then insisted that China should be included. It was not until late November that the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union agreed on a January meeting in Berlin to resume discussions on the German problem. 36
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Meanwhile, progress on the EDC negotiations had slowed to a crawl. In April, Bidault secured the agreement of the other member states to the additional protocols, though Adenauer refused to sign them, perhaps fearing adverse electoral consequences. 37 Bidault also engaged in inconclusive negotiations on the Saar, designed to get German agreement on a treaty giving France special economic rights in the region after the Saar had been granted political autonomy within the still-unborn European community. Though the French National Assembly ratified a new Franco-Saar convention in November, Adenauer remained hostile to French policy there. Because the French had made it clear that the EDC could not go forward without German recognition of the "European" political status of the Saar, this conflict continued to block progress on the treaty. 38 And finally, in late November, a debate in the Assembly on the Laniel government's European policy revealed that opposition to the EDC had, if anything, grown, and that the treaty stood less chance than ever of being ratified. 39
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At the end of this disappointing year, the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and France met in Bermuda to take stock of the Alliance and to plan for their common approach to the Soviets in the upcoming four-power meeting. The Bermuda Conference of December 4 to 8, 1953, was the first meeting at the head-of-state level since the end of the war, though Prime Minister Laniel fell ill immediately on his arrival and Bidault took his place. In the end, Bidault might have wished Laniel had not been absent, particularly when Winston Churchill launched into an emotional denunciation of France's policy toward Germany and the rearmament problem. Churchill opened his broadside by stating that the previous "three years had been completely wasted in getting what was absolutely necessary, a good strong German army." Churchill stated that if the EDC failed, "we ought to establish an arrangement under NATO that would give us at once 12 German divisions." President Eisenhower, in an effort to soften the impact of Churchill's remarks, pointed out that "the Germans, under their present leaders, do not want a German army," and that "to resort to a national army was a second choice so far behind EDC that there could be no comparison." Nonetheless, the pressure on Bidault was intense. Two of the most powerful and prominent men in the western world were telling him that without prompt
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