HL Deb 08 December 1969 vol 306 cc396-424

8.6 p.m.

LORD BROCKWAY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government: What decisions have been reached regarding the proposal to hold a conference to further European Security. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Unstarred Question in my name on the Order Paper. I regret that it should be at what is a late hour for this House that this important issue is being discussed tonight. I will say only that I gave notice of it many days ago and that I postponed the discussion in order that my noble friend Lord Chalfont might be here. I appreciate the fact that he is in New York on urgent business but, without disrespect to my noble friend Lord Shepherd, I regret that the Chief Whip's Office have made arrangements by which this important debate should be taken so late and that the Minister mainly responsible is unable to be here to participate in it.

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, I think that it ought to be made clear that the Whip's Office have made no arrangements at all. If other noble Lords tend to speak longer on other subjects than was anticipated, I am afraid that we have no control over that.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I am not going to respond to that, except to say that I think it deplorable that an issue of this great importance, of which long notice was given, should be arranged at a time when there is a small attendance and when those of us who have been in the House since half past two this afternoon are a little tired when approaching the subject. Despite the late hour, and despite the circumstances, I propose to deliver the speech which I have prepared because, fortunately, even if the arrangements in this House are such that after due notice an important debate of this kind cannot be discussed in the presence of a sufficient number of Members, debates in this House are reported in other countries and will have some influence on decisions which are reached.

I appreciate the fact that when we are discussing the proposal for a European Security Conference it cannot be seriously considered in a political vacuum. It was first proposed at a conference of the Soviet Union and Communist countries at Bucharest in 1966. I think then it was a propaganda enterprise. Now it has become a practical issue. For two reasons, the situation is now favourable to a European Security Conference. The first reason is the new climate which is in Europe itself. Since the Second World War Germany has been the critical and dangerous sphere. Western Germany has now changed from being a menace to peace to being a hope for peace in Europe. This is largely due to the fact that the last elections in Western Germany returned a Social Democratic and Liberal Coalition Government, and that it is under the leadership of Herr Willi Brandt. I may say that I have been an associate of Herr Willi Brandt ever since the days of the Spanish Civil War, when both of us opposed not only Fascism in that country, but also the tyranny of the Stalinists. Since then, I have on many occasions been able to retain my association with him. I regard him at this moment as the greatest statesman in Europe and the greatest hope for the peace of our Continent.

When I say that the change in the climate in Europe is largely due to the new Government in Western Germany, I have these facts in mind. First, to-day there are conversations in Moscow between representatives of West Germany and of the Soviet Union to renounce force in their future relations. This is an historical occasion which may mean for Europe more than we immediately recognise. Secondly, the new West German Government has had similar discussions with other Eastern European countries and is building up an association with them. Thirdly, that Government is having discussions with the Government of Poland regarding the borders of their two territories. Fourthly, it has given de facto recognition to the State of East Germany. Fifthly, West Germany has now signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That these great changes should have taken place in a few weeks means a change in the whole climate of the sphere which was most critically dangerous in Europe. When we add to those contributions which the West German Government has made the fact that talks are now to take place between the United States, France and the United Kingdom with the Soviet Union about Berlin, it indicates the extraordinary developments that have occurred.

I appreciate that even changes in Germany and in Europe would be of little significance unless there was a background of international reconciliation between East and West. But here, too, we may take hope. There are the talks about strategic weapons between the United States of America and the Soviet Union in Moscow, which appear to have begun well. There are the four-Power talks on the Middle East, about which I am sorry to say one cannot immediately be so optimistic. There is the fact that both the United States of America and the Soviet Union have encouraged the signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty on Nuclear Power. Then there is the consideration at the Geneva Disarmament Conference both of the limitation of modern weapons on the seabed and in relation to biological and chemical warfare. I recognise that there are factors on the other side, but I do not propose to mention them, because I do not want to be controversial in this speech. To sum up on this first point, a climate has now been created for an historic advance to peace in Europe.

The second reason why the situation has changed from propaganda to practicality is this. In the case of the Soviet Union and its allies there is now a far more conciliatory tone and a realism of what can be achieved. I have a vast file on this subject, and I have taken the trouble over the weekend to read the declarations of the series of conferences which the Soviet Union and its Communist allies have held, beginning with Bucharest in 1966, Karlovy Vary in Czechoslovakia in 1967, and during this year at Budapest in March, Prague in October, and Moscow as late as last Thursday. A study of these documents shows two very significant developments. First they are more conciliatory in tone. At the Bucharest Conference in 1966 a declaration was issued making a polemical attack on the United States of America, on NATO and on West Germany. There is a complete absence of that tone in the last declaration which has been issued from the conferences held this year. This significant change in approach has been recognised by Herr Willi Brandt and others.

But, secondly, there is the more realistic approach. At Bucharest, and at the earlier conferences, it was suggested that the conference should deal with the recognition of Eastern Germany, the border line between Poland and Ger- many, the dissolution of both NATO and the Warsaw Military Alliance in favour of a security pact. At the conference at Prague in October, reaffirmed by last Thursday's conference at Moscow, only two proposals are now made for the agenda. The first is an agreement on renunciation of force by both sides and by all European Governments; and, second, a discussion on economic and scientific co-operation between the Soviet Union, the Communist countries, the West and the neutral nations. The very practical proposal is made that if anything further is proposed for the agenda of the conference it should be made through diplomatic channels.

