International: The Nub of NATO

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As the Foreign Ministers of the North Atlantic Pact nations flew home from the Brussels conference last week, they left behind a paper outline for long overdue action.

The first of three immediate steps to be taken was organization of a supreme defense headquarters. By heartfelt, unanimous agreement, the Foreign Ministers put the U.S.'s General Dwight Eisenhower in charge. "I know," said "Ike" Eisenhower, "that it will be a long, hard task." It would be hard but, as Ike well knew, the Russians would decide whether it would be long. As his right hand and chief of staff, he chose an old crony of war plans and the bridge table, Lieut. General Alfred Maximilian Gruenther, 51, a steel-trap military mind and the U.S. Army's General Staff Deputy for Plans & Operations.

When Eisenhower and Gruenther take up their task in Europe early in January, they will have at their disposal the staff groundwork laid by the five Western Union governments (Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg). Last week Western Union agreed to merge its two-year-old joint staff (headquartered at Fontainebleau under British Field Marshal Lord Montgomery) with the new NATO high command.

Step No. Two was an overall defense production board. This agency would coordinate the rearmament output of the twelve NATO members. Little progress had been made to date on standardization of equipment. The U.S. would be represented on this board by William L. Batt, a veteran World War II production man, former president of the S.K.F. Industries and present ECA chief in London.

The third step was a bid for German participation in West Europe's defense. Acting for NATO, the Allied High Commissioners in Germany—the U.S.'s John J. McCloy, Britain's Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick and France's Andre Francois-Poncet—quickly conferred with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. After a five-hour meeting in the Petersberg, the conferees agreed 1) to discuss a new "political basis" for relations between Western Germany and the Western Allies, and 2) to organize a military committee* that would study "the scale and manner" of the German contribution to West Europe's defense. The allies seemed ready for a bargain that would end their occupation, give the Germans de facto sovereignty in return for 150,000 German troops in the West European army.

Underlying Weakness. NATO might have a hard time keeping to its timetable, which calls for increasing West Europe's present 19 divisions to 60 divisions by 1952's end. A far more serious matter of concern is the belief in some quarters that the timetable itself is too modest, that, given decisive and insistent leadership by the U.S., Europe could rearm much more quickly.

The underlying weakness of the Brussels plan of action is French inaction. If the French rearm rapidly, they will have less cause to fear German rearmament. But the French government is so deeply committed to a "go slow" policy on French rearmament that there seems little chance of a speedup.