Father of a Larger Community

Jean Monnet: 1888-1979 he sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present. They cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the European Community itself is only a stage on the way to the organized world of tomorrow."

So wrote Jean Monnet, the "Father of the European Community" and the universally respected model of today's supranational civil servant. When Monnet died at the age of 90 last week, in his modest country home near Paris, his dream of a United States of Europe, linked both politically and economically, remained unfinished. But Monnet was a patient man. "I'm not an optimist," he once said, "I am simply persistent," and thus he may have been pleased by the progress that had been made toward his overriding vision. Last week, at a summit meeting in Paris, leaders of the Community officially launched the long-awaited European Monetary System. Next June there will be direct elections for the European Parliament, and the Common Market is slowly negotiating expansion to include Greece, Portugal and Spain.

The grandson of brandy makers from the town of Cognac, Monnet learned as a youth that masterworks are not accomplished by shortcuts. He deftly summed up this truth: "The great thing about making cognac is that it teaches you above everything else to waitman proposes, but time and God and the seasons have got to be on your side." He began his career as a globetrotting salesman for the family's distillery. Witnessing the chaos and waste of World War I convinced him of the need for international cooperation. By 1916 Monnet had become France's representative in London on the executive committees that coordinated supplies and production. A four-year stint as Deputy Secretary-General of the League of Nations further broadened his perspectives. After spending a decade in international banking, Monnet during World War II once again became involved in organizing production and supplies for the Allies-this time in Washington. He recognized the leadership qualities of Charles de Gaulle, and he joined the provisional Free French government that De Gaulle formed in Algiers in 1944.

Monnet never abandoned his dream of achieving, step by careful step, a united Europe freed at last from the confrontations of past centuries. In 1950 he sold French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman on the idea of the European Coal and Steel Community, as a way to defuse ancient Franco-German rivalries. Two years later, the Community was in operation, with Monnet as its president. That successful effort paved the way for the creation of the Common Market, established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

Monnet resigned as head of the Coal and Steel Community in 1955 and founded the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. Although high office was his for the asking, he preferred to be a backstage lobbyist for his dream of a united Europe, whispering into the ears of Presidents and Premiers, nudging them toward his vision. "The world is divided into those who want to become someone and those who want to accomplish something," he liked to say. He would add that "there is less competition" in the second category, to which he so clearly belonged.

In recent years, doubts have grown about the validity of Monnet's approach to unity through institutions. The people of the Continent are still French, Germans, Dutch and Italians, not Europeans. The Community itself has yet to move beyond narrowly defined economic policies in which one national interest is carefully balanced against another. But Monnet himself never gave up hope. He liked to pose a question that in its fashion summarized his life: "If you are in a dark tunnel and see a small light at the end, should you turn your back on that light and go back into darkness, or should you continue walking toward it even though you know how far away it is?" Monnet chose to keep walking. --

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