As a consequence of this more conciliatory tone by the Communist countries, and by their realism, there has been an extraordinary support in Europe for the Security Conference. There was the first meeting of the Western European Union, its Ministerial Conference at The Hague in June, where it discussed this proposal in detail. At the end of it Dr. Luns, the Foreign Secretary of the Netherlands, who was chairman of the Conference, stated that a European Security Conference might well come about during the latter part of next year. Secondly, there was the meeting of NATO at Brussels, only last Thursday. I think I am fair in summing up the reports of its proceedings by saying that it was receptive to the idea of a European Security Conference. It insisted on careful preparations and the prospect of concrete results. It had reservations and proposals for the agenda and (I will refer to this later) insisted upon the presence of the United States of America and Canada.

Thirdly, we have had this quite extra-ordinary event in European affairs, the initiative by President Kekkonen, of Finland. He has suggested that the European Conference should be held at Helenski and he has toured both the Communist countries, the countries of Europe and the countries of North America to invite them to attend. The response to this initiative has been quite overwhelming. We not only have the earlier declaration by Willi Brandt, the head of the West German Government, of positive support for the proposals; we now have support from Canada and from 21 European nations, including Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland and the Vatican. The support of the Vatican is especially significant, because it influences the Christian Democratic parties in Europe. Yesterday the Christian Democratic Party in Western Germany modified its attitude towards this proposal as a result of what the Vatican has decided.

There are three controversial points which have to be settled if the European Security Conference is to meet. The first is the question as to whether the United States of America and Canada, as members of NATO, should be invited. The Western' European Union, NATO and President Kikkonen of Finland, have urged that they should. The Soviet Union has now responded by saying that it accepts the presence of representatives of the U.S.A. and Canada at the convening conference, when the procedures shall be decided. It has asked on its side that representatives of East Germany shall be present, and West Germany has now accepted this proposal. Therefore, on this issue of the representation of the conference, there is less danger of disagreement.

The second point of controversy was raised by the American Secretary of State, Mr. William Rogers, in a statement reported yesterday. He said that America would not join any European East/West Security Conference that recognised Moscow's doctrine of limited sovereignty in the Soviet bloc. I might rather mischievously remind Mr. William Rogers that there is a place called South America. I will refrain from developing that point. I hope, however, that no one will assume that presence at the conference implies recognition of the Soviet invasion and domination of Czechoslovakia. But can there be any doubt that a lessening of the confrontation in Europe would give a greater opportunity for those who claim democratic rights in Czechoslovakia and stand for liberty of thought and expression? It is in circumstances of insecurity that authoritarianism thrives.

There is a third point of controversy regarding the proposed Conference. France, on the Western side, and Roumania on the Communist side, have objected to agreements between blocs, and both have urged that it would be better that bilateral discussions should take place. I hope that bilateral discussions will take place. Those which are now taking place between Western Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union, and between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., will all prepare the atmosphere for a successful European Conference. But there will be overall issues for Europe which cannot be settled by bilateral discussions and which should be subject to an All-European Conference.

The fundamental issue now is of the sponsorship of the Conference. It has so far been assumed that it would be by NATO and the Warsaw Military Alliance. I want to suggest, for two reasons, that a European Security Conference cannot be left only to NATO and the Warsaw Military Alliance. The first reason is that this Conference will be attended by neutral nations which are not members either of NATO or of the Warsaw Pact. Herr Brandt, in an interview which appeared in our Tribune of August 1, used these words: We start from the assumption that, in addition to the members of NATO (including America and Canada) and of the Warsaw Pact, the Conference would also be attended by the neutral and non-aligned European countries. The list of those countries which I have already given shows how the neutral and non-aligned countries would be prepared to co-operate. Secondly, this Conference cannot be left to NATO and the Warsaw Military Alliance, because it will discuss political issues as well as military issues. The Times of Saturday last said: NATO would not be a suitable body for talks on European security and détente. I want to conclude with suggestions of a constructive kind to resolve these points of dispute. First, I hope that diplomatic exchanges will proceed regarding the agenda of a Conference. The West as well as the East have put forward many proposals. In fact, the subjects are similar, although the conclusions are different—Berlin, access to Berlin, East Germany. I hope that they may all be included upon the agenda. But there is one important omission in the proposals made from the East but which is included in the proposals made from the West. It is that there should be discussion of a mutual reduction of the forces on both sides. I regard this as the most important issue which should be discussed. Psychologically, if East and West decided mutually to reduce their forces, the effect would be greater than anything else, and it would be an indication of serious purpose. I hope that the West will continue to press for the inclusion of this item upon the agenda of the Conference.

I suggest that the diplomatic exchanges regarding the agenda of the Conference should be followed by calling a meeting of representatives of all the accepting Governments. I do not suggest that all these complicated issues can be discussed at one conference. I should hope that at the first Conference there would be an agreement on the broad objectives of seeking peace in Europe, and a declaration of the renunciation of force in settling all problems. I would suggest that at that first Conference future proceedings might also be arranged, perhaps by working parties reporting to the Conference on particular issues.

On the question of the presence of the United States of America and Canada, they would not be directly interested in all the problems which would arise—for example, on economic co-ordination and cultural relations. They would, however, be interested as members of NATO in the military problems. Therefore, thirdly, I would suggest that there should be a reference of military matters to NATO and to the Warsaw Military Alliance acting as a working party to the fuller conference. The Times has remarked that NATO is the right body to talk about troop reductions, even if it is not the right body to speak about security and détente.

My Lords, I do not know whether I ought to apologise for making this detailed speech on this important subject. I hope the suggestions which I have made will be considered, not only by Her Majesty's Government but in other spheres which a speech in this House will reach. I want to conclude by saying this. Fifteen years ago there was a great hope in Europe, a great hope in the world. We had the Geneva Conference. Everyone spoke of the "spirit of Geneva" as meaning the opportunity for peace in the world. That peace was destroyed by the intensified conflict between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., and particularly by the Vietnam war. I believe that we now have an opportunity to recover the spirit of Geneva of fifteen years ago—it may be called "the Helenski spirit".

