Breakthrough?

Around the blue baize table in London's gloomy Lancaster House, the Western Big Three Foreign Ministers conferred for three days. Dean Acheson, crisp, clear and didactic, drove home his sharp points with a wagging forefinger. Britain's ailing Ernest Bevin, chomping away at his dentures, was his usual solid and grumpy self. France's Robert Schuman punctuated his speeches with faint smiles and exquisite little gestures of courtesy; he sat modestly hunched over the table, as if he were the least important man in the room.

In fact, last week, Schuman was the most important. The conference was dominated by his dramatic proposal to merge the French and German coal and steel industries. The proposal was far more than an imaginative economic project; it was the offer of full partnership to Germany by its thrice-invaded, long-suffering and long-hating enemy.

From the Dreamers' Realm. Dean Acheson had gone to London haunted by the feeling that the West had to do something--but he did not know just what. Ernie Bevin was not in the mood to do anything. For nearly two years, the U.S. had insistently told Western Europe that it must integrate economically--and perhaps politically. For nearly two years, the British had quietly blocked all moves toward genuine integration--partly because Britain's Socialist government wanted nothing to do with the non-socialist economies on the Continent. Long before the Foreign Ministers met in London last week, it was amply clear that the British would not assume leadership of Western Europe. The Schuman plan--the most important act of Western statesmanship since the launching of the Marshall Plan--was a totally unexpected assertion that France could and would assume the leadership. It swept into the brains of Western policymakers like a gust of fresh wind into a musty study long unaired. It gave genuine promise that the idea of Western European integration would finally emerge from the realm of dreamers and talkers into regions as real as coal and steel.

The Foreign Ministers did not officially commit themselves on the Schuman plan, merely reaffirmed the West's intentions of guiding West Germany back into the community of nations. The Foreign Ministers said that there would not be a peace treaty with Germany as long as the Russians held on to the country's eastern half. Meanwhile, the conference assigned experts to work out a plan to ease the technical state of war which exists between the Allies and West Germany. As many occupation controls as possible would be lifted--according to "the rate at which Germany advances toward . . . true democracy . . ." The ministers also declared that the West would not budge from Berlin.

Clearer & Firmer. France had assumed crucial importance not only in Western Europe, but in a more immediately dangerous cold war zone--Southeast Asia. Washington now feels that the French position in Indo-China is a key to the entire area. Last week, on the eve of the London conference, Dean Acheson formally decided to help the French in their costly war against IndoChina's Communist guerrillas (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

The Foreign Ministers also: 1) agreed it was high time to do something about the political, social and economic development of Africa; 2) assigned experts to study the problem of "excess population" in many countries and start "systematic exploration of opportunities for greater population mobility," i.e., migration; 3) agreed to meet again soon.

The conference produced no sensational results; but, chiefly thanks to shy Robert Schuman's bold initiative, the West's position seemed a great deal firmer and clearer than it had in some time. Reported TIME'S Washington Bureau: "Washington estimated tentatively that the Western Allies may be on the edge of their most important strategic breakthrough in the cold war since the Kremlin was forced, a year ago, to abandon the siege of Berlin."

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