Simple Sampson?
Sir: Mr Keith Kyle, in his review of my book The New Europeans (17 January), gives examples of my alleged inaccuracy. In the first, he confidently says it is not true that Jean Monnet drafted the plan for an Anglo- French union in 1940, since Vansittart did. In fact Monnet and Sir Arthur Salter had pre- pared a draft on 13 and 14 June, which was not seen by Vansittart until 16 June. I have learnt this from a source close to M Monnet, and Monnet's involvement in the draft is con- firmed both in Churchill's account (Second World War, Volume 11, p. 180) and in de Gaulle's memoirs (Call to Honour, p. 80), which are unlikely to give excessive credit to Monnet.
Mr Kyle also complains that in describing the Community Crisis of 1965 I implied 'that the financing of the agricultural fund through the Community rather than the governments was distasteful to the French.' I implied nothing of the sort. Mr Kyle also insists that it was quite untrue that the European par- liament received the Commission's proposal enthusiastically. Opinions may differ about the extent of their enthusiasm, but Mrs Miriam Camps, in her well-documented account of the crisis (European Unification in the Sixties. p. 148), says that the Commission's proposals, when first revealed, were 'widely acclaimed by all except the Gaullist deputies.'
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