There are very big difficulties in trying to solve the problems of Europe which I have tried to describe, but we should have in mind a determination to overcome these difficulties because of the incomparable aim of peace which is the object. We must not allow this opportunity to pass, and if this opportunity is seized we must not allow what destroyed the Geneva spirit to destroy the Helenski spirit. My hope is that if the Conference meets it may, with expanding agreement, progress to justifying the name of European security by ending the division of Europe into opposing military blocs and replace NATO and the Warsaw alliance by a comprehensive Pact of peace. I believe that this is now within our reach. I beg our Government to take every possible action to further its realisation.

8.41 p.m.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, in regretting the lateness of this debate and the emptiness of the House, but it has had the effect of considerably reducing my speech, and thereby perhaps reducing its weight and force. It seems to me fairly appropriate as a day for this Motion set down by the noble Lord. There are factors inside and outside the field of military defence which make it so. Factors and opportunities, however, we have to recall, have often seemed fortuitous in the past, yet we can think of many saddening occasions and setbacks.

At the Summit Conference in Geneva in 1955, to which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, referred in his closing words, President Eisenhower began his speech on behalf of his country, and also on behalf of civilised mankind, with these words: We are here for a simple purpose: to find a basis for accommodation which will make life safer and happier, not only for the nations we represent but for people elsewhere. It is that same endeavour which I am sure, the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has in mind to-day, in his own diligent and indefatigable efforts on behalf of all those who suffer in many ways and in many parts of the world. It is a simple purpose, as President Eisenhower said, because it is a natural purpose. But I doubt whether anyone can claim that we are closer to its achievement than on that date fourteen years ago.

It has not been the fault or the failing of the Western democracies that the credibility in success has withered rather than flourished in the meantime. That particular Summit was killed as much as anything by Marshal Bulganin's stern rejection of any raising of the question of the Central and Eastern European countries. Earlier he had praised the idea of a European security system, but when this point of the Eastern European countries was raised he called it "interference in the internal affairs of those countries". My Lords, we have lately seen how tenderly Russia respects the internal affairs of those countries; how free of interference she is prepared to leave them.

Now, as the noble Lord has reminded us, we have a new proposal from the Russians for a European Security Conference. The NATO Council had an opportunity in Brussels last week, on Thursday and Friday, to study that proposal, and they have responded cautiously. I think that caution was wise. It was described thus in the statement of the Foreign Ministers after the final meeting. They affirmed that the fundamental problem of Europe could be solved "only on the basis of sovereign equality, political independence, territorial integrity of the States, the right of each people to forge their own future, peaceful settlement of differences, non-interference in the internal affairs of one State by another, regardless of their political and social systems, and renunciation of the use of force".

There could scarcely be a clearer catalogue of conditions which Soviet Russia has savagely breached in the immediate or recent past. There was something inauspicious, to me even sickening, in the choice of localities from which these Soviet proposals officially came. The revived idea of a general Conference on European Security was first floated, for the world to observe, on March 17 in Budapest. That meeting lasted only two hours. The proposals were actually issued from a subsequent Warsaw Pact meeting held in Prague. There were the two capitals of two countries whose attempts at winning sovereign equality, political independence and the right of a people to forge its own future had been crushed by tanks and troops and war planes, invading upon the orders of Moscow, in one case only seven months before the Budapest meeting.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, may I just interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? Does he forget that the chairman of the first Conference which made this proposal was Mr. Dubcek, of Czechoslovakia?

LORD ST. OSWALD

And does the noble Lord know where Mr. Dubcek is now?

LORD BROCKWAY

I do.

LORD MILFORD

My Lords, is the noble Lord leaving out American interference in Vietnam, in Cuba, in South America and in the Far East?

LORD ST. OSWALD

I am sorry, but if the noble Lord really equates all those then he is speaking with considerable prejudice.

My Lords, they were the capitals of two peoples against whom the Soviet Union, so far from seeking a peaceful settlement of differences, so far from adhering to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of one State by another, so far from renouncing the use of force, had rejected peaceful settlement, had interfered with crushing and overwhelming force in the internal affairs of another State. To complete the irony, they were also countries whose territorial integrity had been plundered after the war by Soviet arms.

There is small wonder in my mind that the NATO Ministers, in their statement on Friday night, from which I have already quoted, should have concluded that conditions were not yet right for real and lasting improvement in East/West relations. Having said that, I also think it was proper for the British Foreign Secretary to suggest to the meeting, as he did, that NATO diplomats should study whether a general European conference would be the best way of dealing with Europe's future, and report to the next meeting in Rome in May of next year. I am glad that his colleagues accepted Mr. Stewart's suggestion, and I agree with his reported statement that such a Conference would have to be at the appropriate time, with the appropriate agenda and appropriate participation.

It has to be the duty of every Western leader to press on in the search for possible, tenable solutions to the slow agony in which Europe finds herself to-day, to the undoubted danger of world peace. My right honourable friend, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was Foreign Secretary, and later Prime Minister, sought areas, however small, of possible agreement, due to mutual advantage, with the Communist powers. That was right then. It must be right now. Almost all the Ministers at last week's NATO Council Meeting stressed again the importance of proposals put forward earlier by NATO, of a possible balanced, mutual reduction of forces in Eastern and Western Europe. The invitation to study such proposals was put forward by NATO in June of last year and repeated in April of this year. So far as I know, there has been no response from the Warsaw Pact Government. In the face of this indifference, NATO is pursuing the task it set itself in the April meeting, to draw up and examine a list of items which might be profitably negotiable between East and West. This list of 26 items, as I understand, was to be examined last week. I have seen nothing very specific about its discussion, and I wonder whether the noble Lord who is to wind up this debate could say some-thing about some of those items.

