EUROPE'S NEW COMMANDER
GENERAL MATTHEW B. RIDGWAY, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Europe, is to leave Versailles for the Pentagon in August where , he is to be Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. General Gruenther, a foundation member of S.H.A.P.E. and General Eisenhower's as well as General Ridgway's assistant, is to take over at Versailles. This is good news for the Pentagon and for S.H.A.P.E. General Ridgway is a great commander and a leader of fighting men. He is not, in any sense, a politician or a diplomat. He saw and stated the facts of European defence—that Western Europe must be so organised that any Russian attack would be a costly, dangerous and uncertain venture, and that safety had not yet been reached. But in cold war, among sovereign democracies, the Allied Com- mander must be prepared for some unmilitary compromising with facts. Governments have to be squeezed along the path to rearmament, and they in turn have to make room for their public opinion behind them. The pure, military thinking must still be done primarily in the national capitals, and a great deal there is to be done. How is best use to be made of the Western lead in atomic weapons—field as well as air ? Should there be mass production now of the present most modern Weapons in the knowledge that they will be obsolete when, if ever, the cold war becomes hot ?
As Chief of Staff, General Ridgway will be largely con- cerned with working on the ideal. General Gruenther takes on the heart-break of reconciling it with the possible. As a start, he will be confronted with two hard realities. American aid for European defence is to be cut—by how much, Congress will decide in the next few weeks. Meanwhile Germany still has not a man in arms. The Fre,nch delay because they fear that the tail will, one day wag the dog. Economically at least, this is already beginning to happen. Germany is the most prosperous and will soon be the most Powerful industrial country between the Atlantic and the Elbe. If France is afraid of seeing Germany in the closed circle of the European Defence Community, then the sensible thing is to attach her firmly to the Atlantic community in the west', before she is too greatly tempted to look to the east. The stronger Germany gets, and the more American aid is cut, the more sensible this becomes. Bonn should be represented at Versailles before the year is out.
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