BASE OVER APEX
THE news that the Germans were looking for bases in Spain should have caused rueful amusement; instead, the reaction here was hys- terical—where it was not sanctimonious. Yet the Government has known for some time, as Selwyn Lloyd admitted in the CoMmons, that Western Germany would like to have supply bases there. The charge that the Germans' behaviour was secretive and underhanded, can hardly be made to stick—especially as General Norstad seems to have known for even longer. Nobody in NATO disputes that the Germans need bases out- side their own territory. Why should it be any more morally reprehensible of them to turn to Spain than it is for the Americans, who already have bases there, of a much more substantial kind than those that Herr Strauss was after? It has been the Americans, after all, who have done most to bolster up financially the regime in Spain, and President Eisenhower has only recently paid a ceremonial visit to General Franco. Mr. Tom Driberg seems particularly wrong-headed to argue, as he has done in Reynolds News, that it is naughtier of the Germans to flirt with Franco than it is for the Americans, because the Americans have twice in our time fought for democracy, whereas the Germans never have. Surely it is the self- proclaimed democrats who ought to know bettr?
No doubt it would be nicer and tidier if Western Germany looked to members of NATO for places in which to establish her bases, but where? The most sensible suggestion has come from Dr. Adenauer himself who, pigheaded though he is in his diplomatic dealings, and auto- cratic in his domestic politics, is hardly the Prussian war-lord hell-bent on a war of revenge that some of our leader-writers seem to be making him out to be. He has pointed out that his Government has constantly urged on NATO, in speeches and in memoranda, that the organisa- tion of supplies (which means the organisation of supply bases) should be a NATO and not a national responsibility. If we had listened to him earlier we should not need to be nagging at him now. But in fact we have not listened to anybody; and the depressing consequences can be read in the reports of this week's Defence debate in the Commons, and in the strictures on defence expenditure by the Comptroller and Auditor- General. It is easy to talk of the efficiency and fighting power of our armed forces whether, as Harold Watkinson said in the House, our men are worth two or three conscripts, even German con- scripts, or whether, as he sought in Hansard to appear to have said, that there are qualities not
1990 Hendaye: Hitler-Franco . . .
/959 Aludrid : 1..1.senhower-I. ranco
possessed by conscripts at all. Admirable though these qualities may be, it cannot be,disputed that our conventional forces are weaker today even than they were four years ago. The recruiting pro- gramme has been a failure—as we predicted; the only way in which the plan to abandon conscrip- tion can be adhered to is by frequent pay increases—the last of them being announced with unhappy timing in the thick of the railway dispute. Certainly our contribution to NATO, either actual or potential, is not so lavish that we can afford to complain when the Germans try to step up their own NATO efforts.
The nuclear situation is even more depressing. As the Auditor-General shows, huge sums have been wasted (original estimate, fti million : cost
to date. 10 million) on guided missiles. Their production has been so interrtupted by delays that they have never been made operational before they have become obsolete. Now, the Govern- ment is faced with the fact that it can no longer go ahead with a comprehensive nuclear pro- gramme which would embrace both land-based and submarine-based missiles; it- simply cannot afford to. The sensible answer would be to abandon both, and accept a Western strategy in which Britain renounces her pretensions to be a nuclear power in her own right. Failing this, the sub. missile idea is obviously the right one. To abandon the old land-based missile project, though, would be embarrassing to the Govern- ment (and to Mr. Sandys); it would be made to look very silly when the accounts revealed so many millions written off as wasted expense. Yet Mr. Watkinson may come to regret that he did it take the step; for with the Labour Party as divided as they were on Tuesday. he could have got away with anything.
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