New Age for an Old Continent

On the first anniversary of his appointment to supreme command of the West's European defense effort, General Dwight Eisenhower assembled 100 newspapermen at SHAPE headquarters last week for a progress report. He talked so candidly and earnestly that his remarks were held under wraps for 24 hours while SHAPE screened and smoothed them.

When Ike's words were released, they showed that the Supreme Commander had been transformed in one year from a skeptic about European economic-political unity (at its first mention, he called the European army a "horrible idea") into its most persuasive champion.

Hard, Cold Fact. "We are in a new age," said Eisenhower. "... I believe that old traditions, old practices, even, let's say, old affections have to be readjusted and new answers found ... As time goes on, it seems obvious that [Europe] cannot gain strength and stability if it is to remain split up in a number of independent economies.

". . . In the light of cold, hard fact, I simply can't see any acceptable alternative to a union, an economic union, between the states of Western Europe. I can't see how economic union can be successful unless there is political cooperation ... I just cannot find ... an easier, better answer for the safety and security of the Western world."

Eisenhower agreed with the British that, for the beginning at least, unity should be confined to West Europe. "To my way of thinking," he said, "the attempt to include Britain immediately would be a stumbling block rather than a help."

The Schuman Plan for pooling West Europe's coal and steel and the Pleven Plan for pooling its defense forces are first steps. Eisenhower's proposal for the next step: a constitutional convention of West European governments "reporting, let's say, in a year, or even a year and a half . . . The mere fact of the calling of such a convention would mean a lot in the U.S."

No One Quarreled. In his year at SHAPE, Eisenhower has talked European unity with most West European officials. "I have yet to run into one of them who didn't believe economic and political union was a necessity," he said. "Not one has ever quarreled with the theory."

No one quarreled this time either, but neither did Europeans get excited about the general's remarks. The French, engulfed with their own domestic troubles and the uprising in Tunisia, found his statement on the inside pages of their newspapers; the German, Belgian and Netherlands papers also played it down. Generally, Europeans took the view that since Americans are not contemplating joining such a union themselves, they should be sparing in urging others to join. General Eisenhower was asking Western

Europeans to take a bigger step than they are yet willing to try. But with the Schuman and European Army plans, they are nevertheless walking in the direction Ike pointed--achieving more unity in five years, as Dean Acheson recently remarked, than in the previous five centuries.

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