Reflections on the Moscow Conference

It is a mistake to underestimate the extent and the significance of the failure at Moscow. With respect to Germany the conference ended with the participants further apart than they had been at Potsdam. Nor can a modicum of comfort be salvaged by asserting that Moscow achieved a clearer understanding of the aims and ambitions of the four powers now occupying Germany. While the discussion contributed something in detail to a clarification of points of agreement and disagreement, on major issues the initial positions of the participants were known before the conference assembled. And at Moscow no power receded from its initial position on any major issue. The pertinent question is, why did the Moscow conference fail?There are two possible answers to this question, in both of which some truth is, probably, to be found. The first runs in terms of what has come to be standard negotiating technique at meetings of the Conference of Foreign Ministers. Following the practice favored by Soviet negotiators, no country is willing to make a concession until convinced by protracted and exhausting debate that the positions of others are firm. If one accepts this interpretation a certain measure of optimism is possible even after Moscow. One can refer to the experience of the satellite treaties in the negotiation of which the powers came to final agreement only after some fifteen months of what seemed at times hopeless disagreement. If it took four meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers to obtain agreement on the much less difficult questions involved in the satellite treaties, it can be argued that to write off the possibility of agreement on Germany after only one meeting is, at least, premature.