How the French Senate Ratified Paris Treaties:
TAS, SAL
THE PARIS TREATIES HOW THE FRENCH SENATE RATIFIED By Sal Tas PARIS THE PARIS Treaties were ratified by the French Senate after a week of haggling which kept the world breathless—needlessly,...
...Resignation was the deepest cause of the painless ratification, and the noisy resistance during the Senate debate was made chiefly with an eye to the coming elections...
...It will be difficult to increase military budgets so long as the Kremlin holds out hope of a "settlement...
...The Soviet reaction to the vote was quite moderate...
...Second, he promised that, if the Senate ratified unconditionally, he would pursue the policy indicated in the various amendments which were being withdrawn...
...Now, by accepting the idea of a four-power conference...
...organized letterwriting was pretty much confined to the Communists...
...The experience of the Reichswehr in the 1920s was thus applied to the 1950s, without the slightest thought of either the Allied armies now garrisoned in Germany or the alert Soviets, with their intelligence network and fifth column, who would be all too quick to call attention to a West German buildup...
...The most important of the amendments which Faure pledged to pursue was the demand for a four-power conference...
...A lot was said about the German danger—the threat not so much of an attack on France as of an effort to win back East Germany...
...The more it became clear that the Treaties would pass, the more their opponents climbed on the bandwagon...
...Plainly, resistance to the Paris Agreements had collapsed...
...Moscow hopes to move to take the teeth out of the Treaties...
...Though Premier Edgar Faure made some spirited speeches, these did not create the big Senate majority...
...Since the Anglo-Saxon powers (and particularly Churchill in his letter to Mendes-France) had made it clear that there would be no effort at a conference before ratification of the Paris Accords, the French Senators accepted negotiations for a conference after ratification—immediately after, in fact...
...Nobody tried to explain how 12 German divisions, against the will of the United States, could launch an attack on 160 Soviet divisions...
...First, he hinted that rejection of the Treaties would force America and Britain to adopt the "peripheral strategy...
...Apparently, the Kremlin understood that, with so much British and American prestige involved in the Treaties, the fight against them was no longer practical...
...THE PARIS TREATIES HOW THE FRENCH SENATE RATIFIED By Sal Tas PARIS THE PARIS Treaties were ratified by the French Senate after a week of haggling which kept the world breathless—needlessly, for they passed by a comfortable majority, 180 to 110...
...Premier Faure won the day with two strokes...
...True, some of the Senators said, 12 divisions could not do it, '"but the Germans are masters in camouflaging the buildup of a large army...
...The Senate was flattered at this attention, even though Faure's promise binds only his government, not France's allies...
...Public demonstrations were negligible...
...The German urge for reunification, opposition Senators declared, could start World War III...
...That this haste weakened the effect of ratification did not disturb the Senators too much...
Vol. 38 • April 1955 • No. 14
