Spotlight on West Germany

Abstract

We were wrong last month, badly wrong. We expected Mendès-France to fight to postpone German rearmament until the possibilities of negotiating a settlement with the Soviet Union had been exhausted, and we thought we saw clear signs that Washington and Bonn were getting ready to try to overthrow him as an accomplice or dupe of the Communists. As a matter of fact, there is now less doubt than ever that a plot against the French government was indeed being hatched: this is a large part, though not the whole, of the meaning of the Dides affair. And at the London conference, Mendès-France certainly did fight hard—but not for fresh negotiations with the East. Instead, he fought for a scheme of rearmament which he could sell to the French National Assembly.

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