time to start talking . one of the grim oddities of the Berlin crisis is that everyone is in favour of talking but nobody seems to know how to start . the state department keeps approving of meaningful negotiations and so even does President de Gaulle , though his notion of what makes talks useful or timely is a lot more restrictive than other people &apos;s . in the intervals of bandying about threats of annihilation Mr Khrushchev too sees a glimmer of hope for talks , preferably on terms that would give him right from the start everything he wants . yet hardly anything is done to bring talks nearer . on the western side the chief obstacles , apart from the stiffening of the diplomatic joints which afflicts everybody , have been two : the West German election campaign and the objections of France . when the western foreign Ministers meet in Washington tomorrow the first of these will be nearly out of the way . it will be time for the Ministers to get down in earnest to the business of working out a common approach to Russia on Germany and Berlin . the means of setting talks going are clear enough provided that the Soviet government wishes to talk at all . the session of the united nations assembly which opens on Tuesday should anyhow bring together the foreign Ministers of Britain , the United States , and Russia . the French government largely ignores the tumultuous and scandalous assembly . but that might give President de Gaulle a convenient excuse for keeping out of talks if he still thought this was not the time to start them . what seems certain is that those who advocate putting off any approach until Mr Krushchev gives evidence of a change of heart ( whatever that may mean ) would have us run risks greater than the west ought to run - and greater than President Kennedy &apos;s most influential advisers seem disposed to face . the real question is what we should put to the Soviet government as a basis for talks : and that means working out what we know to be the essential interests of the west in Berlin and what we suppose that the Soviet government may now be after . the west needs to make it absolutely clear that the freedom of west Berlin and free access to it are vital interests not to be retreated from in the present state of Europe . yet the question remains , as before : is the Soviet government interested chiefly in sealing off East Germany and securing some kind of general recognition for it ? or is it determined to do away with the freedom of west Berlin and free access to it ( on the excuse of keeping out revanchists and so on ) at almost any risk ? if the first , the signs now are that Britain and the United States at all events might well exchange some kind of recognition for an up to date guarantee of access , perhaps to be supervised by a commission of the four powers and the two Germanies , and that West Germany might well fall in with this , however reluctantly . ( Mr Diefenbaker &apos;s proposal of united nations supervision has the drawback that , like other proposed ways of bringing in the united nations , it would presumably mean admitting both Germanies to the organisation - and that would be a lot for a lot of people to swallow all at once ) . if , however , the Soviet government seems determined to swallow up west Berlin then there is little for the west to do except stand firm . this is where many people see with horror the prospect of a nuclear war : if everyone stands firm , they ask , will not the next step be a clash leading inexorably to mutual annihilation ? after looking upon such a prospect Bertrand Russell has chosen to take the way of civil disobedience and go to prison . all honour to him for acting once again on his beliefs whatever the consequences . but those who differ with his analysis are not necessarily less concerned at the dreadful risks we all run . nor need they be less concerned than Mr Victor Gollancz , who in a letter on this page proposes that Mr Macmillan should proclaim his readiness to negotiate naked and unconditionally for the sake of saving the world . why this should move our allies or Mr Khrushchev - or indeed what it would mean - is not clear . the choice lies not between nuclear war and Soviet domination ; it lies between the constant risk that attends the exchanges of human beings formidably armed and the perilous self-dissolution of the west that would come of a surrender of west Berlin . on this reading what Mr Gollancz calls manoeuvring , and what we should call cool-headed and inventive negotiation , is a means not to destruction but to safety . second revise . the government &apos;s pompous little statement on Northern Rhodesia does not say much , but it says what is necessary - that the Northern Rhodesia constitution is open to revision . this is news , however much the government tries to disguise it by saying that the revision would be in accordance with normal practice . the formula which has caused all the trouble is itself a revision , brought about in deference to Sir Roy Welensky , of proposals which the colonial Secretary tabled in February ; reasonable representations , which the government now invites , have been made against it for many weeks . the government is now saying that consideration of these reasonable representations is being delayed by the outbreak of violence . in fact , the cart and the horse are the other way round : the violence broke out because the reasonable representations went unheeded . the request which all interested parties ( except the united federal ) have made is that the legislative council elected under Mr Macleod &apos;s system of three blocks of seats shall contain a representative majority . formula one , which appeared in February , appeared to make this likely ; formula two , which appeared in June , made it very unlikely ; if formula three restores the original principle , that is all that need be required of it . it is a pity that the government should ever have been led away from