Evening star., 1952-10-21
The EDC in Dancer


and true friend of the United States and a stall
wart champion of Western unity and freedom
has done surprising and altogether discourag-
ing thing in calling for drastic revisons of the
six-nation treaty to organize European Defense
Community. Although he is 80 years old, he still
wields great deal Of influence as leader of the
Radical Socialist Party and Speaker of the Ma
tional Assembly. Accordingly, as result of his
emphatic dissent, the French government now
faces crisis and there is serious doubt that the
treaty will be approved when it comes up for q
ratifying vote in Parliament.
This is so because the Radical Socialists
who are really conservative in spite of their name
control about 10 seats out Of total Of 626 in
the National Assembly, and their votes can spell
the difference between success and failure for
Premier Pinays effort to overcome the opposition
to ratification. The opposition is made up prin-
cipally of the De Gaullists on the extreme right
and the Communists on the extreme left, and if
these are Joined by the members of Mr.. Herriot's
party, the EDO treaty may well be defeated, even
though it has already been signed by the govern
ments of the six participating nations-Luxem-
bourg, the Netherlands Belgium, Italy, West
Germany and France.
In its present form, as completed last May
after months of arduous negotiation the treaty
Is designed to pool the armed resources of the six
nations into single internationalized force that
would operate within the framework of the larger
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This supra
national European Defense Community-a po-
tentialy revolutionary project initiated by the
French-is meant to be the military counterpart
to the Schuman Plan for economic integration.
Equally important, it Is meant to insure West
German participation in NATO's security build
up against the threat of Soviet aggression, but
~ sc$ 49, ~&
antees that would protect France against the pos
sibility of vastly remilitarized Germany rising
one day to march again as under Bismarck,
Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler.
The substance of MIR. Herriots position is
that those guarantees are not good enough in the
treaty as it now stands, and he therefore wants
to subject the whole undertaking to thorough
going renegotiation. His objections reflect
widespread and understandable French fear Of
anything that might lead to the revival of an
aggresson-bent Germany. But the objections
themselves, like the fear, are based largely on
backward looking emotional judgments, not on a
clear r-headed appraisal of present realities and
future prospects in Europe. Actually, as pointed.
out by Defense Minister Rene Pleven-initiator
of the EDO plan-France today must face the
fact that If it does not support the creation of the
projected supranational force, there will be a
return of the old-style German army, the very
thing that men like Mr. Herriot are most anxious
to prevent.
The simple truth is that in today's dangerous
world, France and West Germany-for their own
sakes as well as for the sake of the Atlantic COM
munity as a whole-must stop thinking about
their old enmity and begin concentrating on
new era of economic, political and military CO.
operation Without that, their best interests will
be observed, free Europe will stop progressing
toward the integration it sorely needs, and the
vital NATO defense build-up will suffer setback.
In short, if Mr. Herriot and his followers adhere
to their present position, if they vote wrong in
sufficient numbers to tip the parliamentary scale
against ratification Of the EDO treaty, the con-
sequences will be bad for everybody but the men
of the Kremlin