My Lords, I am not so sanguine as the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. The record of Soviet Russia in Europe does not encourage me. It seems to me it could well be that the true purpose of this proposed Security Conference may be another step in the Soviet effort to split the United States of America from her European partners, and to split off West Germany from the rest of the Treaty Organisation. Success in either of these intentions would leave Europe debilitated, and largely submissive even to the threat of Soviet attack. As General Lemnitzer, that thoughtful and experienced strategist has said, We do not know what the Soviet leaders have in mind. Perhaps they themselves do not know what they intend, in the near or distant future. Intentions can and do change over night. It takes years to develop and refine military capabilities. The Soviet armies, as they stand to-day, have the capability for further moves, without serious redress. Yet there are always people, good hearted people as often as not, who would prefer to ignore those capabilities and their implications. A kind of euphoria settles over the Free World at the very mention of détente, without any clear appreciation of why that mention may have been made at that particular time. Even if talks were to begin now, or at some future date, on balanced reductions of forces, there would have to be considerable thought as to how an initial balance, a valid starting point, was to be obtained; and here is a factor that is often ignored.

Apart from the major and overwhelming crime of crushing a fine nation, the invasion of Czechoslovakia gave Soviet Russia a military advantage which she did not possess when these proposals were first visualised at the NATO meeting in June of last year. I will name some of the advantages outlined by General Lemnitzer. Soviet divisions are in Czechoslovakia, on the borders of NATO, a position they have not occupied since 1945. This deployment, superbly carried out in military terms, has placed large and immediately responsive forces further to the West than at any time in recent years. An extensive mobilisation of men, communications and transport has been marshalled to sustain forward deployed forces. Those forward divisions are there in strength, at a high state of readiness, sustained by continuous practical exercises. These are facts and not phantoms. The military balance in Europe has been, and remains, very significantly altered to our disadvantage.

So I would say, in the light of this, for every reason, human, political and military, that I hope a prerequisite of talks on troop reductions would be a complete withdrawal of Soviet forces from the soil of Czechoslovakia. That was, your Lordships will recall, the demand made by both Houses in this Parliament, by speaker after speaker, when we were very properly recalled in August of last year. There has been no sign or hint of such movement by the Russian occupying forces. Instead, their presence has been used to inflict further and further humiliation on the people they invaded. Last week it was learned that 400 journalists had been dismissed from their jobs on Government orders, including 30 editors. The International Federation of Journalists passed a strong resolution condemning this persecution. But the Russians dare not permit the circulation of truth in the countries they have conquered, or in their own. Earlier of course we have seen, more dramatically, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Hejek, dismissed, the Minister for the Interior, General Pavel, arrested and dismissed, the Economic Overlord, the brilliant Otto Sik, dismissed; and we have seen the heroic secretary of the Party itself, Mr. Dubcek, dismissed and humiliated.

It may be argued that these are not strictly matters of military security. But they are part of a wider aspect of security and they concern the need for security and caution. If that is the way that Soviet Russia treats her own allies, who pledge themselves to the Communist cause, what sort of treatment could we look for for the despised bourgeois democracies if we went too trustingly to the conference table? Negotiators from the West would have to ask themselves, I believe, whether if a Security Pact such as the noble Lord visualises, and such as I would welcome, were signed, it would be treated with any more reverence than was given to Czechoslovakia as a signatory of the Warsaw Pact Agreement.

That leads to another reason for approaching the Soviet proposals with consummate prudence. It was Lenin's dictum that any deceit was permissible in dealing with the bourgeois enemy. His successors and disciples have observed that dictum most faithfully in all political dealings, not simply outside but even inside their own sphere of influence. Last week I listened for two hours in London to Anatol Kuznetsov, the young writer and poet, lionised and privileged in Moscow, who defected and abandoned it all because, as he said, "I could no longer write, no longer sleep, no longer breathe". In that room in Kensington he described how the total deceit of life in Moscow had stifled him; that deceit which everyone in official or semi-official position was forced to promote, to which all were victims.

With controlled passion he declared, "Nobody dares to tell the truth to any- one else in Russia, unless they are close relatives or friends from childhood; and seldom even in those cases". When the question was put to him, on my behalf, what had been the reaction of the Russian public to the news of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, he replied that the people had been told that Soviet forces had gone in to ward off an invasion from Western Germany. if the leaders of the Russian nation cannot trust or be trusted by their own people, what sort of negotiations would they conduct with an organisation they are intent to undermine, dismember or destroy?

This morning, only a few hours ago, I spoke at some length to Petr Vodrazka, the Czech youth who last Thursday knowingly risked his life to smuggle himself out of Prague to London by stowing away in the freezing baggage hold of an airliner. He had taken into account the discomfort and the risk, but he found that he could no longer live in the climate of falseness and injustice which exists in Czechoslovakia since the invasion of his country.

