Something for Adenauer

One evening last week the U.S. and British Ambassadors to France hurried to the Quai d'Orsay with an urgent message; the next morning the British High Commissioner to West Germany strode into Palais Schaumburg and interrupted an Adenauer Cabinet session with the same news. After waiting more than two years for France to make up its mind on EDC, the U.S. and Britain had decided to go it without France, at least part of the way. Unless France acts on EDC before its Parliament quits for the summer (around Aug. 15), Washington and London would give West Germany the self-government it deserves and demands, without waiting for a decision on German rearmament under EDC.

This, said Sir Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, is not a threat to Ally France, but an assist to another ally, Germany. "The Federal Republic of Germany is willing and anxious to cooperate with the Western world, and it is right that she should do so on a footing of equality."

Ultimatum. The idea of tying Bonn's sovereignty to the EDC treaty had been France's in the first place, designed to bring about German rearmament without a revival of German militarism. Bonn would get self-government only by simultaneously agreeing to put its armed forces under supranational command. But while Bonn gave its assent, France fiddled with its approval, and left Chancellor Konrad Adenauer exposed to increasingly dangerous attacks at home for failing to win sovereignty for his people.

To some Frenchmen the new proposal was another ultimatum to force French approval of EDC, but Sir Winston soothingly indicated that if France would only join in granting West German sovereignty, the U.S. and Britain would be willing to forget rearming Germany "for the time being." (And of course until Aug. 15, France still has the option of ratifying EDC, in which case the linked treaties would simultaneously go into effect.)

What if the French refused either to pass EDC or to grant West Germany its sovereignty? Germany, already divided between East and West, would be split into three: a technically sovereign Soviet satellite in the East, a free area in the U.S.-British zone, and a French-occupied area. If it really wanted to be mischievous, France could create difficulties over the U.S. lines of communication to Germany, which begin in French ports. This might embarrass Germany and the U.S., but it would not help France any.

Counting the House. Last week the Mendes-France government was still too busy with its No. 1 preoccupation--Geneva--to give a considered answer to the U.S.-British proposal. Mendes-France has already promised, if he survives his July 20 deadline, to go before the National Assembly with some kind of proposal on EDC. Why not simply submit the EDC treaty as it is? John Foster Dulles asked him last week. Because it would not pass, replied Mendes. Dulles (who has relied on the consistently over-optimistic U.S. embassy estimates) said his information was to the contrary. Thereupon Mendes went down the roster of the Assembly to prove his case.

Mendes still intends to put something before the Assembly. But now at last, Konrad Adenauer does not have to stake his future on the whim of the French Parliament.

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