WESTERN EUROPE: Difficulties & Impossibilities

"When your self-preservation demands the accomplishment of a job," said General Dwight Eisenhower last week to the twelve North Atlantic allies in Rome, "there is nothing that is impossible. The impossible merely becomes a difficulty, something to be solved, something to be done."

The difficulty he was talking about is the creation of a European defense army, including twelve German divisions. Without the Germans, he said, "we can, in Western Europe, erect a defense that can, at least, although expensively and uneasily, produce a stalemate. But that is not enough."

To be really safe and strong, Eisenhower insisted, "we need...