As an example of the way in which lies are used at the highest level to support policy, there can be nothing more apposite than the speech of Mr. Malik to the Security Council on August 21 of last year, when he blandly declared: The armed units of the Socialist countries as is well known, entered the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic on the basis of the request of the Government of that State, which had applied to the allied Governments for assistance including assistance with armed force. My Lords, anybody who could believe that could believe anything. But this is the official pretence still maintained within the country itself. The present rulers have even gone to the extent of compiling a so-called "White Book" of spurious documents to support this fiction. Fortunately, there also exists, smuggled out of Czechoslovakia, a batch of the true documents, bound into what is I suppose mockingly entitled the "Black Book". I have here the English translation. It makes painful reading as one follows the extinction, amid courageous protests, of Czechoslovakia's endeavour to attain liberty even within the Communist world. To-day many of those whose utterances are recorded in this book have been obliged to swear that they said no such thing and to swear approval of the Soviet invasion. It is a strange kind of morality to bring into international dealings.

Yet dialogue there has to be. It cannot be easy. I do not envy anyone engaged in it. The very survival of our civilisation may depend on the good faith of all the negotiating Governments. Good faith is, unhappily, an element which Communist Governments, or at least Soviet Governments, have by calculation all too often eschewed in the conduct and promotion of policies. But in these days, when a great effort is being made to bring Europe together in one partnership, we cannot suffer that some of the noblest and finest nations in Europe's evolution should be excluded from the Europe to which they belong as rightly as do we ourselves. If their inclusion is one day to be accomplished, it is with the Russians that we have to talk. We must talk watchfully, though not furtively, with our eyes on a happier horizon, on a day when all nations may contribute freely and valuably to peace and advancement. That is my goal. It is I know also the goal of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway.

9.0 p.m.

VISCOUNT HOOD

My Lords, like the rest of your Lordships who have persevered and stayed here so late, I was deeply impressed by the sincerity with which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, spoke. I was a member of the British Delegation at the Conference in Geneva in 1954, and it is precisely because I share his disappointment at the outcome that I should like, before embarking on another conference, to have some assurance, or at any rate reasonable hope, that it will achieve positive and worth-while results.

The first test, I suggest, is this question of American participation. I do not see how new arrangements for security in Europe can be sensibly discussed or agreed in the absence of the United States, who are so active and so major a participant in the present arrangements. If the Russians were to continue to make difficulties about United States participation, I should take that as a sure sign that they were not taking the Conference seriously and that they regarded it simply as a device to sow dissension among the West. As the noble Lord said, the recent pronouncements from Warsaw have only been silent on this point, but at any rate I had entertained reasonable hope that this meant that if the West stood firm for the inclusion of the United States and Canada in any conference, this would not meet with objections from the other side.

I submit that the second test is whether the Conference will be able to discuss what I believe to be the real causes of insecurity in Europe, and notably what I regard as the unnatural features of the situation in Germany. The first unnatural feature is the line running first along the Elbe and then southward, which divides Germany and Europe. That line was drawn for purely administrative convenience during an exceptional and what was thought to be a purely temporary period of military occupation. It was never intended to be an international frontier, and the efforts to make it such are responsible for many of the strains and stresses in Europe to-day. One of them—and this is what I regard as the second unnatural feature in Germany—is the position of Berlin, an essentially western city situated 100 miles to the East of the dividing line, and itself divided by the Wall. These are the problems which need to be resolved, or at least eased, if European security is really to be furthered.

The Western Powers have on a number of occasions made proposals for resolving those problems. There have been two constant themes; the first, in accordance with the principle of self-determination to which we all subscribed in the United Nations Charter, is that the Germans in both parts of Germany should have the opportunity to express their views freely on the future of their country. The second constant theme has been that this process of reunification—because we in the West believe that that would be the outcome of a free German vote—should be accompanied by new arrangements for European security, political and military. These Western proposals offer a comprehensive solution, but I am sure it is not the intention of the Western Powers to make the best the enemy of the good. If it is still impossible to talk with the Russians about a comprehensive plan for reunification, there are still grounds for useful talks: talks about ways of bringing the two parts of Germany closer together, ways of improving the situation in and around Berlin. These essentially are problems of the access to and from and within that city. Moves are already on foot, as the noble Lord said, to explore these possibilities, and I hope very much that the Eastern response will be positive.

Other topics for discussion at a conference are the military measures which I mentioned. Those range over a wide selection of arms control and disarmament measures to be applied in Europe, or in parts of Europe. Many of those ideas will, or may, run up against the obstacles which are all too familiar to those who followed disarmament discussions in Geneva or New York, and notably the problem of verification. But even if that continues to block the more ambitious plans for reduction of forces or armaments in Central Europe, it may still be possible to reach agreement on measures which are capable of being verified nationally—and by that I mean about systems at the disposal of either the West or the East—without the need for on-site inspections, or measures which do not call for verification at all in the sense that they are less measures for arms control and more measures for building mutual confidence, exchange of information, exchange of observers, and so on. This field, I understand, is now being studied by a group in NATO, and until they have come up with specific recommendations—and one knows what the likely Eastern reaction to that is—it is too soon to say whether these will produce worthwhile results.

I should like to take a brief look at the proposals of the Warsaw Pact to which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, referred. The first was a declaration renouncing the use of force. My Lords, we have all done that in the United Nations Charter, and some of us did it again in the North Atlantic Treaty; and Germany, because she is not a member of the United Nations, made a special declaration to this effect in 1954. Repetition seems to me only to depreciate the value of the assurance. If such a declaration were part of a wider package which included agreements of substance, that would be one thing. But by itself such a declaration seems to me a pretty puny infant, not worthy of having a conference convened for it.

