, more plausibly, to lack of clarity about free elections; but instead of seeking further clarification, the proposal was rejected with quite unreasonable demands. Commenting at the time, James Warburg, one of the few to have argued that the opportunity should be pursued, notes that neither the text of the March 10 Kremlin proposal "nor even the fact of its arrival was disclosed by Washington until after the Western reply had been sent on March 25." He suggests that the delay may have been related to the Administration desire "to present its case for the Mutual Security Act of 1952 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, without having that committee's deliberations prejudiced by knowledge of the Soviet proposal"; the Act called for about $7.5 billion for Western rearmament, and was "based upon the assumption that an All-German settlement could not possibly be achieved."24 zmag.org Adenauer continued to demand free elections supervi Adenauer was harshly criticized by the opposition for not1upinfo.com
