Lifting the blockade

, Philip C. Jessup, U.S. ambassador-at-large (right), leaves the
Soviet UN delegation office in New York after conferring with

sagob Malik, Soviet delegate to
lockade,

the UN, on lifting the Berlin

Right to testify won by

Foster in

itrial of 12’

—NEW YORK

Judge Harold Medina has been forced to reverse himself by
Stanting to Communist Chairman William Z. Foster the right to testify
Y deposition in the heresy trial of America’s Communist leaders. Foster
Nes one of the 12: leaders accused of “teaching and advocating over-

5000 greet
Wallace

—BOSTON

thousand Bostonians jam-
i aac Mechanics’ Hall in Boston
leader ot to hear Progressive party
rope Henry A. Wallace, two Eu-

an legislators and Mrs. Paul

yobeson assail the North Atlantic
ar Pact,

Five
meq

meeting gave a rousing

e@
Sendofr ¢
O ,
Move on New England’s peace

allace

listeg Pulled no punches as he

Point by point the price
Or the pact. He declared
Tuman’s “corrupt comprom-
with reaction’ had sold out
Jights for the Negro people
Breas votes for the pact in Con-
Tryentally and Vandenberg told
civiy ‘n, ‘If youn wan the pact, no
nouf, tights’,” Wallace said. He de-
rope ced American coddling of Eu-
antic. fascists “in the name of an
Tah unist crusade.”
eight an Senator Michele Glua,
lin’s years a prisoner in Musso-
Strom a -warned that American
Perialy to involve Italy in an im-
ess; war would plunge _ his

Brit, into civil war.

linet Labor member of par-
Veter, 2, Lester Hutchinson,
Bch n of the Royal Navy, told

eering audience: “I want to
© it perfectly clear that I
Hot fight in another war to
re fascism,”

8
Civi]

Testo

throw of the government by force
and violence.” Judge Medina was
compelled to sever his case from
the other 11 when heart specialists
appointed by the judge reported his
appearance in court might prove
fatal.

Repeated defense requests that
the Communist leader be permit-
ted to testify through deposition
had been turned down by the
judge. The defense pleaded that
Foster, as the outstanding leader
of the Marxist movement in Ame-
rica and as the one Communist top
official who fought against the re-
visionism of Browder, was unique-
ly necessary for its case.

It is believed the about-face was
partly a result of public pressure
and partly a result of realization
that refusal could not be justified.

Pressure came from many trade
unions and other groups.

Dr. Domingo Villamil, former
director of the Cuban ministry
of justice who attended the trial
as an observer for the Interna-
tional Association of Demecratic
Lawyers, reported that the re-
fusal to permit Foster to testify
by deposition was symbolic of
the fantastically unjust spirit of
the trial.

Foster himself wrote to the
judge implying that he might be
compelled to appear as a witness
in person to defend the cause to
which he has devoted his life, even
at the risk of losing it.

Right Socialists

complain

recovery only imaginary

; —AMSTERDAM
erg Ght-wing Socialist union lead-
Belgiu, the Benelux countries —
ember the Netherlands and Lux-
strone © ete beginning to make
of i Criticisms of the operation

_@ Marshall plan for Burope,

Wh
ich reg have hitherto strongly

ed
labop
tries

Sram

& joint memorandum present-
€ir governments, the main
federations of all three coun-
Assailed the reports and pro-
of ieosented to Marshall plan
s ce The government re-
Dlisheg, f recovery already accom-
» the labor groups said, are

“imaginary and highly optimistic.”
Rapidly rising unemployment in
Belgium, for example, is slurred
over in the reports.

The joint Benelux program sub-
mitted for the coming year is de-

scribed as anti-labor, “directed
against a just division of national
income and... bound to result in

serious social tensions.”

The unions pointed out that the
program “aims at the return of
the prewar economic structure.
Labor in the Benelux countries, on
the other hand, wants a much bet-
ter deal than it got before the war.

the question of Germany.

Efforts for the resumption of
direct U.S.-Soviet contacts and for
the return to joint U.S.-British-
Soviet-French consideration of the
German problem have been made
by Soviet statesmen for a long
time. The Russians have repeat-
edly stressed their view that not

fBerlin but Germany is the real

issue to be considered. During the
past year Premier Stalin has made
several offers to meet Truman on
this matter.

Soviet conditions for lifting the
Berlin blockade previously includ-
ed the settlement of German cur-
rency questions and western aban-
donment of the plan for a separate
West German state, but Moscow
has now agreed to defer these
points to the Foreign Ministers’
meeting.

