New Directive

At U.S. headquarters in the vast I.G. Farben building in Frankfurt, correspondents busily buttonholed U.S. officials and tried to pump them for news. Word had got out that High Commissioner John J. McCloy had received a new directive from Washington on U.S. policy in Germany. "I don't see what all the fuss is about," snapped one of McCloy's top aides. "There's very little in the directive that you couldn't have written yourself."

The directive, sent to McCloy by the State Department last month, did no more than to codify and sharpen U.S. policy as stated in the Occupation Statute for the West German Republic and the Allied High Commission Charter. It had served as a guide for the recent Acheson-Bevin-Schuman agreements at Paris (TIME, Nov. 21), reiterated the U.S. aim of making West Germany a peaceful, productive and democratic nation, closely "integrated" into the economic fabric of West Europe.

Some significant points:

P: The U.S. High Commissioner was instructed to make sparing use of his veto powers over German legislation, to intervene as little as possible in German internal affairs.

P: The people of Red-encircled West Berlin should be helped out of their present economic plight, brought into the closest possible relations with West Germany. P:The West Germans must not be allowed to wiggle out of Allied security safeguards, e.g., they will not be allowed to have even commercial airplanes, or to form cartels.

P: The directive does not specifically mention the question of a West German armed force, but reiterates that Germany must not be allowed the means of waging war.

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