France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (65 page)

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Authors: William I. Hitchcock

Tags: #History, #Europe, #France, #Western, #Modern, #20th Century, #Political Science, #Security (National & International), #test

BOOK: France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954
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14. The plan is published in Royal Institute of International Affairs,
Documents on Germany,
33543.
15. Clay to the Department of the Army, November 13, 1948,
FRUS, 1948,
2: 49496.
16. President Auriol denounced the plan in a speech at Rethondes on November 11, 1948 (Auriol,
Journal du Septennat,
2: 521); Charles de Gaulle claimed that France would do better to break with the United States over the issue and sacrifice Marshall aid than accept German ownership (
New York Herald Tribune,
November 18, 1948); and on December 2, 1948, Schuman won the approval of the National Assembly after he asserted that France would insist that the German peace treaty  and not the zonal commanders  fix the question of ownership
New York Herald Tribune,
December 3, 1948).
17. See the final "Draft Agreement for the Establishment of an International Authority for the Ruhr," in
FRUS, 1948,
2: 58195.
18. This is evident in the divergent reactions in France and Germany to the Ruhr agreement. Schuman's report to the cabinet on December 29, 1948, was
 
Page 233
quite positive and earned the approbation of his colleagues (Auriol,
Journal du Septennat, 1948,
2: 58283). By contrast, the Social Democratic mayor of Berlin, Ernst Reuter, thought the plan a step backward for Germany, and denounced it as "a surrender to France" (
New york Herald Tribune,
December 29, 1948); General Clay thought the Ruhr discussions offered a case of "the tail wag [ging] the dog" (Clay to Draper, January 23, 1949, in Smith,
The Papers of General Lucius D. Clay: Germany, 19451949,
2: 990).
19. Office of Economic and Financial Affairs to the Planning Commissioner [Monnet], August 9, 1948, MAE, Y-Internationale 194449, vol. 131.
20. For a general, and critical, account of the first months of the OEEC by its first secretary-general, see Marjolin,
Memoirs,
191205, and Milward,
The Reconstruction of Western Europe,
168211.
21. American planners were especially anxious about France's failure in this regard, fearing that the OEEC and the entire American grand design for European integration could be set back by French economic instability. See Bossuat, "Le poids de 1'aide américaine sur la politique économique et financière de la France en 1948," and Wall,
The United States and the Making of Postwar France,
18485.
22. Minutes of discussion of senior Treasury officials, January 5, 1949, published in Clarke,
Anglo-American Economic Collaboration in War and Peace,
20810; and see Young,
Britain, France, and the Unity of Europe,
12224. French economic planners bitterly criticized what they called Britain's "imperial autarky" with regard to the continent. See
Réponse aux critiques britanniques du programme français,
January 6, 1949, AN, F60 ter, box 390; Schweitzer to Prime Minister, December 17, 1948, AN, F60 ter, box 461; Memorandum, January 6, 1949, AN, F60 ter, box 390. Schuman and Hervé Alphand took up this issue with Averell Harriman, the American special representative to the OEEC, but with little result (Memorandum by Pierre Baraduc of the Quai's Economic Cooperation Service, January 8, 1949; and
Compte-rendu d'une conversation entre MM. Schuman et Harriman,
January 10, 1949, AN, F60 ter, box 378). Even a trip to London in late February 1949 by Finance Minister Maurice Petsche could not bring the British around to a more sympathetic view of an activist OEEC. See the extensive documentation on these talks in AN, F60 ter, box 460.
23. Marjolin,
Memoirs,
204, 21011. Milward has been even more critical: the American policy of urging European cooperation was by mid-1949 "a nearcomplete failure. . . . The common Western European long-term plan which was supposed to emerge from the OEEC had sunk without a trace"
(Reconstruction of Western Europe,
282).
24. Direction d'Europe, author not specified, December 13, 1948, MAE, Y-Internationale 194449, vol. 318. This document summarized the views expressed in numerous Quai memoranda on the need for a constructive policy toward Germany. See Jacques-Camille Paris to Chauvel, October 5, 1948, MAE, Z-Europe 194449, Allemagne, vol. 39; a memorandum of August 31, 1948, same file, vol. 83; report from Saint-Hardouin of October 21 and November 6, 1948, same file, vol. 83; a thirty-page memorandum entitled
Esquisse d'une politique françaiseà l'égard de l'Allemagne occidentale,
November 30, 1948, same file, vol. 83.

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