End of an Era

An era was ending in Europe, not all at once and in one dying fall, but perceptibly nonetheless.

What is disappearing is the era of emergency, exhortation and exertion. The exhortation came from the U.S., along with $39 billion of aid. The exertion came from the best of European leaders, and both exhortation and exertion came from the emergency of the cold war. Not only the Soviet cooing, but sounds the Russians did not want heard—the clash of revolt and unrest—had destroyed the impulse of emergency.

The drive which produced NATO and propelled Europe onto the road to unification was gone. The European Army Plan (EDC), nearly three years from its conception, stood farther than ever from realization (see box). Italy decided it could now afford to scuttle dependable old Alcide de Gasperi (see FOREIGN NEWS). Konrad Adenauer, the last of the triumvirate of "good Europeans" who piloted Europe on the road to postwar unity, faced new elections in which his survival was by no means certain. The British had about decided to oppose the U.S. at the Korean peace talks on policy in Asia.

Europeans, after eight years of living off U.S. aid, were infected with growing reluctance to accept U.S. leadership. The U.S., after eight years of getting less than it hoped for, was cutting down its aid and growing increasingly impatient with allies who dragged feet or criticized.

Neutral Switzerland's Neue Zurcher Zeitung, looking on, decided that "the estrangement presently spreading" might do good if it blew away some of "the tensions accumulated in Europe as a result of a one-sided dependence on-American aid," and if "the exaggerated American expectations regarding the adoption by its partners of its own political concepts will make way for a more realistic view ... All this can have a good effect if the West, at the same time, escapes the dangers involved in any weakening of its inner cohesion in the face of ... imperialist Communism."