Britain Looks at European Union:

...Such treatment is important at a time when Paris is full of stories—apparently originating from de Gaulle's entourage— that the madcap enterprise of the rebel Generals in Algiers was encouraged by some unspecified Americans in NATO...

...The British Cabinet is now hesitating on the brink...

...This is a little too much for the average Briton to swallow—especially the average Tory, already depressed by the shrinkage of British influence in Asia and by the steady contraction of the Empire in Africa...

...Macmillan showed himself aware of this when—in a widely noted remark at the height of the Algerian crisis—he spoke of "extending Europe to a still wider sphere...

...Even those Government and Conservative circles which have tactfully refrained from blaming the U.S...

...Hitherto the British had hoped that, with American backing, they could enter Europe on their own terms, while maintaining the Anglo-American connection as the hard core of the Atlantic alliance...

...This was bad news for the Conservatives, though Macmillan manfully swallowed his feelings and allowed no hint of disappointment or resentment to leak out...

...Now that the vision of a Greater France sprawling across the Mediterranean has been shattered, there is no further excuse for the argument that de Gaulle is too obsessed with grandeur to be a suitable partner for Britain...

...But if Atlantic Union is beginning to look respectable in Whitehall and Westminster, it is not yet certain that the Conservative party and the country are ready to accept the corollary: that the road to this goal lies through European Union, and not the other way around...

...Whatever its final decision, it can no longer afford to let others set the pace...

...European Union by itself will not solve the wider problem of the Atlantic alliance...

...Such feelings, however, were not shared by the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the City of London...

...It has little to do with tariffs or other economic interests...

...Paris knows this very well, though it is not apparently realized with the same degree of clarity in Washington...

...If this seems like fantasy now, one should remember that if it hadn't been for de Gaulle, France might have been plunged into turmoil...

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...They also tend to conclude—a little reluctantly—that such threats must be avoided at all costs...

...Only now is it beginning to be feared that the shoe may be on the other foot, and that Britain is in danger of being excluded from West European union...

...The financial editor of the Sunday- Times put it with unusual candor: "In terms of international economic policies, the vital new factor may be the strengthening of de Gaulle rather than the weakening of Kennedy...

...The weakening of American influence in Europe is likely to have the same effect...

...All this, and a great deal besides (including the sluggish state of the British economy, compared with that of Western Europe), will have to be explained to the public in the weeks and months to come...

...The British, for example, have the uncomfortable feeling that the West escaped disaster last month by the skin of its teeth...

...It was privately hoped after last November that the new Administration, having presumably read and digested what George Kennan and Walter Lippmann have had to say on the subject, would take a strictly realistic view of Soviet aims, and not confuse Great Power politics with ideological warfare on a global scale...

...The Government respects his political strength, but resents his determination to use this strength to keep the British out of the Common Market—until and unless they are willing to come in as equal partners, sharing all the economic and political obligations of the other members, and no longer trying to maintain the fiction that Britain is number two in the Atlantic Alliance, with France a poor third and the rest of Europe a long way behind...

...Privately, too, it is admitted that the British Government prefers a docile (though prosperous) France to a strong and resolute one...

...It was always certain that de Gaulle would refuse to consider these terms, and it now looks as though he cannot be compelled to accept them...

...True, British adherence to the Rome Treaty under which the European Common Market was set up would not sit well with the English farming community: It would be called upon to make some sacrifices...

...YET THE LOGIC of recent events points to a reappraisal similar to France's retreat from the dream of "Eurafrica...

...At any rate, the new Administration seems willing to treat France with the same degree of seriousness it reserves for Britain...

...Letter from London BRITAIN LOOKS AT EUROPEAN UNION By G. L. Arnold London The month of April looks in retrospect like one of those testing periods with which Germany used to confront the Allies during World War II...

...To the more cynical observers here, the Government line sounded rather hollow, as though the Cabinet were trying to persuade its supporters that there was no danger of Britain's being pushed off its pedestal...

...Since the maintenance of this fiction is now probably the only thing that stands between the Tory party and electoral disaster, de Gaulle's realism is a hard thing to have to swallow...

...One result is that Whitehall is again thinking of moving closer to Western Europe, especially now that it looks as though de Gaulle has finally established his authority in France...

...This is a pretty accurate summary of the official British attitude toward de Gaulle, an attitude compounded in unequal parts of respect and irritation...

...The British government—fully supported herein by French President de Gaulle—has always regarded such language as an aberration...

...Even if there is some substance in these rumors— and it must be said that after the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) debacle in Cuba, few people here would be surprised at anything—it is clear that the Administration had nothing to do with such folly...

...In these well-informed quarters it was appreciated that anything which diminished Kennedy's posture vis-àvis de Gaulle in the coming talks would make it more difficult for the British Government to keep up its balancing act...

...Since then a number of things have happened in Britain, including a sharp slump in the Conservative party's popularity with the voters (owing to the new budget) and some strain between the Cabinet and the backbenchers...

...The only remaining question is whether they can join forces in a confederated Europe...

...In Britain it has even become respectable to suggest that sooner or later this country may have to acknowledge the reality of Western Europe...

...Starting from what to the British is the periphery, Whitehall has been alarmed by Sino-Soviet intransigence in Laos, and by what looks like crusading fever in Washington...

