Time of Decision

"History has flung down a challenge to us--perhaps she will do so only once." So spoke Konrad Adenauer, himself a maker of history, as one day last week he challenged the German Bundestag to ratify the Paris accords. The grim-faced old German titan was opening the last and fateful round in the three-year-old battle to rearm West Germany within the Atlantic alliance. On both sides of the Rhine, and of the Iron Curtain, too, all men knew that this time history required that the fight be fought to a finish.

The Soviet Union unloosed all the resources of its diplomacy and propaganda. For the benefit of the Bundestag, East German Puppet Premier Otto Grotewohl ordered "spontaneous" protest marches "to topple the Paris treaties." The Kremlin followed through with a flurry of diplomatic notes which fell like poisoned confetti on the capitals of Western Europe. Russia's Molotov warned the French government that ratification would "cross out and annul" the 1945 Franco-Soviet treaty of alliance. Britain was sternly advised that the presence of U.S. air bases in East Anglia is "incompatible" with the Anglo-Soviet treaty; six other NATO nations--Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Greece and Turkey--were accused of giving support to "the dangerous remilitarization of Germany."

Scarcely a year ago, such Soviet threats might have been enough to throw many Europeans into a tizzy of alarm. Last week's Communist blustering seemed to misread the mood of Western Europe, and to be almost irrelevant. The fact seemed to be that in a slow, subsurface fashion, the people of Western Europe had finally made up their minds that German rearmament is inevitable. There was plenty of agitation in last week's parliamentary debating in Bonn and Paris, but local passions, not the Kremlin threats, were what caused it.

Britain's House of Commons has already ratified. Iceland followed last week. In Italy, seeing that an overwhelming majority is for ratification, Communist Boss Palmiro Togliatti agreed to limit debate in the Chamber of Deputies, thereby presumably assuring ratification before Christmas. That left Germany and France as the crucial tests.

"Calm & Polite." Looking haggard and erect, Chancellor Adenauer faced not only his Bundestag but a television audience. "Into our hands," said der Alte, "is placed the decision by which to end the epoch of European confusion and wars . . . Let us respond in a way we can justify in the eyes of Germany and the world."

To avoid an outpouring of German nationalist sentiments which might upset the French Assembly just as France too took up the Paris accords, Adenauer urged his coalition leaders to be still on the explosive issue of the Saar. To quiet the opposition Socialists, he summoned their roly-poly leader, Erich Ollenhauer, to his office in Palais Schaumburg, asked him to sit down, then read aloud several Ollenhauer speeches arguing for Big Four talks prior to ratification. Der Alte then picked up the latest Soviet note proposing Big Four talks, and read a portion from it. The two were strangely similar. Ollenhauer, an antiCommunist, sputtered with rage as Adenauer made his point: "Herr Ollenhauer. these are your words and this is the Soviet note. I hope that our debate will be calm and polite and that it will not be necessary for me to read to the Bundestag what I have read to you."

Next day in the Bundestag, the Chancellor confounded his adversaries and allies by himself plunging into the explosive issue of the Saar. He accused the French government of distorting the agreement which he made with Mendes-France in Paris. By himself voicing the increasing German distaste for the Saar portion of the Paris accords, der Alte hoped to forestall opposition charges that he had been maneuvered by Mendes-France into "selling out German territory." He promised to "clarify these obvious differences with the French Premier"; if that did not work, he would call on the U.S. and Britain to arbitrate the dispute. Then, for the best part of two hours, the old man made his case for ratification now: "The Soviets will indeed negotiate, and they will do so not in spite of, but because of, the realization of the Paris accords."

Straw Hats & Helmets. Against this case, Ollenhauer's Socialists could only complain that rearmament is unpopular with German youth, and that to join irrevocably with the West is to abandon East Germans and perhaps in time to cause a Bruderkrieg (literally, war of brothers) between two armed Germanies. Answered one of Adenauer's supporters: "There is no longer a choice between straw hat and the steel helmet. The choice now is between a steel helmet with or without a Red star on it."

