British-American Plan To Break E.D.C. Deadlock

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27403, 16 July 1954, Page 11

British-American Plan To Break E.D.C. Deadlock

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 14. A British-American effort would be made to break Europe’s defence deadlock by proposing immediate sovereignty for West Germany, while postponing German rearmament, Congress was told today in a letter from the Secretary of State (Mr John Foster Dulles). Mr Dulles said that the French Government and British Parliament would be asked “in a day or two” to support this alternative, to be employed in case the French Assembly adjourned on August 15 without ratifying the proposed European Defence Community. Mr Dulles’s letter, dated July 12, before he flew to Paris to talk to British and French leaders abort E.D.C. and the prospects of peace in Indo-China, was addresr 1 to the chairman of the House of Representatives and Senate Foreign Affairs Committees.

The Secretary said that the alternate proposal would “afford an opportunity to complete arrangements” for bringing German troops into European defences —a key point of President Eisenhower’s programme. The long-awaited alternative to E.D.C. was discussed during the Churchill-Eisenhower conversations in Washington, and the details were worked out during the last week in London in talks between representatives of the State Department and the British Foreign Office, Mr Dulles stated. Reference in Commons Discussing E.D.C. in the Foreign Affairs debate in the House of Commons, Sir Winston Churchill said that the Bonn conventions which would end the occupation of West Germany only enter into force on the establishment of the European Defence Community. “Confronted by this problem the British and United States governments have come to the conclusion that in the unhappy event of the failure to ratify E.D.C. their aim could best be achieved by disassociating the Bonn Conventions in simultaneity from the passing of the E.D.C. treaty,” he said. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Attlee) leaped up at this to say: “This is a very important statement. This would seem to give a great accession of sovereignty to Germany without the integration of German defence forces into a European Army. “There is then a danger that German v will rearm on her own. Provisions for control become more and more difficult at each accession of sovereignty. “I would ask that before this is definitely approved this House should

be called together.” There were Opposition cheers at this. The Prime Minister then added: "We still hope we shall not be forced to separate the two treaties and make other arrangements to replace in some form or other the satisfactory plan of German rearmament set forth in E.D.C.”