A Little Zip, Please

The dignified, do-little Council of Europe is the unofficial talking box of Europe's elder statesmen and orators. If it really had the backing of the nations represented there, it would be the European equivalent of the U.S. Congress.

The Council's 125-man Consultative Assembly (equivalent in theory to the U.S. House of Representatives) meets twice yearly. Since 1949 it has contemplated issuing a common European passport, building a Jules Verne type of tunnel under the English Channel and outlawing the slogan "My country, right or wrong." But its counsels have produced little. Basically they represent a wish, not an urge.

Skip the Banquets. Last week, 14 junketing U.S. legislators dropped into peaceful Strasbourg to find out what it was all about and to participate in four days' joint debate with 20 members of the Assembly. Their ambitious agenda: "Union of Europe, its problems, progress, prospects and place in the Western world." Rhode Island's crusty old Senator Theodore F. Green took turns with Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak as chairman.

It was history's first formal meeting of New World and Old World legislators, and the Europeans had planned lots of dinnertime get-togethers. The Americans were back-slappingly friendly, but they wanted to see a little zip. "Cut out the banquets," said Connecticut's well-fed Senator Bill Benton. "We've come here to ask some important questions, and we want the whole story." A Briton remarked unhappily on the second day, "This isn't a conference, it's a court of inquiry."

The Americans wanted to know, for instance, why, after $12 billion of U.S. aid, Western Europe has made almost no "realistic progress" toward federation. France's ex-Premier Paul Reynaud tried to explain. "The main stumbling block is Britain," he said. "She refuses to join . . . the European army and the Schuman plan for pooling coal and steel. For the British there is Parliament, then nothing, then still nothing, then God."

The British (unofficially represented by Tory M.P. Robert Boothby) disliked Reynaud's accusations, but could not quite dismiss them. They talked of Britain's interlocking circles: partnership with Commonwealth and Empire, alliance with the U.S., and treaty with Western Europe. Wanting to operate in all three circles, Britain is unwilling to unite with the continental countries; Scandinavia won't unite with them unless Britain does, and the other countries refuse to unite among themselves without ,the British and Scandinavians.

It was a situation which irritated the American visitors, and most of them said so. "It's time for you fellows to get down to brass tacks and do this job," said one.

Do Something. Clearly and urgently, Minnesota's Representative Walter Judd pounded home his homemade American view. "You have a choice between voluntary federation or union by involuntary compulsion," he argued. "The Eastern European countries were just as distinctive in their nationalisms, their languages and their religions. They did not get together in time, so today they are organized from without--by the Kremlin. The question is no longer why Europe should unite, but how. And there is no way except to start."

At week's end, the Americans bowed out of Strasbourg, leaving behind a blunt warning that U.S. taxpayers are getting tired of helping to finance quarrelsome, divided Europe. "The cookie jar has a bottom to it," said Wisconsin's Alexander Wiley. "We want action, not words." European delegates were left breathless, puzzled and more than a little annoyed. The Americans seemed unwilling to concede that, just as they themselves had semi-official status but did not speak for the U.S., so their fellow legislators represented countries but not governments.

Virginia's Representative Howard Smith was sourest of all. "I came to Strasbourg to hear how European unity can be achieved," he said. "I have heard nothing except how it cannot be done." Moreover, commented Smith, "at the end of a journey through different European countries, you end up with all sorts of money and you can't even buy a cigar. There are too many passports, too many languages . . ."

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