THE TABLET November 15th, 1958. VOL. 212, No. 6182

TH E TABLET >

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

FOUNDED IN 1840

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

NOVEMBER 15th, 1958

N1NEPENCE

Active Participation : Unesco Chooses a Director-General

East and West Germany : M. Khrushchev’s Proposals for Berlin

Economics and Politics in Ireland : Causes of Discontents. By Declan Costello

Where are Computors Taking US?: Machines that can Learn Cardinal Pole : After Four Hundred Years. By E. J. B. Fry

The Duties of the Sovereign Pontiff: The First Homily of Pope John X X I 11

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

SWITCH TO GERMANY

QERMANY, where the Eastern and Western alliances confront each other at closest range, has once again become the centre of tension, with the announcement by M. Khrushchev that the Soviet Union intends to hand over Eastern Berlin to the Communist Government of Eastern Germany, and the intimation that in the Soviet view the lime has come when the Western Powers ought likewise to hand over Western Berlin. That the Western Powers undoubtedly will not do ; but Western communications with Berlin will be controlled by the East German Government, as will the water and power of the Western sectors of the city, and the East German Government may be expected to lose little time in saying that the use of these communications and services must depend upon the recognition of the regime which controls them.

These developments come at the end of a protracted visit to Moscow by M. Gomulka, from whom a high price has been extracted for the economic assistance of which Poland stands in need. For the first time since the Polish “ October revolution ” which brought him to power in 1956, M. Gomulka has publicly agreed that Eastern Poland, as handed over to the Soviet Union at Yalta, is permanently and irrevocably a part of the Soviet Union. He has promised to deal even more severely with the *' revisionists ” in his country—a term used to describe those whose national or liberal instincts tend to diminish in them the full Communist doctrine. And he has had to- subscribe to an ominous announcement about the strengthening of the Warsaw Pact which, whether or not it refers to the installation of nuclear rockets in Poland, is a severe enough rebuff for the plan for disengagement which the Polish Foreign Minister, M. Rapacki, was revising only a few days ago.

The proposal to hand over Eastern Berlin to the German Communists may not in itself be displeasing to M. Gomulka. If (which cannot be assumed) it means a withdrawal of Soviet forces, to that extent it will mean a reduction of Soviet dependence upon heavily guarded supply lines through Poland. If (which equally can by no means be assumed) it leads to a recognition of the East German Government by the Western world, then it may lead in consequence to a recognition of the OdcrNeisse frontier which the Polish and East German Governments have agreed to regard as final.

The German people, on the other hand, are very conscious of their position as pawns between the world blocs. They do not accept the division of their country. Whenever the Western Powers state their belief in the necessity of German reunification for the sake of world peace, this in Germany is widely taken to be merely another meaningless phrase, because it is suspected that the real Western intention is to perpetuate the status of a divided Germany. There are many people in the West who would regard this indeed as the lesser evil than some unpredictable form of reunification. Religion and Politics in the United States

One among the inferences that may be drawn from the results of the mid-term elections in the United States seems to be that religious belief matters a good deal less in American political life than it used to. The re-election in Massachusetts of Senator John Kennedy, whom many hope to see as Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1960. means nothing from this point of view, because his Republican opponent was also a Catholic ; and there are a great many Catholic voters in Massachusetts. But a Catholic Democrat unseated a Republican Lutheran in the strongly Lutheran State of Minnesota ; and there is a long list of other successful Catholic Democrats in predominantly non - Catholic States — California, Michigan, Ohio, Maine. The same conclusion may be drawn, from the opposite point of view, from the defeat of Catholic candidates in some States, like New York and Maryland, where Catholics are numerous. If the