Bavarian Sacrifice?

For a time, it looked as if Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's political foes might at last have the pleasure of seeing the Old Man forced out of office. The scandal over the arrest and jailing of Publisher Rudolf Augstein and the top editors of the newsmagazine Der Spiegel (TIME, Nov. 9) had blown up into a national tempest, rocking the Cabinet itself. But in his half-century of political maneuvering, der Alte has learned what it takes to survive. Last week he squeaked through again--with a plan that probably will sacrifice his brawny, brawling Minister of Defense Franz Josef Strauss, the man widely blamed for organizing the clumsy crackdown on Aug-stein's magazine.

Everybody Out. Adenauer was not conceding that there had been anything wrong about the action against Der Spiegel. After all, he insisted on television, possible treason was involved: "I maintain that the arrests and searches were carried out by the responsible organs of the government because of the urgent suspicion of a crime directed against the security of the German people." But Strauss remained a major political embarrassment.

The Free Democrats, who have five seats in Adenauer's Cabinet, caucused in Niirnberg last week and voted overwhelmingly to withdraw from the government coalition. Dapper FDP Chairman Erich

Mende telephoned the news to Konrad Adenauer in Bonn. As if he were doing der Alte a favor, Mende smoothly suggested that the resignation would enable the Chancellor to form a new government free of "personal liability.'' The liability he was talking about was Strauss. Adenauer's stony reply: "We will discuss it.''

The Chancellor certainly had to discuss it, for he needs the Free Democrats' 67 votes in the Bundestag. On the other hand, he also needs the 50 votes of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, whose chairman is none other than Franz Joseph Strauss. Adenauer could not fire his Defense Minister outright. Instead the Old Man proposed that all the other Cabinet ministers follow the Free Democrats' example and resign. That way. the Chancellor could build a new Cabinet from scratch, with a new Defense Minister.

Penchant for Blunders. The distinction between firing the Defense Minister and leaving him out of the next Cabinet seemed rather fine, but it was at least acceptable to everyone, including Strauss. Fresh from his tour of the Bavarian boondocks, where he was campaigning to help his party in this week's state elections, Strauss showed up in Bonn for a stormy party caucus. Then he announced his resignation from the Cabinet.

For the 47-year-old Bavarian, his forced resignation might well be the end of a political career that once seemed headed for the chancellorship itself. Although he is bright and talented, Strauss's muscular methods have led him into many political blunders. Once, after he deliberately jumped a red light, Strauss caused a national scandal by trying to fire the traffic cop who sent him a summons. More recently, he was involved in an unsavory case of favoritism in contract awards for military housing. He has since been exonerated. If he is to retrieve his reputation and once again climb back up to influence, it will be against the fervent wishes of many of his own colleagues.

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