12 MARCH 1965, Page 4

VIEWS OF THE WEEK

Mr. Wilson and the Germans

SARAH GAINHAM writes from Bonn: The very factor that could have made the Prime Minister's visit to Bonn disastrous in fact turned it into a success. The German government, fresh from the humiliating business of learning how not to deal with the Arabs and relieved at having made the sensible and honourable decision to offer diplomatic recognition to Israel at last, was aware of its need for friends. With the £ in mind, the Prime Minister was aware of just the same need. Both needed domestic success for election tactics. Mr. Wilson's talent for putting his statements in a positive form and avoiding saying anything negative, even if he says no, did the rest.

This is not to suggest that the visit was a piece of public relations. For the first time in several years there was the feeling that some things had really been moved a step or so nearer to solution. Some of this is the result of patient work in the past, but much is an achievement of Mr. Wilson. Having engaged Her Majesty's Government with great clarity in Berlin, Mr. Wilson talked even more clearly in Bonn: we cannot afford £85,000,000 in foreign money every year for Rhine Army, and we don't intend to go on put- ting this huge sum into the German balance of payments surplus without some of it being traded back. After all, German gold reserves jumped by $100,000,000 in 1964 and they have cut their own military budget. Mr. Wilson also made it clear to the still somewhat provincial-minded Germans that British and American pre- occupation with the near and far Orient is not chimerical.

It was strongly emphasised that there was no bargaining in this context over other military or economic questions. And, of course, bargaining is not the word for the maze of implications and understandings that make up such talks. Yet an overall survey of NATO strategy is now nearer, and with it, for the newly elected German government that will take over in the autumn, a renewed and expanded chance for nuclear co-ordination and co-operation. The British dis- like of mixed crews on surface ships remains, as part of the larger dislike of the whole surface naval atomic project; but the possibility of bring- ing air and land forces into the thinking on the future of atomic weapons in Europe is certainly part of a general new attitude. Germans have disliked the idea of including land forces in any nuclear military co-operation in Europe because the present situation represents their own 'special relationshifr with the Americans, and this they value. But for a genuine co-operation with European allies, this consideration could form part of a re-sharing of burdens, including the burden on the Americans, without loosen- ing allied bonds and without altering the balance of forces between East and West in Europe.

Here the emphasis shifts on to the problem of the division of Germany. Some new ideas on this subject are to be put to our other allies, so that an agreed approach may be made to the Russians on ways of alleviating present hardships, especially in Berlin, and trying to prevent the deepening of the gulf yawning between East and West Germans. The Prime Minister recognised that the goal remains free elections in all Ger- many, as indeed any parliamentarian must once he is confronted by the actual problem in its physical aspect of the Berlin Wall. But on the way to that distant goal efforts can be made to lessen the deadening and dangerous effects of complete separation.

Teams already working on civil as well as military research and development need to be expanded and their work intensified, not only with Germany but with France and Italy: in this direction lies the best hope for sharing our own very large expenditure on research, and lessen- ing European dependence on American tech- nology for the future. Clearly this area of work- ing co-operation is also important for the gradual approach of Britain to Europe. Such teamwork is as much in French interests as in ours and Ger- many's, and is therefore a hopeful means of approach to General de Gaulle.

The largest gain from the meeting may turn out to be that the German government now realises that Britain's fresh attitude to Europe is serious. The German Chancellor and Foreign Minister can do a great deal to influence the French attitude on this delicate subject—if they want to. It was most noticeable that since such blundering as, for instance, the EFTA meeting at which the British team appeared not to know quite what EFTA was, a good deal of thinking has been done. The British government has had the benefit not only of wearisome spadework done by the Opposition, but of recent expert advice on what modern Germany is all about. How this advance in thinking is to be reconciled with the left wing of the Labour Party must be one of the Prime Minister's private problems and will need all the tough professionalism which was so striking in his German visit.