this principle . it is a great pity that the government should give the appearance of responding , not to Mr Kaunda &apos;s reasonable representations , but to the violence which he tried to prevent . programme for Katanga . the united nations had already had a bad press before reports were received yesterday of alleged indiscipline by some of its troops in Elisabethville . a full account of these incidents will no doubt be demanded by the general assembly next week . the general feeling is that if the united nations wanted to clean up the Congo it could have started with stables more Augean than M Tshombe &apos;s . but Katanga has for so long been represented - not altogether falsely - as a secure and industrious little state beset by wild and envious politicians that its less agreeable side has been overlooked . it can equally be seen as an alliance between M Tshombe and the union Miniere ( which has a substantial British shareholding ) to apply the huge copper revenues properly belonging to the whole Congo for the unbalanced development of only a part of it . a long time will be needed , of course , to bridge the gap between the admirable industrial welfare services provided for copper employees and the general lot of rural Congolese . this will be true however the money is shared . but the disproportion between Katanga &apos;s happy-go-lucky expansion and the perpetual budget deficits of the Congolese central government has for too long been an obstacle to the rebuilding of the Congo . it is odd that the very people who apply this argument to the federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland , and who blanch at the thought of losing Northern Rhodesia &apos;s copper revenues , should not see that it applies even more forcibly to the Congo , where there is little light industry and no European agriculture ( apart from the plantations ) to bolster up the rest of the economy . the explanation may be that in neither case is the argument disinterested . M Tshombe has once or twice been brought to see the discrepancy , and has even talked of sharing his revenues . but he has never signed the cheque . independent Katanga has never , in truth , looked like a permanent proposition , which is why no country has recognised it , and why most of the Europeans serving in its forces have been ne&apos;er-do-wells . the jolt had to come ; and unfortunately it does not seem to have come as cheaply as at first appeared . Dr O&apos;Brien may have taken one of the tides in the affairs of men ; omitted , Katanga might have straggled on to a worse tragedy . it remains to consolidate the reunion of Katanga with the Congo , and for this purpose the central government is sending a commissioner formerly associated with M Gizenga &apos;s Stanleyville regime . the development may sound more sinister than it is . M Gizenga has notably failed to make capital out of his succession to Lumumba : it is too early to say that he is not a Marxist at all , but if he is he comes from a peculiarly Congolese strain . the Russians seem to have no time for him . thus his accomplice now sent to Elisabethville may be no more than a personification of the central government &apos;s new authority . but this is not the way for the Congo-Katanga dispute to be ended . the key to a solution surely lies in the continued recognition by the united nations of M Tshombe as President of Katanga province . if he has taken flight he should be invited to return to head the provincial government . an attempt has already been made to organise the Congolese states into a confederation . now that President Tshombe has been shown that independence is not allowed he should strive for as much provincial autonomy as the other states will give him . he should not despair of keeping a large part of his copper revenue . Dr O&apos;Brien has praised the valour of Katanga soldiers . M Tshombe should not encourage them to drive the point home . instead of putting up a desperate resistance he should spend an hour reading the Nigerian constitution . the first step . it is encouraging news that Mr Gromyko , the Soviet foreign Minister , will meet Mr Dean Rusk in New York next week for a talk about German problems . the Soviet government has lost no time in taking up President Kennedy &apos;s suggestion , made on Wednesday , that such a meeting should be arranged while Mr Gromyko is over for the united nations general assembly . no one supposes that Mr Gromyko and Mr Rusk will settle the problems of Berlin and the two Germanys on their own . but , as Mr Modibo Keita said after his talk with Mr Kennedy on Wednesday , a summit meeting must be prepared at a lower diplomatic level . this is the necessary first step . and indeed it is the first time since the crisis began that any specific arrangement for serious discussion between the two sides has been made . there have been plenty of general declarations about willingness to meet and talk , but conspicuously no mention of time and place . to be able to say New York next week is an important advance . we must not be overconfident that this meeting will lead on to further and decisive ones ; but without it , we could not look for them . getting it over . federal Germany votes tomorrow and not a day too soon . there can seldom have been an election campaign which more people in and out of the country wanted to see over and done with . to Germany &apos;s western allies the campaign has been a millstone weighing down and almost paralysing their efforts to work out sensible ways of dealing with the Berlin crisis . it need not have been such a burden if western governments had not been convinced that they must do nothing to harm even remotely Dr Adenauer &apos;s chances of being returned as Chancellor . but they were so convinced and they have had to take the consequences . meanwhile in Germany itself the course of the campaign has dismayed a good many people : they too will be glad when the polling stations close . 