New Determination in Britain

...But though Macmillan will do his best to support Heath's position, Maudling is more likely to determine the general line of the Conservative Government's policy, if only because Heath's approach has no prospect of success so long as de Gaulle holds power in France...

...Economic and political factors may soon combine to persuade the Government to give up the expensive phantom of a semi-independent thermonuclear force conceived in Nassau, and participate in a NATO force on exactly equal terms with its European allies...

...and Canada, as well as Western Europe, can take part...

...De Gaulle's brutal treatment of his partners greatly reduces the likelihood that the Common Market will continue to develop as dynamically as in the past, while the political uncertainties created by French policy reduce the attractions of Europe for foreign—including British—investors...

...The Prime Minister himself appears dazed and listless: Almost every aspect of his policy depended on Britain's entry into the Common Market, and his personal record during the negotiations makes it almost impossible for him now to lead the country in any other direction...

...In the same manner, irrespective of any general formula for association with the Common Market, Britain will try to improve its trading prospects by bilateral agreements with individual members of the Six...

...It is now clearer than ever that the U.S., like any other country, will cooperate most closely with those governments with which it is easiest to cooperate...

...Exclusion from the Common Market also removes certain obstacles to an expansion of trade with the Communist countries...

...The concept of arms control in Central Europe as a step toward a settlement on Germany is once more assuming a central importance in British foreign policy...

...In the short run, at any rate, Britain's exclusion from Europe may facilitate a solution to its economic problems, particularly as the Conservative party is now no less determined than its Labor rival to make use of import restrictions and exchange controls which might have been illegal under the Rome Treaty...

...Denis Healey, a regular contributor, was last month appointed Labor party Spokesman for Defense...

...The short-lived attempt to resuscitate the corpse of West European Union—the Brussels Treaty Organization—seems about to be abandoned in favor of giving more political substance to NATO...

...The only conceivable explanation for this is that he or some of his ministers took seriously what they were told by Julian Amery, Britain's present Secretary for Air and the one-time leader of the Suez rebels...

...The heady hopes of Whitehall during the intoxicating days that followed de Gaulle's veto are giving way to a somber realism...

...Maudling, on the other hand, is as traumatically obsessed by his earlier failure with the Free Trade Area as is Heath with the Common Market...

...In terms of policy, there is no Conservative alternative to Heath and Maudling...

...the first fruit of this is likely to be an agreement to take more Soviet oil in return for a large Russian order in the depressed British shipyards...

...The frustration and disappointments of the last few years have created a determination to make sure that when the time arrives to take up the negotiations again with whatever is left of the EEC after several years of de Gaulle, Britain will speak from strength, not weakness, and have something substantial to offer in return for the concessions it requires...

...The oddest rumor emanating from Paris in recent weeks has de Gaulle believinc that after a year or two of catastrophic Labor rule the Conservatives will return to power under younger leaders who will join the Common Market on his terms...

...THE ADVANTAGES OF EXCLUSION New Determination in Britain By Denis Healey London Though the dust is fast settling on the ruins of the Brussels talks, uncertainty about Britain's role in Europe continues to confuse the Macmillan Government's approach to the problems which remain...

...Liberated from the need to curry favor with Adenauer and de Gaulle, Britain will now work more energetically for a rapprochement between Kennedy and Khrushchev on disarmament and European security...

...If there is a special relationship between London and Washington, it is based not on historical memories but on a close identity of views about the major world problems—an identity which is likely to be closer still if the Labor party, as now seems likely, takes power next year in Britain...

...In the last year or so, costs have been rising in most of the EEC countries up to or above the British level...

...No one now seriously believes that the Five will in a year's time be so exasperated with de Gaulle as to invite Britain to join them in France's place...

...Nor is the other British nightmare—that the growing strength and cohesion of the Common Market would lead the United States to bypass Britain altogether—any more impressive in the light of day...

...At the same time, earlier estimates of the dangers to Britain of exclusion from the Common Market are being drastically revised...

...For all these reasons, British opinion is moving more toward the concept of an Atlantic community than toward new formulas for European unity...

...Against this general background, Britain's attitude toward Western Europe will be less dominated by general myths and more by specific interests...

...A similar optimism is growing about the political consequences of Brussels, since the manner in which de Gaulle cast his veto and the arguments he used to justify it seem to remove the main dangers Britain feared from exclusion...

...But Amery represents an extreme right in the Conservative party which has no political weight whatever...

...Last month's crushing election victory of Willy Brandt's Socialists in West Berlin was the handwriting on the wall for Adenauer's policy, if not for Adenauer himself...

...Nor is there any longer much faith in the possibility of France offering Britain an industrial Free Trade Area, although Maurice Couve de Murville did make this proposal to Hugh Gaitskell in December...

...But Heath has identified himself so much with the "European" element on the Continent that he is neither willing nor able to pursue closer cooperation with countries outside the EEC, and tends to reject any offer less than full membership from the Common Market itself...

...Heath still seems to believe there is no alternative to Britain's entry into the Common Market, and is naturally anxious to wring the last drop of advantage out of the good will he himself did so much to win among the Five in Brussels...

...But there is a bracing awareness at last that the solution of Britain's problems depends on its own exertions, and will not be miraculously achieved by the automatic operation of external forces...

...all have encountered frigid hostility from Paris...

...he is a Debré without a de Gaulle to serve...

...It is an exaggeration to talk of a Dunkirk spirit in Britain since Brussels...

...Maudling believes that the Brussels breakdown has greatly improved the chances of organizing international support for the world's reserve currencies...

...This idea has also been put forward in recent weeks by the Dutch and Belgian governments, and by at least one Minister from Bonn...

...Attention therefore focusses on the two young men most likely to compete for the succession as long as the Conservatives remain in power—Reginald Maudling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Edward Heath, who as Lord Privy Seal led the British team in Brussels...

...The Gaullist veto has compelled all the European countries, both inside and outside the Common Market, to think more in terms of national objectives rather than international institutions...

...Similarly, in the economic field Britain is likely to make more use of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as a forum in which the U.S...

...Heath's face was a mask of pain as Maudling rehearsed these old heresies...

...Both men spoke during the Parliamentary inquest on the breakdown, but from opposite points of view...

...Washington's attitude has already shifted substantially from the selfish hostility his proposals encountered at the last meeting of the International Monetary Fund...

...A Continental Third Force behind de Gaulle now appears a ludicrous fantasy: French policy has dealt a near fatal blow even to the special relationship between Bonn and Paris that was to have been its backbone...

...the threat is not sufficiently dramatic for that...

...After all, de Gaulle rejected Britain as the symbol of American influence in Europe, and it was this element in his argument which most frightened his partners...

...He talked, in the old Anthony Eden vein, of Britain as the point at which the circles of the United States, the Commonwealth and Europe intersect, and cited the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, set up in 1948 for the distribution of Marshal Plan aid, as the ideal machinery for building European unity...

...Thus Britain is likely to play a leading role in promoting the concept of a NATO deterrent...

...Thus the recent European Free Trade Association meeting made progress toward a rapid industrial customs union depending on bilateral arrangements between Britain and Denmark, Norway and Austria to increase the market for their agricultural products...