The second subject mentioned was economic, technical, scientific and cul- tural co-operation. My Lords, the British Government and other NATO Governments have been striving for some time precisely to develop such co-operation with the countries of Eastern Europe, and they have done so with some success. There are trade agreements and there have been technical exchanges. I was reading only over the weekend of Polish art treasures coming here for exhibition at Burlington House. Certainly it would be nice to have freer exchanges of people and ideas as well as trade; but would a conference really help to do that? A declaration would not get us much further; and if a conference attempted to deal with the practical problems involved in developing such co-operation and attempted to put this into a multilateral agreement to which all would subscribe, I believe the result would fall far short of what has been and what may in future be achieved bilaterally.

This brings me to my final point. When this Conference takes place it is bound to be preceded by a great concerting of policies within NATO covering all the issues likely to come up at the Conference. Exactly the same process will take place among the countries in the Warsaw Pact, and possibly even among the neutrals, if they aspire to operate at the Conference as a group. The Western Powers, I suspect, will still, within their unity, display a measure of diversity when they get to the Conference, but the Soviet Union will insist on their allies speaking with one voice, or in very well orchestrated harmony. Indeed, the opportunity to enforce discipline may be, in the eyes of the Soviet Union, one of the great attractions of this Conference. In order to arrive at common positions there will be a tendency on each side to revert to traditional and fixed positions, and we may thus forfeit the opportunities which seem to be opening up for developing closer relations bilaterally between individual States of Western and Eastern Europe. This may be a price worth paying if we are confident that the Conference would produce worth-while results, but it points to not rushing into a conference simply for the sake of having one.

9.6 p.m.

LORD MILFORD

My Lords, I, too, am sorry that Lord Chalfont is not here to-night, because a few weeks back, when we had a Defence Debate in your Lordships' House, Lord Chalfont presented a picture which I thought showed tremendous hope and really was constructive about what could be done in the near future now that the whole situation in the world has changed. Since that speech I have been disappointed in the way that Her Majesty's Government have not followed up the enthusiasm which Lord Chalfont seemed to express in this House. but have been dragging their feet on the whole, wonderful vista which is now on the horizon if we take our chance to work in it. Since the Second World War we have lived through tremendously dangerous moments. We have had the vicious cold war, nearly breaking into hot war; and we have had the ghastly invention of more and more weapons. I must say here that I have never heard a stronger or more vicious cold war speech than I have just heard from Lord St. Oswald; and I am very glad that that speech is going down on the record to show the people of Britain what the Tory Party stand for if they get into power.

Some years ago the Rapacki Plan was put forward by Poland for nuclear-free zones in the centre of Europe, and Mr. Gaitskell and Mr. Wilson, in Opposition in those days, welcomed that Plan very strongly. To-day even bigger proposals have been put forward to bring security to Europe. The Gaitskell-Wilson Party is now in power, but it does not seem to be coming forward to grasp the nettle and carry forward this security idea wholeheartedly. All over Europe to-day and in the European Press in these last two days the description of our Foreign Office is that of a sort of grey ghost at a feast, pulling things back, with no enthusiasm, no imagination at all, on this vital question of peace. Our Press is focusing all its doubts and innuendoes on the Soviet Union: "Are they serious?" "Is it a trap?" "Is it merely propaganda?".

Success for such a wonderful possibility for a European security pact depends on the attitude of both sides—we on this side, the NATO side, the West European side, and the Eastern side. I put this attitude as one of the biggest priorities for to-day. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, put forward priorities with which I thoroughly agree; but I think that what is of vital importance, if we are to get forward at all, is the attitude of people in this country and of our Government: do we want a security pact or do we not? If suspicion (in speeches like that just made by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald), is what Britain stands for, we shall not get anywhere at all.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord would put more precisely what he thinks I stand for instead of making these vague generalisations.

LORD MILFORD

My Lords, we this evening should concentrate on Britain. The people of Britain are sick of suspicion, of arms bills, of nuclear bombs, of more and more chemical warfare talk and all that. They want peace; they want security; they want the arms bill cut down so that there is more money for social services. But this, apparently—I may be wrong—is not right in the forefront of the Foreign Office, or of the picture that the Foreign Office is giving. Cannot the Foreign Office be a little more imaginative and give out a better image of themselves? Can they not produce an atmosphere more free from smog, pollution and poison and go for careful preparation on questions on which agreement is possible?

While the possibility of a conference on European security is in the air, why must our Defence Minister go on talking about tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons for first strike, more troops for Germany and so on? It does not help this vitally important position we are now in. Only a few years ago the Defence Minister himself was saying that if nuclear arms are used this island will be completely destroyed.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, dealt with the history of these proposals for a security pact and how in 1966 the Scandinavians supported it. Three members of NATO supported it, Denmark, Iceland and Norway, and Finland offered itself as host. There have been 23 acceptances and only Albania has refused; Italy, a NATO country, is very interested indeed and Yugoslavia, a neutral, is also interested. So what are the Warsaw proposals? They say absolutely clearly that the conference should be prepared by preliminary discussions of all States—I repeat "preliminary discussions". So far as I can see, we are even dragging our feet on that. They suggest a preliminary meeting as early as possible of all interested European States to establish, by mutual agreement, procedures for calling a Conference—I repeat "procedures" for calling a Conference.

When this was received with a cool, dubious attitude by the West they then, in October, offered talks first in the form of bilateral or multilateral consultations. Is this not really the voice of somebody who wants to try to get a Conference and wants to try to get forward to some security? The Warsaw Pact countries themselves suggested two items on the agenda: ensuring European security and the renunciation of the use of threats by force, and the extension of trade, economic, scientific and technological relations. That was their suggestion. Cannot we start a conference? Why not go forward on what we can agree? Surely we could agree to talk about these things instead of cold-shouldering them. If you get round a table you are far more likely to arrive at an understanding and a real desire to get to grips with things than by shooting away verbally at one another when you are thousands of miles apart.

