Deathbed of EDC

Death came to Europe's door last week and impatiently tapped out three initials: EDC. After four years of doubts and discord, the long-debated, much-despaired-of European Army treaty seemed irretrievably doomed.

It was a turning point in modern European history. Since the French first proposed it in 1950, the EDC blueprint (it has never been more than that) has divided nations, exasperated Parliaments, rocked alliances. Most of the world's top statesmen have striven for or against it: France's Monnet called EDC "inevitable," Russia's Molotov denounced it as "in tolerable," Germany's Adenauer regarded it as "indispensable." The Communists threatened a new "Korea in Europe" if EDC was ratified; the U.S. promised an "agonizing reappraisal" if it was not.

Until last week all this passion and misgiving had produced only delay. Then along came France's Premier Mendes-France, with his policy of timetables and . alternatives. At Brussels he confronted the other five members of EDC with a choice: he could push EDC through the French Assembly, but only if France's partners would agree to amendments that would make it an old-fashioned military alliance. Gone was the controversial notion of a common army for a United Europe.

The technique that had served Mendes so well at Geneva failed him at Brussels. From its birth, EDC had stood in danger of being killed by its enemies; but at Brussels it was EDC's friends who preferred to see it killed rather than emasculated. In its death struggle, EDC provided one unforeseen consolation. By forcing five sovereign governments to stand up and defend its supranational clauses, EDC, in death, had given proof of the life that was in the ideal. Mendes the realist, with his ability to weigh facts, apparently had not known how to measure the strength of an ideal.

When the chips were down, four nations sided with the German Chancellor against the French Premier. Here was dramatic evidence of a reluctant shift that has already begun--a shift in the values assigned by habit, prejudice and affection to the various members of the coalition.

Brussels was no one's victory; it was too soon for even its participants to know whose defeat it would be. Adenauer in sisted desperately that EDC is not yet dead. Winston Churchill got into the act, bringing Eden back from vacation, inviting Mendes-France to fly over for lunch. Topic for discussion: the speedy return of sovereignty to West Germany.

For the moment, all that anyone really knew was that Brussels had been both a death and a beginning. For that moment of clarity, at least, Mendes-France could be thanked.

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