The U.S. and Britain, with the
rather reluctant assent of the
French, have speeded the creation
of a separate West Germany, in-
cluding their three occupation
zones, so that it would be an ac-
complished fact before any new
Big Four talks.

Henry A. Wallace has charged
before the U.S. Senate foreign
relations committee that the
state department actually sup-
pressed news of a March 22 Ber-
lin settlement bid by the Rus-
sians, on the terms now agreed
on, until it could complete action
on both the North Atlantic pact
and Western Germany. There
has bean no convincing denial] of
this charge. Any action by the
state department to keep the
question of West Germany off the
agenda of the new Big Four talks
will lend it substantiation.

It will be inimical to peace be-
cause no one can contend that the
shape of a future Germany is any
less Russia’s concern than that of
the U.S. After all, it was Russia

that the Germans invaded in larg-
est fiorce and devastated to the
greatest degree.

Retirement of General Lucius
Clay as chief of the U.S. military
government in Germany, a job

which will now probably go to a
civilian, coincided with scandalous
revelations which go far to con-
firm Russian fears of the revival
of a Germany geared for aggres-
sion,

An army investigating commis-
sion revealed May 1 that the U.S.
military government did not
break up a single one of Ger-
many’s great war industry trusts
and cartels, in violation both of
its written orders from Washing-
ton and of solemn U.S. commit-
ments in a whole series of inter-
national agreements.

It may be expected that the Rus-
sians, who have already. indicated
that they believe time is ripe for
such developments, will soon for-
mally propose immediate conclu-
sion of a peace treaty with Ger-
many and removal of all occupa-
tion troops, Soviet and Western,
from her soil. This would involve
creation of a single government
for all Germany and the under-
taking by that government to com-
plete allied demands for disarm-
ament, democratization, denazifica-
tion and reparations.

It demonstrates the Soviet opin-
ion that the German people, inso-
far as they have learned the perils

By ISRAEL EPSTEIN

Relaxation of Berlin
crisis ‘peace advance’

The Soviet-American decision to end the Berlin crisis, blockade, counter-blockade, airlift and all.
is good news for a world racked by fears of new conflict.

ws Even better is the news that the Big Four
Foreign Ministers Conference will meet once more: for the first time since December, 1947, to consider

of war from their own defeat, may
now do a better job of sterilizing
their own militarists than foreign
generals interested in rebuilding an
armed Germany as their own
World War III ally.

A noteworthy development of
Soviet policy has been its appeal
to the will of people everywhere
for peace and reconstruction, over
the heads of governments which
have been far too fascinated with
the idea of a new war. Soviet
sincerity is, of course, the atmos-
phere in the !USSR itself. All for-
eign correspondents have testified
that the Russian man-in-the-stréet
wants a permament, honorable
peace above all, and that the
Soviet press has consistently en-
couraged this desire—unlike the
press on this side of the water.

Relaxation of the Berlin crisis

definitely restores the possibility
of an advance toward peace in
which no people will be the loser,
although a lot of generals may
have to shelve their strategic
plans and a lot of owners of war
industries may have to seek pro-
fits elsewhere.

Considering who stands to gain
from peace, and who stands to
lose, it is clear that the search for
it cannot be left to generals, diplo-

mats and bankers alone, because
they are not going to search very
hard. Only unrelenting pressure
by an informed movement of labor
and the people everywhere, deter-
mined not only to preserve their
own rights but also to avoid being
led into war dangers for the sake
of their own money minorities, can
guarantee that peace will be sought
and found.

PRICE OF TRUMAN DOCTRINE

a

despite allegations of peaceful
taining a big army threatens

—ANKARA

Prices in Turkey have risen to
a point where they threaten to
wreck the national economy.

The Minister of Commerce and
Industry himself broke previous
official silence on the subject
with an admission that “the cost
of living is 30 to 40 percent high-
er than in the Balkan countries”
such as Bulgaria, Romania and
Yugoslavia,

The «minister also reported
that the two main causes for
this situation are the militariz-
ation of the country under the

Turkish living costs
threatening economy

The Turkish army, well-equipped with U.S. arms, main
tains a 24£hour patrol along the Soviet-Turkish frontier,

intent. Now the cost of main-
to wreck Turkish economy.

U.S. - sponsored Truman doc-
trine and the exhorbitant profits
of banking and commerce.
Heavy burdens have been im-
posed for the upkeep of the na-
tional defense budget and the
government is compelled to pay
a high interest on capital -for
internal recovery,” he said.

The report said frankly that
the Turkish government sees no
way out of the situation. A
proposal to economize by cutting
civil service rolls, for example,
was rejected because of “the
extent of social hardship which

would be created.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 13, 1949 — PAGE