Europe vs. Britain:

...Even more important, he had the support of that large section of West German opinion which, despite all tactical differences over Berlin, is convinced that West Germany's links with the West require permanent friendship with Britain as well as with France, and has seen the aggressively one-sided Continentalism of the Hallstein course with growing misgivings...

...Is it too much to hope that this episode may at last prove a turning point for the better for the two uneasy allies...

...It was Erhard who got the Bonn Cabinet to vote for a postponement of the "Hallstein Plan," under which the common external tariff of the '"Inner Six" Continental powers would have come into effect by July 1. thus raising German tariffs against British goods by an estimated 45 per cent...

...Erhard has succeeded with his German Cabinet colleagues...

...But, naturally, the feeling that Britain was not sufficiently "firm" on Berlin has tended to make Adenauer rely all the more on his Continental partners, and to make him back Hallstein's anti-British tactics...

...Yet the only possible consequences of such tactics can be to harden and embitter what would otherwise be passing diplomatic differences of opinion by giving them the solid substance of a conflict of interest...

...The origin of these differences owes nothing (and the wave of irrational anti-German feeling in Britain very little) to the disagreement on the Common Market and European federalism...

...So far, this group has succeeded at every stage in preventing serious negotiation, although Britain was ready for it, first, on the basis of its own Free Trade Area proposal and, after the rejection of the proposal, on the basis of reciprocal arrangements between the Inner Six and the Outer Seven...

...But in the light of the world situation, the full dangers of the shortsighted dream of uniting Western Europe against Britain are becoming manifest...

...The "Continentalists" have virtually wrecked the once-successful mechanism of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, and have so far stalled all efforts to put an equally effective Atlantic mechanism in its place...

...For the issue between the Inner Six and the "Outer Seven" is not primarily one of economic technicalities...

...It seeks the economic integration of Continental Western Europe as a means to assure its permanent political unity: and it has somehow persuaded itself that this unity can be assured only against Britain—that Britain has to be isolated and put under pressure to prevent her from "sabotaging" European unity...

...Knowing that a considerable sector of enlightened opinion in Britain itself favors joining the six-power Common Market, they regarded the Prime Minister's opposition to its speed-up as "unrealistic...

...sympathies for their "federalist" political ideas—viewed as the safest means to tie Western Germany permanently to the West—the Continentalists have generally enjoyed American support...

...For more than a year now, there have been serious tactical differences between London and Bonn in their approach to the summit...

...This group—which includes Dr...

...His American listeners were both shocked and incredulous...

...has been averted, at least for the time being...

...Britain By Richard Lowenthal A SHARP CONFLICT of interest between Britain and Continental Europe that might have had disastrous political consequences on the eve of the summit meeting...

...Walter Hallstein—is not moved by primarily economic considerations...

...He has been backed by the justifiable fear of German industry that they might get needlessly involved in a trade war with Britain...

...British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan did: After the flood of leaks and denials has been sifted, it seems clear that during his Washington visit he drew a comparison with Napoleon's "Continental blockade" against British goods, and warned of a policy that was bound to endanger the future of the Western alliance...

...Because of U.S...

...Moreover, he achieved that postponement after Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had publicly committed himself to the Hallstein Plan during his recent American visit—and had committed the Americans to support it...

...Yet, on the basis of political rather than economic considerations, I think that Macmillan was the realist, while Secretary of State Christian Herter and Undersecretary C. Douglas Dillon showed a truly frightening naivete...

...Interestingly, where Macmillan failed to make Washington understand what it had supported...

...This major blow to save the Western alliance was struck in Bonn, and its hero was the Federal German Minister of Economics, that paunchy, bumptious, irrepressible free-trade preacher, Ludwig Erhard...

...The paramount political fact is that there is an influential group in some of the leading Continental countries which does not want to negotiate with Britain until a barrier has been erected against British goods...

...Washington does not seem to have understood the full political implications of the Hallstein Plan...