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West off-balance. But this sort of thing has never yet created pressures on Western leaders to grant unwise concessions which they would otherwise have been able to resist.
B. Proposal to Call a Peace Conference or to Engage in Discussions on Peace Treaty
8. A somewhat different kind of Western initiative, interest in which has recently been revived by Governing Mayor Brandt of Berlin, would involve taking the counteroffensive against the Soviet campaign for a peace treaty. In a news conference on July 9, he stated that the Western Allies should consider calling a peace conference of all 52 nations who were at war with Nazi Germany. The West could take Khrushchev at his word, Brandt added. Such a move by the West would face Khrushchev with the question of what to do, according to Brandt. Another idea, he noted, would be for the West to circulate the skeleton of a peace treaty for all Germany, just as the Soviets did some time ago.
9. Chancellor Adenauer has since strongly attacked Brandt’s suggestion, and in the heat of the German electoral campaign it is hardly likely to receive much detached consideration on its merits. A paper on the general subject prepared some weeks ago in the State Department is available.
10. Moving then from these early activities to discussions conceived of as taking place at a later stage when we will know more about whether or not our deterrent can be made effective, we should realistically develop negotiating positions for each of three hypotheses:
a. The Soviets might be entirely impressed by the Western deterrent and thus seek some reasonably face-saving way out of the extreme posture to which they seem committed.
b. They might be entirely unimpressed by it and hence be encouraged to proceed with their maximum progress for unilateral action aimed at the Western position in Berlin.
c. Or finally, they might be left in a state of doubt about our intentions, both believing and disbelieving the statements they hear and the evidence which comes to them of
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