Very, Very Sticky

One day last week, Clement Attlee quietly picked up the morning paper. A minute later he found himself in the most embarrassing how-de-do a British Prime Minister had faced in a long time--the kind of situation that a Socialist would hardly wish even on his worst capitalist enemy.

It was the eve of the Paris conference on the Schuman Plan (see above), and the paper reported on a pamphlet entitled European Unity, put out by the Labor Party's National Executive Committee. The day the pamphlet reached the public, Attlee was slated to explain to the House of Commons that despite Britain's aloof attitude, the British government really wanted to cooperate in the Schuman Plan --at least in considering it. Yet the sweeping, truculent pamphlet seemed to proclaim to all the world that the British Labor Party wanted to do nothing more than blow the Schuman Plan to smithereens.

Surprise. The brown-covered, 15-page booklet (price: 3d.) violently rejected not only the Schuman Plan but the whole idea of an integrated Western Europe based on a free economy. The only way Western Europe could be saved, said the Labor Party's little book, was through Socialist planning and public ownership of industry. Britain must not surrender any of its sovereignty to a supranational body, since such a body would be dominated by non-Socialists who would interfere with Britain's domestic planning. The pamphlet also came out flatly against a Council of Europe with any real legislative power.

In the works long before Schuman made his dramatic proposal, the pamphlet had originally been intended to clarify the policy of the Labor Party, which had been divided on the issue of Western European federation. By the time the drafting committee got through with it, the small group favoring federation had been silenced. The finished document bore the arrogant, doctrinaire mark of its chief author, Minister of Town & Country Planning Hugh Dalton, whose bumbling indiscretions had gotten him and his government into trouble before.

Attlee had seen an early draft of the pamphlet, made some marginal notes on it, then forgot all about it.

European Unity went to the printers last month without Attlee's knowledge; Labor Party headquarters forgot to tell him the publication date.

Silence. The pamphlet hit the world like a slap in the face. Cried ECA's Paul Hoffman: "Deplorable isolationism! . . ." France's Robert Schuman said with Gallic politeness: "I am surprised." It was, he added, "a brutal decision."

Attlee tried valiantly to repair some of the damage. First, he effectively silenced Dalton, who had been trumpeting his views at press conferences. At week's end, under Dalton's chairmanship, Socialist delegates from nine countries assembled in London to consider the

Schuman Plan (the French Socialists, who support the plan, were so annoyed with their British comrades that they sent only one delegate). Dalton was unusually quiet. The conference broke up a day early, issued a polite communique which carefully skirted the real issues.

British Foreign Office men took comfort from the fact that Hugh Dalton's hope of succeeding Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary now seemed dead once & for all. Wrote the Manchester Guardian: "Mr. Dalton must be tethered to a post in one of his national parks and kept strictly out of foreign affairs."

Mockery. Meanwhile, unhappy Clement Attlee spent several highly uncomfortable days trying to explain to the House of Commons what had happened. The whole matter, he suggested, was something of an accident. Said he: "[The document] happened to be published on that day--I think through having gone to the printer at a certain time. I think it was unfortunate, myself."

The Tories, who have themselves refrained so far from championing the Schuman Plan, did not miss the chance to harass the government. With deadpan mockery, Winston Churchill asked if the Prime Minister's statements had been "collated" with Labor Party policy. The party document, replied Attlee, did not represent official government policy. Said he: "His Majesty's Government desire to help and not to hinder in this matter [of the Schuman Plan]."

His Majesty's ambassadors abroad were charged with the task of explaining this paradox to foreign governments. In Washington, Dean Acheson was inclined to accept the explanation. In Paris it was less successful. At a luncheon party, British Embassy officials tried to impress on French newsmen the fine distinction between the opinions of British cabinet ministers speaking as cabinet ministers and those of British cabinet ministers speaking as officers of the Labor Party. Said one of the Britons ruefully, "a very, very sticky luncheon . . . but it proved impossible to make our story stick."

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