The vigor of the debate began to tell on Adenauer. Late on the second day, when he returned to the fray, his 78 years weighed heavily. He based an attack on Ollenhauer on a statement that the latter had not made, and when the error was pointed out, would not retreat. Socialists hooted and yelled; in the confusion, the Chancellor lost the thread of his discourse. He bumbled, contradicted himself and flubbed questions that were thrown at him. When he sat down, Socialist Carlo Schmidt, who led the opposition assault, crowed to a colleague: "I think I won by a technical knockout in the ninth round."

But late that night, with the Chancellor back in form, the Bundestag quickly rejected several Socialist amendments, and adopted the first reading of the Paris accords. Adenauer's majority: 236 to 153.

Der Alte expects final ratification some time after Jan. 15.

Prospects in Paris. By that time, the Germans hope, the French National Assembly will have made its decision. The French debate begins this week. Mendes-France had confidently predicted in Washington that the National Assembly would ratify before the end of the year. Last week, when the Russians sent a threatening note, he scornfully asked: "Do they think they can frighten France?" He was equally casual about Adenauer's alarms over the Saar, putting out reassuring word that Adenauer was speaking for usage interne (home consumption) only.

Soon, however, Mendes himself was subjected to the demands of usage interne. The issue was Indo-China, but it might have been anything else that came to hand. In Parliament his majority was decreasing and his enemies increasing. From Gaullists to Socialists, the National Assembly took up the cry that the government plans to abandon what remains of French interests in Indo-China. Frenchmen, though they had almost unanimously supported him when he made the deal at Geneva, now show signs of reviling Mendes for his Indo-China "sellout," and for the fact that 21,000 French war prisoners are still in Communist hands.

Saved by Two. These passions, and more, congealed when Mendes submitted his Indo-China budget. The Finance Committee scorned it, 25 to 14. When Mendes raced over to the National Assembly to try to save the day, he arrived just in time to hear a right-wing Deputy explaining that former Foreign Minister Georges Bidault had been all set to clear up the whole Indo-China mess when Mendes interfered and toppled the Laniel Cabinet. "That sounds like a beautiful serialized novel," Mendes cracked, but the Assembly was not amused. It voted him down 301 to 291, the first major parliamentary defeat that he has suffered.

Furiously maneuvering, the Premier forced a midnight session, and presented a hurriedly revised budget, in order to compel a new test of strength. He still could not find the votes. It began to look as if Mendes would be overthrown before he could get a vote on the Paris accords. Suddenly, out of the blue, two Deputies of Bidault's M.R.P. announced that they would switch their votes. At 4:30 a.m., Mendes' revised Indo-China budget was accepted by just two votes, 295 to 293. The Mendes government was saved by a hair'sbreadth; the ratification debate could go on.

Premier-Killers, Inc. Mendes now knew that his government owed its life to the artful designs of his enemies. The Assembly's expert Premier-killers, mobilized by Georges Bidault who wants vengeance on Mendes for the death of EDC, were playing a cat-and-mouse game, keeping him in office for their own purposes. Resigned to the inevitability of German rearmament, these expert infighters were determined to identify Mendes with that needed but unpopular measure. Then they meant to kick him out, perhaps on the Indo-China issue.

At week's end, overcome with fatigue, Mendes wearily demanded a confidence vote on his Indo-China policy first, then the Paris accords debate. Britain and the U.S. did what they could to help him: John Foster Dulles authorized Mendes to reveal to the Assembly that the U.S. will 1) "associate itself" with a European arms-control agency, to keep an eye on German power; 2) provide the same guarantees to maintain U.S. troops in Europe as it once offered EDC.

With a promise of support from the Socialists, from many of the Gaullists and from Robert Schuman's wing of the M.R.P., Mendes still felt optimistic that the accords would go through. But he tempered his optimism with an eloquent shrug of his shoulders, and wore the air of a man who suspects that his own goose may be cooked by master French chefs before the holidays are over.

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