In passing, my Lords, I would say that it is odd that none of the British capitalist Press printed the text of the March or the October communiqués of the Warsaw Pact. I wonder why they did not. To-day the British Press picture the British Government as less enthusiastic than the others of the West and as more wary and suspicious than the others, and particularly claim that Britain applied the brakes in NATO. The great thing that our Foreign Secretary seems to go on saying is that the agenda must be carefully prepared. But the Warsaw Pact countries also say that, and they ask us to come together to discuss that agenda and to prepare it together. Somehow the Foreign Office seem determined to drag things on or to "shoot down" the conference. For some reason, they seem to fear it like the plague. The Secretary of State goes on talking about more nuclear tactical weapons and first nuclear strike in Europe, and that kind of thing.

The British people want this Pact. If you went to the country to-morrow and asked, "Pact or no Pact?" you would find that they want it. They want peace, and they see this as a new, wonderful hope on the horizon: the possibility of getting rid of the present military obligations; or even their increase as is now being suggested, with the proposal that we should have more troops in Germany. They are sick of all this military expenditure which only brings on more and more financial crises and which means cutting down on the social services. "For heaven's sake!", they say, "stop this idea of first nuclear strike which means the total destruction of Britain". The working people are told that wages must be held down and the squeeze continued. Our Defence Ministers pour more and more money down the drain over more and more troops and weapons for Europe and Germany.

9.19 p.m.

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, although the hour is late I have found this an interesting debate. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Milford, with his known views and support for the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, and the calm, cautious words of the noble Viscount, Lord Hood, who spoke after many years of service in the Foreign Office, and then the forthright words of the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. I am not quite certain whether the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. was speaking for his Party or for himself, but I will attribute his views to him so that he will not be in difficulties with his Party tomorrow.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord did not find me vicious.

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, I never find the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, vicious. Sometimes I think he may be off-beam, but never vicious.

We have had the speech of my noble friend, Lord Brockway, which had a great deal of historical content in it, with most of which I would agree although there were certain aspects with which I would disagree. I thought that my noble friend Lord Brockway was less than fair to my noble friend the Chief Whip. I know that this is an important debate and that it is a matter to which Lord Brockway attaches very considerable importance. I must say that there is no one who has used this House for the interests which he has at heart more than my noble friend Lord Brockway. He asks perhaps more Starred Questions than any other noble Lord and certainly he asks more Unstarred Questions than any other noble Lord. On this occasion, when the hour is late and the Benches are empty, I think it is wrong to blame my noble friend the Chief Whip. It is due to the fact that other noble Lords also have matters of great interest to them which they wish to debate, and our earlier debate went on a little longer than was anticipated. I think that on reflection my noble friend will regret his remarks about the Chief Whip.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? I did not mean any attack on the Chief Whip at all. What I reported was that several days ago I indicated that I wanted to raise this matter. I had a discussion with the Chief Whip's Office and my arrangements were made with them. This date was particularly suggested in view of Lord Chalfont's return. I doubt whether the Chief Whip himself knew anything about these discussions at all, and I was not making any attack on him.

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, I am glad. My noble friend Lord Chalfont should have been back but matters in New York have kept him there. Therefore it falls to me, another Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to reply to my noble friend.

As my noble friend and the House will know, there was a full and useful discussion of this subject at the Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Council which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs attended in Brussels on December 4 and 5. I agree that we all wish peace, but we also wish to maintain our freedoms. The noble Lord, Lord Oswald, read out paragraph 2 of the declaration attached to the Ministerial communiqué of December 5, describing the purpose of the coming into being of NATO. A communiqué was also issued after the Brussels meeting and I have arranged for a copy to be made available in the Library of the House. The communiqué recalls that, Since the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty twenty years ago, the Members of the Alliance have dedicated their efforts to the preservation of their freedom and security and to the improvement of East-West relations in the aim of reaching an ultimate peaceful solution of outstanding problems in Europe. They will continue to do so". These are the twin aims of the Alliance, defence and detente.

On the basis of these two concepts of defence and detente, the Ministers issued a Declaration, in which they set forth their views on the future development of relations between East and West. With permission, I will circulate this Declaration in the OFFICIAL REPORT.*

The first essential point that is made clear in the Declaration is that the West is ready for constructive East-West talks on practical matters. As the House knows, the North Atlantic Council in Permanent Session has drafted a list of concrete issues for possible negotiation between East and West. This list was presented to Ministers last week. It is an exercise which has led the Alliance into a very full study of the areas where real progress is possible. In the meantime, members of the Alliance, both individually and collectively, have pursued practical initiatives towards a reduction of tension.

These initiatives have been aimed at the central problems of European Security: the problems of Germany and Berlin, and the problems of the arms race. My noble friend Lord Brockway mentioned some of these initiatives and there is no harm in repeating them. Her Majesty's Government, together with the Governments of the United States and France, as my noble friend Lord Hood told the House, have been conducting exchanges with the Soviet Union to improve the situation in and around Berlin and the access to that City. This is a question which is not only at the heart of European security but also has a determinant effect on the simple day-to-day freedom of movement of people in Berlin; our objective, surely, must be to improve their welfare. The Federal German Government has already begun *See col. 544. exchanges with the Soviet Union on mutual declarations on the non-use of force and non-intervention in internal affairs; and hopes to have similar discussions with her other Eastern neighbours.

