Self-Help

In the small Galerie de la Paix at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, with 16 flags flapping from the parapets outside, the 16 Marshall Plan nations last week signed the "Convention for European Economic Cooperation." The central office of OEEC--to be established in Paris--would work on such cooperative procedures as lowering customs barriers, stabilizing currencies, allocating labor forces and raw materials.

The signing marked a recognition by Western Europe that, outside the Soviet periphery, the U.S. would help those nations that helped themselves and each other.

It was an important milestone of postwar history, but the proceedings were cut & dried, the speeches were dull, and most of the delegates looked as though they were thinking about lunch. M. Jacques Dumaine, the French government's elegant chief of protocol, stole the show. Bowing from the hips, gracefully waving his hands and toying with a monocle (made of plain glass), he ran off the signing in 25 minutes.

In addition to the somberly clad signers there were two men in military uniform--Generals Sir Brian Robertson and Pierre Koenig, representing the western zones of Germany. Thus Western Germany, economically, at least, rejoined Europe, looked forward to active participation in OEEC. To many Germans this fact seemed to overshadow a possible fracture of Germany as a whole.

Said the Frankfurter Nene Presse: "Here is a hope for survival ... It is earnestly and with reason hoped that this will kill the thoughtless and irresponsible rumors of coming military conflict." A Munich housewife: "At last we will be permitted to play a German fiddle in this world orchestra." A Frankfurt photographer: "Here is one thing the Russians cannot veto."

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