Evening star., 1952-05-27
Bonn With the Free West

0OUU VUH the FTee west
With the signing of the contractual peace
agreement at Bonn and the six-nation European
defense treaty at Paris, the Atlantic Community
has reached a momentous new point in it's
history But the event, for good reason, has not
taken place in an atmosphere of jubilation.
Instead, its prime movers have gone through
with it in what might be called spirit of somber
but resolute awareness of all the great difficulties
and risks that must yet be surmounted before the
two documents can be translated into successful
action-action aimed at so strengthening the free
West in the balance of power that the Kremlin
will be permanently deferred from unleashing a
world war.
To that end the Observation-Disclosures
peace contract with Chancellor Adenauer's gov
ernment at Bonn provides that West Germany,
besides becoming an almost-Sovereign country, Is
to be an active partner in the defense of free
Europe. This partnership status means that it is
to have the right to rearm and organize military
forces in keeping with its obligations under the
treaty it has signed in Paris with France, Italy,
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. That
treaty, in turn, sets forth the terms for inte-
grating Bonns divisions into the internationalized
six-nation army that Is to stand guard, within
the framework of the NATO alliance, against
the threat of Red aggression.
All the Signatories of these two pacts have
been at pains to emphasize that the terms in no
way preclude or discourage genuinely honest
effort to reunite partitioned Germany. AS far
as the peace contract is concerned it has come
into being only because Soviet policy-which is
directed toward the creation of a German
satellite-has compelled Bonn and the Western
Big Three to work out stopgap arrangements
calculated to make the best of bad situation
until there can be real unidcation Of the
nd thc tn fhroo
what is left of free Europe The same reasoning
fully justifes the Paris defense treaty. Both the
treaty and the contract are thoroughly legiti-
mate and necessary security measures against
RuSSia'S One-by -one technique of dominance
seeking subversion and aggression.
There can be no doubt that these measures,
potentially speaking, promise to add very signif-
canty to the strength of the West as a whole.
For the Germany headed by DR.. Adenauer is far
stronger industrially, and much more populous,
than the Soviet-occupied zone and its direct
participation in the common defense can there
fore affect the balance of power in a way that
could be decisively favorable for the entire
Atlantic Community This is a chicken, however,
that has yet to be Matched. Before the pacts can
even begin to operate, they must first go through
the time consuming process of being ratified by
all the parliamentS concerned, and in the end
one or another of those parliamentS may vote no.
In that respect the opposition forces in Bonn
and Paris are not to be underestimated. Indeed,
even our own Congress may well tend to be
balky over such commitments as giving France
special American guarantees against the posi-
bility of treaty-violating German withdrawal
from the projected European army.
Given this situation, the men of the Kremlin
can be counted upon to cut loose with an all-out
propaganda barrage in an effort to block ratifi-
cation. AS they have indicated again in their
latest note on the subject, they oppose the peace
contract and defense treaty with the greatest
bitterness, and they will almost certainly
intensity their cold war against them The Red
puppets of East Germany, who have just tight
ened the zonal border, have already spoken
threatfully about armed violence, and there have
been hints that another Berlin blockade may be
in the making. Much more of the same,
together with occasional Establishments, can be
expected from now on, creating new and nasty
tensions that could make the coming months
decidedly dangerous. As never before the free
Western world must be prepared to make clear
that it cannot be frightened from doing what it
must do to cope with the Soviet menace.