Adenauer at Delphi
Nearly three months after the Republican Administration took office, Dr. Adenauer follows Mr. Eden and M. Mayer into the White House for discussions of policy. Three months may not be long for a change of Governments in the most modern capital of the modern world, but it is as long as Europe and America can spare for a state of suspended animation. Add to this the months before and after the election campaign when the Democrats were similarly inanimate, the piles of unsettled problems that existed then and still exist, the fact that Moscow is now setting the pace in every quarter of the globe, and It is high time for Washington to speak. Dr. Adenauer's visit at this juncture could scarcely be more auspicious. For the German Chancellor is the one European statesman who can clearly see the wood for the trees. Germany is still divided; Eastern Germany is still hostile; and Western Germany is still unarmed. It is easier, therefore, for Dr. Adenauer than for M. Mayer, or even apparently Mr. Dulles, to remember why Western rearmament was ever started and why it must for the moment be continued. On the assumption that peace was possible at all, the purpose of rearmament was, first, to persuade Russia to open negotiations for the basis of peace and, second, to provide the West with sufficient strength to negotiate effectively. And the fact is that: " At the moment the forces at our disposal would prove gravely inadequate if put to the test "—as General Ridgway was quietly repeating over the week-end while Mr. Dulles was saying that fear of (presumably Republican) America was responsible for Mr. Malenkov's detente. If, for whatever reason, Moscow may now be deciding to negotiate and if the logic of Western rearmament was ever valid, then this is precisely the time when the West must demonstrate its future strength and its present unity. The factors in Western Europe which tended to delay that unity may well be fortified by the hope that Moscow will now make it unnecessary. Neither Adenauer nor Eisenhower can wait indefinitely on the pleasure of the French Assembly. And they will be essentially stronger if Bonn is represented at S.H.A.P.E. before they have to discuss the unification or- the disarmament of Germany.
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