Not Necessary, but Nice

Before President Kennedy took off on his trip to Europe, many a voice at home and abroad was raised in an old question with new overtones: Is this trip necessary? The impetus for the journey came from a January invitation from Italy's Premier Amintore Fanfani, but Fanfani's government had since fallen, and the President would be visiting an Italy in political turmoil. In West Germany he would be calling on a lame-duck Chancellor; in Britain his host would be the unhappy head of a scandal-rocked Tory government. There were problems at home that needed the President's attention. But by last week's end, after completion of more than half the trip, it was clear that while it may not have been necessary it certainly was nice.

On the surface it gave Jack Kennedy the chance to perform in his best role--as a political campaigner. For all of Europe to see, he moved through cheering throngs as if he were running for the Bundestag or the Dail.

"Yours & Ours." Far deeper than this campaign triumph, Kennedy made at least two substantive points. First, and most important, he reasserted in clear, forceful terms the major aim of U.S. policy toward Europe: to help Western Europe become a strong, independent force of its own, linked by bonds of friendship to a strong, independent U.S. To achieve that aim he offered full risk by the U.S. "My stay in this country will be all too brief," he said in Bonn, "but in a larger sense the United States is here on this continent to stay so long as our presence is desired and required; our forces and commitments will remain, for your safety is our safety. Your liberty is our liberty; and any attack on your soil is an attack upon our own." In Frankfurt's historic Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church), he expanded on the theme: "The first task of the Atlantic Community was to assure its common defense. That defense was and still is indivisible. The U.S. will risk its cities to defend yours because we need your freedom to protect ours. Hundreds of thousands of our soldiers serve with yours on this continent as tangible evidence of this pledge." Emphasizing the need to create "a fully cohesive Europe," he said that "the future of the West lies in Atlantic partnership--a system of cooperation, interdependence and harmony whose people can jointly meet their burdens and opportunities throughout the world. Some say this is only a dream, but I do not agree."

In his other major thrust, Kennedy took dead aim at France's Charles de Gaulle, whose lofty vision of a future Europe not only excludes U.S. influence but presupposes that the U.S. would not make good its promises to help defend the Continent: "Those who would doubt our pledge, those who would separate Europe from America or split one ally from another, would only give aid and comfort to the men who make themselves our adversaries and welcome any Western disarray. It is not in our interest to try to dominate European councils of decision. . . I repeat again, so that there may be no misunderstanding: the choice of paths to the unity of Europe is a choice which Europe must make."

To the Heart. There seemed to be a danger that Kennedy's straight talk might even further acerbate Franco-American relations. But at a time when West Germany might be drawn to De Gaulle's point of view, that risk was worth taking. The immediate French reaction was a shrug, with a hint of a sniff. France's Minister of Information Alain Peyrefitte said that his government does not really distrust Kennedy's resolution to defend Europe. But, he said, France does have a right to question Kennedy's ability to impose his policies on his presidential successors. "France," he said, "would have wished in 1914 to have the United States at her side, as also in 1939, when war broke out."

But 1963 is not 1914 or 1939, and Charles de Gaulle knows it. And he could not help realizing that Kennedy, in his clear restatement of U.S. ambitions for a strong, independent Europe and of unwavering U.S. determination to defend European integrity by arms if necessary, reached the heart of Western Europeans.

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