When Free Men Talk

Ringing phrases about defending Berlin made the headlines from NATO's Ministerial Council meeting in Paris last week. "We cannot abandon the 2,500,000 people of West Berlin," said NATO Secretary General Paul-Henri Spaak, "without preparing the way for surrender in Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and all the way across Europe."

On this the allies were agreed, and if they had little idea of what to do next, their unanimity was real. The West Germans quit believing that the British were a little too ready to negotiate with Russia; the British no longer thought that Chancellor Adenauer was being too rigid.

This unity achieved, the allies fell to arguing about matters on which they are more divided than united. There were many.

By the Numbers. Moving by the numbers, hat-changing ministers rushed from meetings of the Big Three to reconstitute themselves as The Four, The Six, The Eleven, The Fifteen, The Seventeen. They talked of defense shortcomings, of economic welfare, of hangman's justice in Cyprus, and gun patrols off Iceland.

John Foster Dulles met for 90 minutes with Charles de Gaulle. The premier did most of the talking. Demanding a greater voice for France, De Gaulle declared that the West is "at war" with the "Russo-Sino bloc" on a global scale, and that the Big Three must have "organic consultation." De Gaulle asked why the U.S. had failed to support France in the U.N. vote on Algeria, which the French (and the French alone) consider a "flank of NATO." Dulles in general welcomed the idea of increased French participation in Western councils. But Italy's Premier Amintore Fanfani had bustled over to Bonn a few-days earlier in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Adenauer and Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano that other NATO powers would thus be downgraded. Nor are the British keen to include France in what they regard as a cozy Anglo-American partnership, want France to earn its right to Big Threedom.

Volkswagens & Hillmans. All week long the British seemed to consider De Gaulle's austere Hotel Matignon office as a fortress to be stormed. Cutting words crept into the conversation of British officials over the alleged "obstinacy" of the general. The principal British complaint was economic. The British were furious about the Jan. 1 beginning of the European Common Market (France, Germany, Italy, Benelux), which leaves Britain outside.

After killing Britain's proposed Western European Free Trade Area (TIME, Dec. 1), the French had agreed to extend to outside nations the same 10% tariff cuts and 20% import quota increases promised to the members of the Common Market. This was as far as the protectionist-minded French intended to go. They would not grant to outsiders the Common Market provision to raise import quotas in each category to at least 3% of a nation's home production (which would allow a lot more German Volkswagens than British Hillman Minxes into France). To the British charge of discrimination, the French replied that naturally there should be special club privileges for those who paid their dues.

Chide & Snap. In a heated exchange at a meeting of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, Sir David Eccles, Britain's handsome but haughty President of the Board of Trade, chided the French for failing to live up to their promise to liberalize trade with other OEEC members, threatened retaliation against France and its partners when the Common Market's restrictions begin. At this point French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville snapped that the British proposals were ''entirely unacceptable"--and that the French were not going to negotiate in the presence of British threats.

Although West Germany's Ludwig Erhard appealed to France to talk 'common sense" and realize that "Europe is in danger," Erhard's boss, Konrad Adenauer, is already committed to De Gaulle's position in the interest of a Franco-German entente. The Common Market partners might disagree with France, but in a showdown they stick with it.

Icebreaking. On two other issues plaguing the allies there were signs of compromise. Britain disputes Iceland's right to prohibit foreign fishing twelve miles offshore. Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd proposed to withdraw British naval vessels to waters outside Iceland's twelve-mile limit, and British trawlers would fish only outside a six-mile limit, if Iceland's patrol vessels would themselves stay inside the six-mile limit. Iceland promised to think about it.

And for the first time in three years, the Foreign Ministers of Britain, Greece and Turkey sat down together to discuss the bitter Cyprus dispute. As a Greek suggestion that it would be useful to stay the death sentences of two Greek Cypriot terrorists, Britain issued a midnight reprieve. The 75-minute ministerial session proved both cordial and "useful." the British reported.

On these issues and others, the diplomats talked. They often did not agree, but they talked and listened, and this in itself was some gain.

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