"Please Study My Plan"

eFRANCE

France's audacious Premier Pierre Mendes-France has won all his victories to date by confronting his opposition with clear-cut alternatives. Last week he applied this shrewd technique to EDC.

During more than two years of immo-bilisme and futile factional wrangles, no French Premier has dared to submit EDC to the National Assembly for approval, even though the French thought up the scheme. Nor has any Premier dared to tell the U.S. (which wants a German contribution to Western defense) the truth about EDC's chances in Parliament--the truth apparently being that there is not a findable majority in both houses for the treaty in its present form. Last week Premier Pierre Mendes-France, man of elan, defied both bugaboos. He loaded the project with "interpretive protocols" (actually drastic amendments) and scheduled it for debate and vote, Aug. 28-31. He has told Secretary Dulles that unless EDC is modified, it would be voted down in the Assembly by about 50 votes.

Mendes himself has never expressed any strong opinion either for or against EDC. Recently he joked to a friend: "When I listen to its adversaries, I am rather for it. When I listen to its friends, I am rather against it." To his own divided Cabinet (15 against, 13 for) he said: "To partisans of EDC, I say that if you insist on the treaty as it stands, it will be defeated. To enemies of EDC, I say that if you insist on defeating the treaty you endanger France's alliances. Please study my plan in that light."

Change of Plan. Opposition to EDC in the French Assembly falls roughly into two groups: 1) opponents of West German rearmament in any form (this includes the Communists); 2) Frenchmen who accept the need for German arms but dislike the treaty's constraints on French sovereignty (in order to put similar supranational restraints on Germany). Mendes hoped to win enough Assembly votes from this second group by adding these key revisions or "protocols" to EDC:

P: Only those armed forces in "covering zones" (forward zones of defense) would be under supranational control.This would leave only six of the 14 French divisions assigned to NATO under EDC control, but most if not all of the twelve proposed German divisions would be under EDC.

P:Each nation would have a veto on EDC's council of Defense Ministers.

P: Administrative powers of the supranational commissariat would be reduced.

P: EDC would lapse if NATO went out of existence, or if British and U.S. troops departed from Continental Europe.

P:EDC headquarters would be in Paris.

After a bitter fight Mendes won Cabinet approval of his plan, but the fight cost him the resignations of three of his six Gaullist ministers.

Mendes was tired. He had dark pouches under his eyes, and he wore the same white-striped blue tie for several days on end. This week, however, the tired man goes to Brussels, where he will try to persuade the five other EDC signatories* to accept his modifications. Brussels may well be the highest hurdle. For the other signatories are well aware that Mendes' protocols all but transform EDC from a supranational community (an idea with great appeal to Pan-Europeans) into an old-fashioned military coalition, with discriminations against West Germany.

Seductive but Fragile. In sum, Mendes' plan was a complicated and subtle maneuver, offering to all parties concerned (including the U.S.) half a loaf as preferable to no bread. He was in fact keeping his promise to the U.S. to bring the matter to a vote before the summer is over; but there was an important qualification to his deadline. He was promising only an Assembly decision next week; the Senate would not get to the debate until the summer recess ends in October or November--and during this additional period, Mendes reassured the left wing of his majority, Russia would have time to come forward with genuine concessions in Western Europe if it wanted badly enough to halt German rearmament. So Russia too was being offered an alternative. All in all, Mendes' plan was devious, perhaps too devious. Le Figaro, bellwether of French conservative opinion, called it "full of intellectual seduction" but "fragile."

Last week, by a whopping 510 to 107 (with only the Communists opposing), the Assembly agreed to vote on EDC. Mendes-style, at the end of August.

* The five: West Germany, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg. All have ratified except Italy and France, and Italy will certainly ratify if France does.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.