Europe: The Grandest Tour

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That act of friendly persuasion is quite in keeping with the French role in Europe. De Gaulle shares the traditional French fear of Germany, and has been reluctant to see his trans-Rhine neighbor reunite. In that, De Gaulle is clearly a Frenchman first—but with a pan-European difference. As he said during his election campaign last year: "This country, this France which has bandaged her wounds, and God knows they were serious; this France which is regaining her power; ah, yes, she is devoting herself to establishing an equilibrium in the world. In brief, we are playing our role, pursuing a vocation which has been ours for centuries."

On both sides of the Iron Curtain other men in other places were pursuing the same vocation, confirming the fact that Europe was indeed in motion. Last month Rumanian Minister of Metallurgy Ion Marinescu visited Paris; Russia's Leonid Brezhnev showed briefly in Bratislava; Czech Foreign Trade Minister Frantiśek Hamouz skipped frantically from Oslo to Budapest to Copenhagen, signing trade agreements. Meanwhile, Danish agricultural experts toured the backwoods of Czechoslovakia; Norwegian Mayor Brynjulf Bull concluded a scientific agreement in Budapest; and a delegation of Polish parliamentarians arrived in Brussels to have a look at the Common Market. Poland's Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki turned up in Stockholm; Hungarian Boss János Kádár talked to Tito in Bled; the Shah of Iran left Rumania for an eight-day state visit to Yugoslavia. No sooner had Rumanian Postal Minister Mihai Balanescu arrived in Paris to inspect French telecommunications than Kentucky Governor Ed Breathitt popped up in Poznan for a Polish tool fair.

How Many Germanys? If De Gaulle is ever to achieve the Europe of his vision, he must surmount two tall hurdles: German reunification and the mili tary presence of both American and Russian troops. World War II's solution was to split Germany among the victors; yet Germany—West and East —has proved itself the strongest economic entity in Europe. East Germany provides fully one-fifth of Russian imports each year, while West Germany's gross national product is the free world's second highest (after the U.S.). Alone among World War II's victors in publicly pushing for German reunification, the U.S. has been hampered in securing it by the West's adamant attitude against recognition of East Germany. The Soviet-East German position on reunification is that it can come about only through a "confederation" of two sovereign Germanys. The concept may sound farfetched to the casual observer, but in fact there is already considerable administrative cooperation between the two Germanys in communications, transportation and trade—a cooperation that is never spoken of publicly.

France, which has been the target of German aggression three times in the past century, is understandably leary of a reunited Germany, as are Poland, Czechoslovakia and Russia. Among Gaullists, the problem has always been pushed to the background or else treated with gallows humor, such as the crack Novelist François Mauriac once made: "I love Germany so much that I want there to be two of her." Yet recently the inevitability of German reunification has become part of the French consciousness. "All will go very slowly," De Gaulle said last month. "Germany itself must evolve."