...Side by side with pictures of Challe's arrest, the French press reported the ceremonial return from Casablanca, for reburial in France, of the ashes of Marshal Louis FI...

...Entry into the Common Market would knock the props from under the traditional conception of Britain's role as the focal point of three circles: Europe, North America and the Commonwealth...

...administration for its debacle in Cuba are uneasy about signs that President Kennedy and his associates are about to lapse into Dulles-like language over "Communist subversion...

...The long silent duel between them, hidden behind a veil of polite ceremonial, must come to a climax when President Kennedy visits Paris at the end of this month...

...All this was in early April...

...The Conservatives, already depressed by the long retreat from Empire, still hanker after the mirage of a world-wide Anglo-American alliance, leaving Western Europe on the fringe...

...G. Lyautey, long-time governor of French Morocco...

...The opposition coming from Canada, Australia and New Zealand is more serious, but not insurmountable, given a few economic concessions on the European side...

...It is less clear, however, what Washington might have done, or not done, if General Maurice Challe had established himself successfully as dictator pro tern in Paris after a successful coup, flaunted the banner of anti-Communism and asked for NATO support in North Africa...

...The real obstacle is political and sentimental...

...Both nations are being driven back upon the realities of their European existence...

...The upheavals in Laos, Cuba and Algeria—widely separated in space, but linked to a common theme—have compelled Washington, London and Paris to take a closer look at the links uniting the West...

...With the collapse of the Algiers rebellion, France has passed the point of no return in her retreat from the imperial tradition...

...A number of Tories who do not particularly care for the Americans, and had secretly resented the obvious contrast between Kennedy's youthful vigor and Macmillan's elderly and worried appearance, were pleased with the decline in U.S...

...Privately, everyone here admits that the Conservative party stands and falls with the myth that the British Commonwealth is (almost) the equal of the United States and far superior to Western Europe (of which the British Isles, by sheer accident, happen to form part...

...It is good that he should be strong, but not wholly good for us...

...Liberal and Labor party opinion —especially the former—has grasped the point...

...The official line was that Kennedy would make use of his forthcoming visit to Paris to impress de Gaulle with the importance of making concessions to the British viewpoint, (which is that England would be doing the West Europeans a tremendous favor if it consented to join them, and that on no account must the French suppose they can get any share of Britain's nuclear arsenal...

...It is important to understand where the real trouble lies...

...these were not blunders but crimes...

...It would mean that if and when the Atlantic Community finally takes shape—and after the upheaval of the past month its construction is now regarded as urgent—Britain would join it not as a Third Force at the head of a world-wide Commonwealth, but as a member of a European confederation, on an equal footing with France and Germany...

...He has just shown himself ready to demolish the remnants of what was once called "France Overseas," even at the cost of having to suppress a rebellion by his own Army comrades...

...It was then made clear to the British that Washington not only had no objection to Britain's joining the European Common Market, but indeed hoped that London would bring itself to sign the Rome Treaty, instead of trying to maintain a "special position" intermediate between Europe and America...

...Suddenly, it seems that the North Atlantic Treaty Or gamzation (NATO) is not enough, and that we may have to think hard about the future political shape of the Atlantic world...

...Those who know de Gaulle can scarcely conceive that he would accept a position of inferiority on the European continent...

...Big business on the whole favors entry into the Common Market, and big business is vastly more influential than the farmers...

...But the farmers are heavily subsidized, their subsidies can be increased and their electoral weight is not so great as to scare the Conservative party into surrender...

...Of course, the point has not yet been reached where such a proposition can be sold to the British public...

...Cuba constituted a severe setback to these hopes, and Laos looks like another...

...There are those who believe that in such an unlikely event, Washington might have been urged by Bonn and Madrid to accept the fait accompli...

...G. L. Arnold, a close observer of the British scene, contributes to numerous English and American magazines...

...To be fair, it has to be admitted that the shift in the British Cabinet's attitude began after Prime Minister Macmillan's meeting with Kennedy earlier last month...

...As a result of de Gaulle's victory over his generals, Britain and France are now face to face...

...But the big bangs, of course, occurred in Cuba and, a week later, in Algiers...

...Thus, because everyone has had a bad scare, it is now suddenly respectable to say that the British Government may find it possible after all to swallow its pride and accept de Gaulle's conditions for "joining Europe...

...Yet they have undoubtedly made it easier for de Gaulle to continue his policy of keeping Britain out of Europe...

...These events have helped depress Kennedy's slightly inflated status with the British, while raising the prestige of de Gaulle...

...The French government continues to organize Western Europe without Britain, and the alarm through which it has just passed does not seem to have shaken its resolve never to play second fiddle to another European Power—for it is in this light that the French regard their British neighbors...

...With less fanfare, the British for years have been quietly conducting a similar operation...

...IT is remarkable how little plain speaking there has been about this subject—in public anyhow...

...It is by no means necessary to feel compassion for the mislakes of the French Generals...

...The Americans, fortunately, are saved from serious blunders by their appreciation of de Gaulle's greatness as a statesman, and perhaps also by a vestigial sense of shame at the shabby treatment he got from President Roosevelt during the war...