Fence Mender at Work

A slim black Citroen sped along the road that winds north from Naples, across the Pontine Marshes and on to Rome. In it sat the Premier of France, encased in a dark grey overcoat; at his side was his wife Lily, with whom he had just spent a needed but rainswept four-day holiday in the village of Positano.

Pierre Mendes-France, the unresting, was headed for conferences with Italian Premier Scelba and Germany's Chancellor Adenauer. It was international fence-mending week. The Italians, who had a list of 72 minor questions to settle with the French (e.g., sea-traffic regulations between Corsica and Sardinia), had offered to journey as usual to Paris, but Mendes overnight made himself something of an Italian hero by going, instead, to Rome.

Mendes hoped to enlist Italian and German support for two of his pet projects: 1) a European Arms Pool, to standardize and control arms production in all Western European Union nations, and 2) talks with the Russians in the spring. Italian and German backing, he thought, might help him get German rearmament through the French Senate later this month.

Arms Pool for Europe. Mendes visited the sights of Rome with Premier Scelba and donned morning coat and topper to call on Pope Pius XII. He was the first French Premier ever to visit the Pope. It was also the first audience granted by the ailing Pontiff since late November. They talked for 20 minutes, and Mendes presented the Pope with a collection of 17th century sermons. Emerging from the Vatican, Mendes said of its splendors: "Now I understand what grandeur really is." The Italians were delighted.

Mendes' quizzical features, the details of his every meal, blazed from the Rome front pages; his pretty wife was acclaimed as "gentilissima." But when Mendes sat down to talk over his European Arms Pool with Premier Scelba, he was less successful. His plan, he said, would make European arms production cheaper and more efficient by enabling each member of WEU to concentrate on those items it is best fitted to produce (The Netherlands, electronics; Britain, jet engines; Germany, explosives; France, fuselages). The Italians were polite but noncommittal.

One evening in Rome, Mendes got cornered at a cocktail party by fellow-traveling Socialist Pietro Nenni who objected to West German rearmament. Mendes retorted: "German rearmament has already been started in Eastern Germany." "But that is only police," said Nenni. "Ah, oui," snapped Mendes-France. "A police force that uses armored cars and airplanes to hunt down criminals."

Welcome in Germany. Mendes slept in the President of Italy's four-car special train as it went north over the Alps to Baden-Baden (pop. 37,000) in the French Zone of Germany. There, in the Prince's Salon of the Hahnhof, he met Konrad Adenauer for the first time since that October night in Paris when the two men battled until 3 a.m. to hammer out an agreement on the Saar. At first, the atmosphere was starch-stiff with formality and suspicion. But as soon as Der Alte recognized that this time Mendes-France was seeking his help, not handing him an ultimatum, the conversation improved.

While their leaders discussed high policy, French and German experts got down to economic brass tacks. They agreed to double French grain sales to Germany, threshed out the details of a three-year Franco-German trade agreement, paved the way for a joint Franco-German Chamber of Commerce. By the time Der Alte and Mendes joined them for a full plenary session, the experts of both nations were laughing and joking over coffee and fancy cakes.

The first plenary session dealt with Mendes' Arms Pool. The Netherlands, Britain and the U.S. had already made it plain that they are against it; now Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard turned a German cold shoulder, too. Mendes shrugged: it was just a suggestion, not a draft or a plan. But he did not give up: in Paris this week the seven nations of WEU will discuss his ideas in detail.

A Fresh Personality. Plenary Session No. 2 dealt with the Saar. Mendes could afford to be reasonable, for he had got the better of the previous bargain: the agreement calls for the Saar to be detached from Germany, to be administered by a High Commissioner (probably British) on behalf of the new Western European Union. Mendes pleased Adenauer by agreeing to let German parties in the Saar campaign freely before a plebiscite which will determine the Saar's future.

That evening they sat at a corner table in the hotel taproom, the abstemious Frenchman drinking German mineral water, the German, French brandy. The final session lasted until half-past midnight, but tired as they were, Der Alte and Mendes held a sparkling press conference. "Pleasant . . . constructive . . . great feeling of optimism," said Pierre Mendes-France. "An extremely fresh and healthy-appearing personality," said Konrad Adenauer of his little guest. As Mendes rushed away to catch his train for Paris, Der Alte said "Gute Nacht" and then--in halting English: "We've had a good day."

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