Aboul-Face in Bonn

...Germany has always made special efforts to insure that her alliances do not taint her with imperialist associations...

...Meanwhile, de Gaulle has emphasized his displeasure by refusing Macmillan's request for a meeting until he has first seen most of the other European Prime Ministers...

...Moreover, if Soviet policy reverts to a friendlier line, Macmillan would be strongly pressed by both parties in Britain to resume his old role as go-between...

...De Gaulle's arguments about the Congo would carry no more weight with him than former French Premier Guy Mollet's arguments about Suez four years ago...

...The London Economist has wisely warned the British Government against staking everything on destroying the supranational element in the Common Market, as much of the official commentary on the Bonn talks suggested...

...Macmillan could probably meet him on these points, but it will be a different story if Adenauer demands British support for giving nuclear weapons to the West German Army, as Bonn's generals are now openly demanding...

...For the first time Britain had accepted her exclusion from the European Common Market with good grace: The Government announced its intention of concentrating for the time being on building up the European Free Trade Association (EFTA—the so-called Outer Seven) with a view to negotiations through the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade for global reductions in tariffs...

...The Social Democrats are running the vigorous young Mayor of Berlin, Willy Brandt, for Chancellor...

...The scanty official reports about the Paris talks claim that they mainly concerned de Gaulle's desire for some sort of machinery through which Europe as a whole could put its collective views with greater force inside the Western alliance...

...Erhard, as the representative of German big business, has always fought Adenauer's European policy...

...To some extent it reflects Adenauer's growing isolation inside his own Christian Democratic party with only a year to go before the next general election...

...But if America does recover its sense of direction, the rapprochement between London and Bonn will have removed one of the biggest obstacles to progress inside NATO...

...In such a situation it would be essential that Britain should stand firm...

...This reaction was immediately conveyed to Adenauer as marking a reversion to toughness in British policy and the definitive end of Macmillan's flirtation with Khrushchev...

...But this will require agreement from Germany's partners, including France, and from Britain's EFTA partners as well, so it is unlikely to come soon in any case...

...This alone is enough to explain why Adenauer is no longer willing to let the federalists, who run the Common Market from Brussels, put a veto on changes which might allow Britain to join it...

...For Macmillan the key will be some accommodation between Britain and the Common Market...

...On the other hand, for the first time both the Government and the Opposition seemed prepared to consider full British membership in the Common Market, providing the Inner Six themselves showed a willingness to interpret some of its political and economic principles in ways more favorable to the special interests of Britain and its EFTA partners—in particular, by abandoning the more extreme forms of supranationalism...

...This was a complete about-face for the German Chancellor, who has hitherto been much the most enthusiastic champion of the Common Market as a means to Continental federation...

...ABOUT-FACE IN BONN Chancellor Adenauer's sudden reversal of policy during recent meeting with Prime Minister Macmillan produces Anglo-German rapprochement By Denis Healey LONDON WHEN the British Parliament broke up for its summer recess at the end of July the course of Britain's relations with the Continent seemed to be settled for at least the next six months...

...Everything here depends, however, on the new Washington Administration restoring the dynamism which America's NATO policy lost during the Korean War...

...Moreover, the Bonn Government has just refused to accept the Common Market's demand for a reduction in West German grain prices, which would reduce farm earnings by at least 20 per cent...

...It is said that he strongly criticized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as dominated by the untrustworthy Anglo-Saxons, expressed contempt for American leadership in particular and proposed that Adenauer entrust the future of Western Europe to France instead, citing French conduct in the United Nations debates on the Congo as proof that only France could be relied on to put loyalty to her European allies before national self-interest...

...But as so often is the case with such meetings, the improvement in atmosphere could evaporate very rapidly if it is not followed by con crete results...

...Adenauer has never had the slightest confidence in the idea of a European "Third Force"—he regards the alliance with America as absolutely indispensable for Germany...

...The official spokesman of the Foreign Office commented, in line with Macmillan's attitude until that moment, that the reply was encouraging in tone, did not close any doors, and so on...

...If unofficial rumors about the Paris talks are true, the reason may be that de Gaulle revealed his mind so clearly as to give Adenauer a bad scare...

...But it is most unlikely that such electoral or economic considerations could by themselves have produced so startling a change in Adenauer's European policy...

...But later the same day a source in direct contact with Macmillan gave quite another reaction: that the reply was bitterly disappointing, offensive in tone, lacking any human touch, etc...

...Moreover, he would do his best to persuade the rest of the Six to reach an economic understanding with Britain before the end of next year...

...The Foreign Office in Bonn told the press that the new German line was agreed upon by Adenauer and General de Gaulle at their private meeting in Paris a few days earlier...

...On the other hand, he is known to be worried by the prospect of a vacuum in American policy until the next President takes office...

...But it still leaves the question of why Adenauer should have chosen this moment to seek a rapprochement with Macmillan, even at the expense of annoying de Gaulle...

...Within a week everything was in the melting pot again...

...Perhaps the most hopeful outcome of the talks was the new emphasis given by both Adenauer and Macmillan on making NATO a more effective organ for coordinating foreign policies as well as achieving military security...

...But the Quai D'Orsay angrily denied this and a working party of German and French civil servants has been set up to try to discover what the two great men did in fact agree on...

...But a shift in Macmillan's policy toward the Soviet Union took place just at the crucial moment before he met Adenauer in Bonn...

...In particular, he is afraid that Russia may make some new move on Berlin at a time when America is unwilling or unable to react effectively...

...What, then, is the real reason for this sudden revolution in Adenauer's policy...

...His anxieties were one reason for Secretary of State Christian Herter's recent remarks on the subject...

...Chancellor Adenauer invited Prime Minister Macmillan to Bonn and told him that the German Government would oppose any attempt to supplement the economic provisions of the Common Market by political integration of the Six...

...The latest public opinion polls show Brandt running first in popularity, with Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard second and Adenauer only third...

...He would insist, too, that future negotiations to this end be conducted by the separate national governments, not by the European Commission in Brussels which claims to represent the Inner Six as a whole...

...Shortly after the shooting down of the RB-47, Macmillan addressed a clever personal letter to Soviet Premier Khrushchev in which, more in sorrow than in anger, he asked the Soviet leader what on earth he was up to...

...The most plausible explanation is that the revelation of de Gaulle's real attitude in Paris has forced Adenauer to reappraise the German position...

...And there is a real danger that if negotiations for an economic settlement are launched on no more solid a basis than the wave of good will in Bonn they will break down, like the EFTA negotiations before them, leaving the atmosphere much worse than before...

...Ever since Macmillan's trip to Moscow, Adenauer has regarded Britain as the weak link in the Western alliance, and he may also have attributed Britain's position on Berlin as retaliation for the collapse of the EFTA negotiations (stranger explanations have been published in Bonn as well as Paris...

...It is known that de Gaulle reaffirmed his opposition to a Continental federation, and to any supranational organization which would limit French sovereignty...

...Khrushchev's reply reached London as Macmillan was packing for Bonn...

...If de Gaulle did talk in such terms—and these are well-known to be his views—then Adenauer's invitation to Macmillan was essentially a cry for help...

...This transformed the atmosphere at the Bonn meeting, which was marked by a personal cordiality hitherto unknown between Adenauer and Macmillan...

...Moreover, German thinking on Afro-Asian problems is the opposite of de Gaulle's...

...For Adenauer the key will be Britain's policy in a new Berlin crisis—for example, the abandonment of the search for an "interim agreement"—and he may also make awkward demands on such issues as the projected meeting of the Bundestag in West Berlin...