In Fear & Hatred

A scarred, crippled man wearing not one but two hearing aids hobbled painfully to the rostrum with the help of a pair of canes. A tail-coated usher darted forward to help hoist him to the speaker's platform. There he grasped a table for support and then gulped a handful of pills. A hush fell over France's Chamber of Deputies as Georges Heuillard, deputy from the Seine-Inferieure, began to speak. His misshapen body and his scarred, waxen face were his honorable credentials.

"For two years," said Deputy Heuillard, "I was in a concentration camp. I saw die all my comrades in the Resistance network. I saw die in Flossenburg almost the entire shipment of prisoners who had come from Buchenwald ... We had sworn an oath among us that the eventual survivors would never permit Germany to recreate her military strength. Today, despite all these memories, despite all these material and moral ruins still yawning before us, we are about to recreate the German army ... Is our public opinion ready to accept the consequences? Ask those who were deported or the families of those who did not return . . . poor innocents! Ask the young men who helped to beat down military Germany, the eternal Germany, the Germany of all time!"

"I Am Going to Die." Choked with emotion and weak from standing, Heuillard swallowed more pills and looked sadly at Foreign Minister Robert Schuman.

"I am going to die, Monsieur le Ministre" he cried. "I am condemned. My election found me in a surgical clinic ... I am dying because of the German army. I would not want my sons or my grandsons to be enlisted alongside the tyrants and executioners of their father ... I have fulfilled my mission. I had promised my comrades to do it. I am happy that destiny today should have enabled me to replace the force which I lack with the energy to come and cry to you: Beware of Germany! Beware of Germany!"

In an oppressive silence, two ushers helped Georges Heuillard down the steps from the rostrum. Suddenly, from the Gaullists on the far right of the bright red horseshoe of seats to the Communists on the far left, the diverse and divided politicians of France leapt to their feet and exploded into applause. Ex-Defense Minister Jules Moch, whose hatred of the Germans is twofold (he is Jewish, and lost his son in the Resistance), warmly embraced Heuillard. Robert Schuman, whose efforts to sell German rearmament to his countrymen were the target of Heuillard's passionate attack, advanced toward him, tears -in his eyes, to shake the deputy's hand.

Caught in the Torrent. The crippled deputy was all but unknown in the National Assembly; his party was one of the motley collection of center groups which produce the passing parade of French postwar governments. But his choked, emotional voice was, that day last week, the authentic voice of France. Divided on almost everything else, Frenchmen united in fear and hatred of Germany.

The fear had often shown itself before; it was the hatred which poured through the National Assembly last week, in a torrent of words. Dipping and bobbing in the torrent was the fate of the Western world's efforts to throw up a defense against Communist aggression. The time had come for France to declare itself on the European Army, originated by the French and now the keystone of the West's defense plans. The French had to vote on the issue before this week's crucial NATO conference in Lisbon (see INTERNATIONAL).

In the cool, logical recesses of their minds, Frenchmen knew they had neither the resources nor manpower to fill a European vacuum left by an unarmed Germany. They could not even defend themselves. The cream of their army (about 170,000 men) is in Indo-China. They have been able to supply the men and the equipment for only five of the ten divisions they were supposed to have ready for NATO by this year. The remaining five had only half their quota of men.

The franc was falling (to 470 for $1 last week against an official rate of 350) and there was talk of another, drastic devaluation. Blueprints for a new French tank, theoretically one of the best in the world, gathered dust on the drafting board because prices have climbed too high to produce it. Costs of French fighter planes have shot up as much as 30%.

To survive economically and to defend itself, France depends on the strength and money of the allies. The U.S. Congress will not promise continued aid if France fails to do its part. Doing its part includes its willingness to accept the contribution of West Germany.

Old Memories. But the hated Boche is not a subject for cool Gallic logic. Desperately, new Premier Edgar Faure, a fast-talking lawyer, bargained, hedged and pleaded. The Gaullists, with their old-fashioned militant nationalism and 118 votes, and the Communists, with their determination to sabotage and 101 votes, could not possibly be persuaded. The Socialists, whose 106 votes held the balance, were inclined to vote against the government. Even deputies from parties in Faure's own precarious coalition were caught up in old bitter memories, and such new irritations as the Saar question and West Germany's cocky demand for full sovereignty.

Speaker after speaker laid open French fears. The Germans might come to dominate the European Army and, through it, France. The Germans might get strong and break away. German rearmament might provoke Russia to attack. "It will take two years to relieve international tension if we are to rearm Germany," cried former Premier Edouard Daladier.

Heavy with Consequences. Even Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, chief protagonist of the European Army plan and a Frenchman in head and heart, did not urge German rearmament; he simply defended its necessity. Though his Frenchness needs no proving, he sometimes seems to act as if it does. Possible reason: he lived the first 33 years of his life under the German flag as a Lorrainer, got his education in German universities and worked under compulsion in a German arsenal during World War I.

What is the alternative to a European army? he asked. "Don't you think that the U.S. and all countries which feel threatened will turn to other solutions holding for us the gravest dangers? Germany will take the place of France and the discouragement of our allies will be heavy with fearful consequences."

Brisk, persuasive Premier Faure, whose government faced defeat after only three weeks in office, made compromise after compromise. He agreed to a proviso that no German troops could be recruited until every last word of the European Army treaty had been written down and ratified by all six European governments. (This was not as crippling as it sounded, for even without the French condition it would likely take at least a year to assemble and equip German divisions.) He agreed to insist on a French veto over Germany's attempts to get full membership in NATO. He agreed to try again to woo Britain into the European Army (Britain just isn't interested).

In fact, the bill as finally amended was only a halfhearted, unwilling French decision to go along with European Army plans while not specifically approving them. It merely postponed the day of reckoning for six or nine months. But it did give Faure a reprieve from despair and something to go to Lisbon with. And it was a compromise that the Socialists would buy. Shortly before dawn one morning last week, the weary Chamber of Deputies voted. The government won, 327 to 276--though it still had to survive a vote of confidence this week. Among those who were against the compromise, though his own party voted for it, was Deputy Georges Heuillard, whose passionate outburst had said more than the formal vote about the mood of France.

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