Dismal Diplomacy

It was Harold Wilson's most frustrating week since last July's sterling crisis -- and it was, in fact, a pretty dismal week for British diplomacy in general. Having failed in his peacemaking attempt with Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin, Wilson flew off to Bonn with Foreign Secretary George Brown on what appeared to be a much simpler task: to try to persuade the West Germans to help Britain gain entry to the European Common Market. Since the West Germans already are on record as favoring British entry, Wilson hoped that he could induce Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger and his colleagues to do some special and aggressive lobbying for him with the intractable Charles de Gaulle.

As it turned out, Wilson could hardly have done more to cool the Germans' backing of Britain had he actively planned it that way. In an incredible crisscross of diplomatic flak, the British seemed to get their signals and timing completely mixed up.

sbKosygin's visit to Britain, marked by Wilson's lavish praise and the British public's acclaim for the Soviet leader, provided just about the worst possible prelude for the British visit to Bonn. It raised West German fears that Britain seeks to build a special relationship with the Soviet Union that might well, considering Russia's implacable hostility toward Bonn, be accomplished at West Germany's expense. Wilson might have postponed either visit, but he chose to put them end to end. The Germans did not appreciate the timing.

sbOn the eve of the British departure for Bonn, George Brown touched one of West Germany's tautest nerves by answering "Yes, in a way" to a question about whether the Kosygin-Wilson declaration to respect present borders in Europe meant that Britain had decided to recognize the Oder-Neisse line as Germany's eastern border. The West Germans insist, of course, that only a full-scale peace conference can decide Germany's eventual boundaries. Though both Brown and Wilson later in effect apologized and reaffirmed their support of the German view, the gaffe set an unfortunate tone for the talks.

sbWhile Wilson was in Bonn attempting to reassure the Germans that the pound was strong and that Britain would have no major difficulty adjusting to the Market's higher agricultural prices, one of his ranking ministers--Board of Trade President Douglas Jay --was cutting the ground out from under him by declaring in London that entry to the Market might well mean economic ruin for Britain, beginning with a rise in food prices, which would climb 14%. The contrast did not serve to convince the Germans of British sincerity, which is already in doubt in certain quarters on the Continent.

sbHardly had Wilson finished annealing to the Germans for more financial support for the 53,000-man British Army of the Rhine than British Defense Secretary Denis Healey released a White Paper calling for large-scale cutbacks in both NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. It was thus no surprise that at week's end Bonn indicated that it will not help pay for the upkeep of the Rhine army--a decision that almost inevitably will bring about a major British pullback.

The Germans were further concerned by Britain's aggressive backing of a nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which, in German eyes, might reduce the have-not countries to permanent pawns of the nuclear-possessing nations and send Russian agents scurrying across Germany prying into even the most peaceful uses of atomic energy. Moreover, Britain's effusive welcome for Kosygin, and the fact that his hosts uttered hardly a tut-tut in remonstrance after he publicly attacked West Germany, confirmed in many Germans the belief that Britain remains perhaps the most anti-German country in Western Europe. As far as the Germans are concerned right now, there is something to De Gaulle's belief that the British are not really Europeans, but Atlantic islanders between two continents.

Without the Common Market, as Wilson now realizes, Britain may really become a tiny island, cut off from the economic and political muscle of the Continent and thrown further into a Commonwealth that is deteriorating. Yet Wilson learned in Bonn that the job of getting in is going to be much tougher than he expected. While publicly endorsing British entry with polite correctness, the Germans do not intend to jeopardize their own relationship with De Gaulle by exerting any special pressure on Britain's behalf. Chancellor Kiesinger promised at week's end that he would outline Wilson's arguments to De Gaulle when he meets him this spring, but added: "We have no pressure to exert on France. We would have neither the means for such pressuring, nor do we wish it in view of our friendly relations with this country."

Most Britons now agree that their country needs to get into the Common Market if it is to avoid becoming a "Little England." If Wilson wants to be the man who leads it in, he must now regroup his forces and begin a renewed effort that will need to be at once more aggressive and yet more sensitive.

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