Greatness: Possible & Necessary

Amid the pride of history and the fading thunder of memories, Europe's two grand old men are meeting in France this week. The occasion is heartening proof that Europe's ancient, fratricidal hate between France and Germany has abated.

When Konrad Adenauer places the traditional wreath at the Arc de Triomphe, the occasion rises above ceremonial cliche because the one thing known about France's Unknown Soldier is that he died fighting Germany. When, after jointly reviewing French and German troops, Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle attend Mass at Reims Cathedral, everyone must recall that it was once shelled by German guns.

But the meeting raises difficulties along with hopes, because both De Gaulle and Adenauer have long withheld their wholehearted support of two paramount projects: British admission to the Common Market and Western Europe's close political unification. On these issues another old man--hardly less grand than the two chiefs of state, although he is only a private citizen--last week took an important stand. As so often before when Europe grappled with its future, there came from Jean Monnet, 73, godfather of the Common Market, some sharp, ringing directions. Gist of the message from "Mr. Europe": expand and unite.

After four months of weighing the situation, Monnet's Action Committee for the United States of Europe, a powerful lobby whose 43 members include key politicians and labor leaders spread throughout the Common Market countries, called for 1) speedy admission of Britain as a full Common Market partner, 2) conclusion of a treaty "initiating" political union among the member nations, and 3) establishment of a "partnership between equals" of a united Europe and the U.S. This, Monnet said, is both "possible and necessary," though conceding that political unity is a distant goal to be achieved gradually.

What he said commanded respect in capitals everywhere, for Monnet, his associates point out, has yet to misjudge the political current of postwar Europe.

A Gentle Thrust. Monnet believes that the dynamics of the economically successful Common Market can work with equal success in the political sphere. The "Community character" being forged among EEC countries, says Monnet, provides Europe's "real unifying factor" (federateur}, a gentle thrust at President de Gaulle, who recently said that only an outside federateur, not European initiative, could bring about political federation. Some members of Monnet's committee had urged him to take a stronger stand against De Gaulle and his advocacy of loose federation, but wise old Monnet refused to come out for supranationality, hoping for eventual compromise.

Looking beyond the Atlantic, the committee raised another thought: If collective action can make Europe stronger, why not partnership with the U.S. to strengthen the West to meet its cold war challenges? Concluded the declaration: "This conflict between East and West cannot be solved without a change by both sides in their conception of the future. While the West gives the impression that it can be divided, the U.S.S.R. will not be disposed to come to agreements in the belief that it can always upset the world balance of power. But when America and Europe have made it clear to everyone that the West is changing by its own will from within but cannot be changed by outside pressure, that it is consolidating its unity on a long-term basis, then the conditions will be created for a lasting peaceful settlement between East and West." Such a settlement, Monnet apparently feels, will precondition reunification of Germany. If the West Germans are permanently denied this goal, their adherence to the Western alliance may be seriously weakened.

Astute Interpreters. In Bonn, offering a rare show of unity, representatives of Germany's three major parties endorsed the Monnet declaration. But Adenauer seemed cool to it, and De Gaulle appeared not to notice all the stir. Though not referring directly to the Monnet statement, De Gaulle declared grandly to some French Senate leaders at an Elysee dinner: "I make Europe, while others confine themselves to talking about it." Later he added: "You talk about Europe.

I want to admit this to you: I prefer Europe to NATO, and among the various forms of Europe it is that of the Six that I like best. But the other five absolutely want to bring England in." Monnet and his group, while they only talk about Europe, may be more astute interpreters of Europe's political reality than either De Gaulle or Adenauer. For that is their job--to turn "general aspiration into a concrete proposal," as one Monnet associate put it--and they have been doing it well since the committee was formed in October 1955. Its first public declaration was a virtual blueprint for Euratom. the joint Western European agency for the peaceful uses of atomic power. By applying pressure to strategic points, the committee also helped mightily to push the Common Market treaty through European parliaments. Last year it aired the possibility of a single European monetary system.

To produce last week's declaration.

Monnet and his group turned in one of their usually thorough, cautious efforts.

Though leaders of all the major non-Communist parties and trade unions serve on the committee, its guiding genius is Monnet himself. Over the past four months, he toured the six EEC capitals, usually holing up in some quiet hotel, telephoning and conferring with scores of officials. The declaration went through 24 drafts before Monnet had his final version.

Monnet's Paris headquarters, where he works with only six fulltime assistants, is a four-room apartment at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, but it is a priority stop for visiting politicians, trade unionists, government officials from both Europe and the U.S. Dutch-born Max Kohnstamm, the committee's vice president and a longtime Monnet assistant, compares the operation with the committees of correspondence in America's struggle for independence. Monnet says quietly: "I don't have an official position. I have influence." He likes to add a quotation from a somewhat remote source, Saudi Arabia's late King Ibn Saud, who once said, "In my youth I met God in the desert, and God gave me the secret of success: To me everything is opportunity, even an obstacle.' "

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