On the arms side, there are the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks—the most important talks that have begun between the United States and the Soviet Union on the possibility of the limitation of strategic armaments. There is also NATO'S invitation to the Soviet Union and the other countries of Eastern Europe to join in discussion of mutual force reductions. This invitation was first issued by NATO Ministers at Reykjavik last year. It has never been answered: but it remains open, and, indeed, NATO Ministers reiterated and reaffirmed it in their meeting last week, and requested that a report of the Council in Permanent Session on the preparation of models for mutual force reductions be submitted as soon as possible. An important point here, brought out in the Communiqué and Declaration, is that the vital security interests of all parties should be maintained. We are most anxious to promote regional disarmament, but must guard against de-stabilising the situation. Equality of security is what we need. And in this process it is all the more important that NATO should not reduce its overall defensive strength until an agreement on disarmament has been obtained which preserves the vital security interests of all parties.

In the passage in their Declaration about mutual and balanced force reductions, NATO Ministers quoted a phrase from the communiqué of the Moscow Meeting of the Warsaw Pact Powers on December 4. The Ministers said that an agreement on this matter would be another concrete step in advancing along the road of ending the arms race and of general and complete disarmament, including nuclear disarmament. We must hope that this evident coincidence of interests can be translated into practical results.

This brings me to the question of a conference. The communiqué of the Moscow Meeting (a copy of which I have again placed in the Library of the House) made only a passing and general reference to the question of a conference. The Warsaw Pact's proposals for a conference are set out more fully in the Declaration following their meeting at Prague on October 31. They are somewhat vaguely formulated and are limited, so far as the agenda is concerned, to agreements on the renunciation of force and of interference in internal affairs on the one hand, and increased economic, scientific and technological co-operation on the other. Except the two parts of Germany (and this is what my noble friend Lord Hood stressed), we are, of course, all signatories of the United Nations Charter, which enshrines the principles of non-interference and non-use of force; and, as I have said, the Federal. German Government has already made initiatives on this question. And discussions on economic and scientific co-operation are continuously under way, both bilaterally and in international organisations. It is hardly appropriate to convene a full-scale conference for these two items.

The difference in approach between the West and the East is this. We are talking about the problems of European Security; the Soviets and their friends are talking about procedure, or, rather, about one possible method of procedure. There is no evidence that they have done the essential homework that NATO has done with its list of issues. The noble Lord, Lord Milford, stressed the need for carefully prepared work in this matter. This is not to say that we reject the idea of a conference out of hand. We are willing to pursue all practical means of reducing tension and resolving outstanding problems. We have made certain proposals for negotiation, which I have outlined, on the most important of these problems.

It is quite plain from this and from the Declaration issued in Brussels last week that there is, on the part of the West, a genuine will to negotiate. But a genuine will to negotiate does not put one under the obligation to accept without qualification the first proposal that is put forward by the other side as to how it should be done. We are entitled to say that their proposal seems to us in some respects to be unsatisfactory and inadequate, that it should be modified in this way or that way, and see how we go from there. Above all, we have the right to decline to be rushed into a conference before we know that it has a reasonable chance of resolving the major problems. I am sure that noble Lords would not want Her Majesty's Government to enter a conference whose sole purpose would be the ratification of the status quo in Europe, with all that that implies—for instance, a highly questionable doctrine of sovereignty.

So, my Lords, where do we go from here? Well, so far as a conference is concerned, as the Declaration records, Ministers agreed in Brussels that progress in the bilateral and multilateral discussions and negotiations that I have mentioned, which have already begun, or could begin shortly, and which relate to the fundamental problems of European Security, would make a major contribution to improving the political atmosphere in Europe and to help to ensure the success of any eventual conference. We look for evidence of a constructive Warsaw Pact approach in connection with these practical initiatives towards détente that the West has already taken.

We shall also seek, in our bilateral contacts with the Warsaw Pact Powers, to probe their intentions for a conference further and discover whether they would be willing to agree a meaningful agenda. There have been some signs that they are geuinely interested in progress. I have mentioned the exchanges on Germany and Berlin that have already taken place. Noble Lords will notice that the Moscow communiqué shows some signs of a rather greater open-mindedness towards the Federal German Republic.

So far as NATO'S own initiatives are concerned, Ministers, on the suggestion of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, instructed the Permanent Representatives to look closely into the question of machinery and to report to the next Ministerial Meeting in May. We are doing our homework. The NATO Ministers also recorded their belief that progress is most likely to be achieved by choosing in each instance the means most suitable for the subject. This is a prudent and practical task, and an indication of our continued seriousness of purpose.

Here I might add one essential point which Ministers in NATO have already made clear; namely, that the North American members of the Alliance must participate in any conference and in the preparations from the outset. Their right and interests as members of the Alliance entitle them to an equal rôle from the very beginning. I am sure that from what I have said the House will agree that NATO countries and Her Majesty's Government, in particular, are moving, as President Nixon himself said, into an era of negotiation in the right spirit of determination to achieve practical results and to prepare a way thoroughly in order to make this possible.

My Lords, we are entering a decade which could see great changes in Europe. As I said, NATO pursues the twin aims of defence and détente. We shall still need all our determination in defence of our freedom. In addition, we shall need firmness, flexibility and imagination, We shall need the courage to talk with the other side where it seems that progress can be made, and courage to refuse offers of talks, no matter how they may look, whose motivation may be far removed from any intention to negotiate about things which matter. This is why we and our allies agree that the defence of the Alliance must be fully maintained during any period of East-West negotiations. We have to strike the right balance between our firmness to defend and our readiness to negotiate and to conciliate. The two are not incompatible. They indeed go hand in hand. My Lords, I certainly will take note of the suggestions my noble friend made in his speech, as we always do.

House adjourned at eighteen minutes before ten o'clock.