Bombshell in Bonn

Sweeping into Bonn last week accompanied by Under Secretary of State Douglas Dillon and a corps of 24 advisers, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson had only one thought in mind. Come hell or high water, he was determined to jar the West Germans into parting with enough Deutsche Mark to make a major dent in the increasing deficit (an estimated $4 billion for 1960) in the U.S.'s international balance of payments. Brushing aside the cautionary briefings of U.S. diplomats on the spot, Anderson confronted West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard with a peremptory demand that Bonn take over at once the $600 million annual cost of maintaining the 250,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in West Germany.

With a single-mindedness so intense that one participant described it as "ferocity," Anderson brushed aside the promising beginnings of the new billion-dollar German foreign-aid program (TIME, Nov. 28). Foreign aid, he told Adenauer and Erhard, was "not urgent"; what the U.S. needed was cash, and it needed it faster than any foreign-aid program could deliver. Anderson followed this up with further demands that Germany 1) start paying immediately a good part of the U.S.'s present share (37%) of the cost of jointly run NATO facilities such as pipelines, depots, etc.; 2) start easing immediately quotas and other restrictions on U.S. farm exports; 3) take over from the U.S. the burden of making free military-assistance deliveries to such relatively impecunious NATO members as Turkey and Greece.

Not Now. The Germans certainly needed jacking up--in a way that would shame them into anteing up, or at least shame them. On the second day of the talks. Erhard stonily declared that the Germans could not agree to pay for U.S. troop support. But after a series of mealy-mouthed pleas about the "illusory" state of Germany's present wealth, Erhard began to give some ground. His government, he said, was ready to re-examine the idea of joining with all other NATO members in some device through which Germany could contribute to paying such NATO costs (perhaps up to $150 million, his aides indicated). Germany was willing to take over immediately the cost of some existing Development Loan Fund projects, paying money directly to U.S. exporters for foreign-aid projects long since planned in Washington. He also promised that Germany would 1) "consider" easing restrictions on imported U.S. canned goods and poultry, and 2) "consider" placing in the U.S. armaments orders hitherto in tended for German industries.

M'aybe Later. Anderson ignored these counterproposals. After three days the meeting broke up with a communique implicitly conceding that the parties had been unable to reach any agreement. A clutch of critics promptly raised the cry that Anderson's "brutal" methods had foredoomed his mission to failure. Under Secretary of State Dillon was reportedly miffed, not at the purpose of the mission, but at its ultimatum-style presentation.

In view of West Germany's record $7.4 billion holdings in gold and foreign currency, Erhard's poor-mouthing was a little hard to bear. Anderson's toughness, if overdone, could well have a delayed payoff. Representing a lame-duck Administration, Anderson had little diplomatic leverage. Konrad Adenauer, noted one top German businessman, was just Machiavellian enough to figure "If I have to give in, I'll give in to someone who counts--Mr. Kennedy." For West Germany has still to live up to its responsibilities as one of the West's richest powers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.