611.61/2–2250: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Kirk) to the Secretary of State
625. For the Secretary. I have not so far commented, and it may be superfluous for me to do so now, on the evidently increasing public and official discussion in the US, UK etc., concerning the desirability of some further high level effort to achieve a modus vivendi with the Soviets, including the possibility of a modification of our position on atomic energy. However, it may be pertinent for me to say that there has been no development or indication here in Moscow in any way suggesting that the present is more propitious for a basic settlement than heretofore.
It seems to me that your statement to the effect that there can be no worthwhile agreement in the absence of an appreciable area of common interest contains the nub of the difficulty. The Soviet machine is in full cry along classic Leninist-Stalinist lines of world revolution, its “peace offensive” constituting the principal vehicle for activist revolutionary advance in varying degree on all fronts. Our democratic institutions have no common denominator with these forces of evil and cannot, in my opinion, be expected to achieve an area of common interest until the sum of the free world’s collective security attains sufficient stability and promise of permanency to raise appreciable question in the minds of the Soviet leaders as to the possibility of realization of Leninist-Stalinist world objectives.
In the meantime ostensible compromise can only be to the Soviets’ advantage and unrealistic speculation as to possible vagaries in the Soviet continuity and firmness of purpose tends inevitably to impress the Soviet strategists as symptomatic of wavering free world determination.