Europe's Destiny Is Shaped by Their Debate

THREE STRONG MEN

THE Western alliance today is seriously strained by the ever-widening political rift between President John Kennedy and President Charles de Gaulle. At stake are the future leadership of Europe and the shape of the Continent's fast-emerging political union. The conflict reached a climax last week when De Gaulle used his first press conference in six months to decry Europe's Atlantic partnership, offering instead a grandiose, 18th century vision of an independent continent dominated by France. De Gaulle's rhetoric prompted the resignations of five French Cabinet ministers, drew worried disavowals from De Gaulle's frequent partner-in-criticism, West Germany's Konrad Adenauer, and stung Kennedy to the strongest public rebuff he has yet aimed at an Allied head of state. The issues and arguments:

NATO

DE GAULLE contends that NATO--which in private he often dismisses as "the American command"--might no longer use its U.S.-controlled nuclear weapons to defend the Continent now that Russia can retaliate directly against the U.S. France must have its own "modest" nuclear deterrent, he argues, in order to "have, whatever happens, our own share in our own destiny." Thus, as he once put it, France could at least "tear an arm" off an aggressor. He announced also that NATO will not get back the two NATO-committed French divisions that were diverted to Algeria. Explained De Gaulle: "It is absolutely necessary to have our army more closely knit into the nation." ADENAUER, though anxious at almost any price to preserve Franco-German amity, is mistrustful of De Gaulle's nuclear ambitions and resents his carping at U.S.

leadership in this area. Reason: Bonn's overriding foreign policy aims are to strengthen NATO, which sorely needs De Gaulle's ground troops, and to keep a powerful U.S. force in Europe. Said he: "Without the U.S., we are lost." KENNEDY, pointing out that France still relies totally on NATO for its own security, said succinctly last week: "A coherent policy cannot call for both our presence and our absence." The U.S. argues that even a "modest" nuclear deterrent will prove prohibitively expensive for France with the rapid sophistication of delivery systems and will not in fact deter a major power. If such a modest striking force were ever deployed against Russia, it would have little strategic effect, but would almost certainly prompt devastating retaliation. In short, even if France were able to tear off an aggressor's arm (more likely, in the foreseeable future, its nuclear force would be able to manage only a few fingers), this would not be enough; the U.S. would still have to move in and finish the job.

Europe

DE GAULLE dismissed proposals for a federation of European nations under a single, supranational parliament, and derided Europe's leading federalists--notably Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak and France's Jean Monnet--as "Aladdins" who "dream of magic lamps that one only has to rub to soar above reality." De Gaulle's somewhat inconsistent objection: individual nations would never "submit to laws voted by strangers," would be dominated by "someone from outside" --another dig at the U.S. Pressing his case for a loose, exclusive alliance of sovereign states, De Gaulle declared: "Dante, Goethe and Chateaubriand* belong to Europe in just the same degree to which they remained respectively and outstandingly Italian, German and French. They would not have contributed much to Europe if they had thought and written in some Esperanto or integrated Volapiik fa i gth century, German-devised forerunner of Esperanto]." De Gaulle ignored Britain's application for Common Market membership save for his accurate observation that Britain's champions are illogical; the very people who want Britain in also want a tight, supranational federation--which Britain could never accept.

He also resurrected his unpopular 1960 suggestion that the power to make economic decisions for Europe should not rest exclusively, as it now does, with the Common Market executive but with the heads of government, who would meet twice yearly to set common policies for the community.

ADENAUER on the whole favors Common Market membership for Britain and its NATO partners Denmark and Norway, shares the U.S. view that neutrals and non-European nations should be excluded.

But while once an ardent federalist, he now argues that a broader version of De Gaulle's Europe of Fatherlands is the only practical form of union for the immediate future, suggests it could lead "very gradually" to closer integration.

KENNEDY, who has adamantly pressed for British membership in the European community, feels that De Gaulle's narrow, nationalistic approach to political unity is anachronistic. "Atlantic unity represents the true course of history," he said, and added pointedly: "We look forward to the strengthening of world peace that would result from a European community in which no member could either dominate or endanger the others. Surely, each member would find in the fabric of European unity and Atlantic partnership an opportunity for achievement, for grandeur and for a voice in its own destiny."

Berlin

DE GAULLE is opposed to negotiations over Berlin and deeply suspicious of U.S.Soviet talks ("these conversations which are euphemistically called 'soundings' ").

He insists on the status quo, calls any attempt to settle the impasse "trying to square the circle." Aware that he cannot stop the talks, De Gaulle said disdainfully that France would not be bound by what the U.S. "did on its own account." ADENAUER agrees with De Gaulle that the status quo can only be impaired by negotiations, which he calls "running after Khrushchev." While he has reluctantly acquiesced in U.S.-Soviet talks, he has objected loudly to proposed East German membership in an international agency controlling access to Berlin, and to other possible Berlin concessions that he considers unnecessary and possibly disastrous to West Germany, since each new proposal seems to suggest some added recognition for the hated East German regime.

KENNEDY, though resolved to keep U.S.

forces in West Berlin, still believes that it is better to try for a Berlin settlement--without substantial concessions to the Reds--than to live in constant crisis.

While he has only limited hopes that such a settlement is possible, he maintains that the U.S. has earned the right to try. The U.S.'s European Allies, he warns, should not take the American role "for granted." While Britain, France and West Germany virtually ignored U.S. pleas for reinforcements during last summer's Berlin crisis, Kennedy recalled, the U.S. called up 160,000 men and boosted its defense budget by $6 billion to hold the city against Soviet threats. His blunt notice to De Gaulle: "As long as the U.S. is staking its own national security on the defense of Europe, we will continue to participate in the great decisions affecting war and peace in that area."

Politics

How serious is the U.S.-French rift? Washington can always take comfort from the thought that a strong authority in France, even if it disagrees with the U.S., is better than the long postwar political vacuum. Furthermore, there is more to De Gaulle's oratory than meets the U.S. ear, and his oracular vision of Gallic destiny is tempered by a highly practical sense of politics and popular psychology. Thus the underlying purpose of his nuclear strike force is not only to win France a privileged position in Western strategic councils, closer to that of nuclear-armed Britain, but also to restore a sense of mission to the young, technically oriented officer cadres that alone can rebuild France's hopelessly demoralized army. His aloofness to the U.S. is at least partly dictated by his desire to fatten France's ego, which has been badly battered by its retreat from empire.

Domestic politics may also force De Gaulle to tone down his views on Europe and the Atlantic alliance. The five ministers who resigned, led by the Fourth Republic's last Premier, Pierre Pflimlin (who was ousted by the army coup that brought De Gaulle to power), are all members of France's Catholic, Europe-minded Popular Republican Movement (MRP), which angrily condemned his outright rejection of European federal union. As a result, De Gaulle now faces a parliamentary majority in opposition to his foreign policy. On a tour of France's remote soutn-central Limousin region at week's end, le grand Charles still maintained with regal aplomb: "We ourselves [meaning De Gaulle] make the policy of France." But he may well have to moderate those policies. Ultimately, Washington still hopes De Gaulle will be enough of a realist to know that European greatness will only be accelerated by Britain's joining the Common Market and can only be secured for the next few years by NATO's shield.

* London's New Statesman pointedly noted his omission of Shakespeare.

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