France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (66 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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Page 234
These views were restated in a memorandum by de Leusse, January 4, 1949, same file, vol. 41; and Seydoux to Schuman, March 19, 1949, same file, vol. 42.
25. Koenig memorandum,
Remarques sur le projet de Constitution provisoire pour l'Allemagne occidentale,
February 28, 1949, MAE, Y-Internationale 194449, vol. 321; also his letter of January 6, 1949, MAE, Z-Europe 194449, Allemagne, vol. 84.
26. Schuman to Koenig, February 23, 1949, MAE, Y-Internationale 194449, vol. 321.
27. For the secret and informal talks on raising the blockade between the Soviet U.N. delegate Yakov Malik and U.S. Ambassador at Large Philip Jessup, see
FRUS, 1949,
3: 694751.
28.
Note
from the Central Europe Office in the Direction d'Europe, March 9, 1949, MAE, Y-Intemationale 194449, vol. 322. These fears were echoed in a memorandum of April 2, which painted a lurid picture of a what a CFM might agree to: "an accord on a general evacuation of Germany; in Berlin, evacuated and neutral, the formation of a central German government whose constitution would certainly be more centralised than that of Bonn; the distancing of America from a neutral Germany, but a Germany more permeable than ever by Russian influence" (April 2, 1949, Direction d'Europe, MAE, Y-Intemationale 194449, vol. 323). For Kennan's arguments in favor of delaying the formation of a West German government, see his report of March 8, 1949,
FRUS, 1949,
3: 96102. Bonnet had informed the Quai in early March that Kennan was undertaking "a new examination of the entire German problem" (Bonnet to Ministry, March 2, 1949, MAE, Y-Intemationale 194449, vol. 322). The chapter on Germany in Kennan's memoirs offers an extended dissent from U.S. policy at this time, especially the London accords (
Memoirs,
43873).
29. A point made quite clearly by Dean Acheson in his memoirs. Bevin, Schuman, and he "saw the danger in allowing Stalin to edge his way into the incomplete and delicate negotiations among us regarding our relations among ourselves and with the Germans in our zones." The three ministers "thought the chances high that the Moscow move was a trap" (Acheson,
Present at the Creation,
272, 286). Henri Bonnet confirmed the American point of view in recounting a discussion with Chip Bohlen, State Department counselor. Bohlen said that the U.S. objective was to keep the idea of unity alive "theoretically," so as not to alienate German public opinion, but "as long as the [European] continent remained cut in two, the reestablishment of German unity is inconceivable" (Bonnet to Paris, March 31, 1949, MAE, Y-Internationale 194449, vol. 322).
30. In London, Massigli learned that the British too believed that any disunity on Germany now among the three Western powers would play into the hands of the Soviets by allowing them to pose as champions of unity. "The Kremlin," the Foreign Office reportedly believed, "will certainly not hesitate in raising the Berlin blockade if it thought it could put our own decisions into doubt by reopening the question of German unity before the CFM" (Massigli to Paris, March 22, 1949, MAE, Y-Intemationale 194449, vol. 322).
31. Few scholars who have noted Schuman's role in breaking the deadlock have been able to account for his shift in tactics. Bullock,
Bevin,
66566, gives no
 
Page 235
explanation; nor does Young,
France, the Cold War, and the Western Alliance,
21011. Wall,
The United States and the Making of Postwar France,
inexplicably neglects the entire question of Germany during this crucial period. Buffet, noting the general trend in the Quai during the spring of 1949 to opt for a constructive settlement with Germany, nevertheless underestimates Schuman's importance in breaking the deadlock (
Mourir pour Berlin,
24143). Poidevin has posited, and the evidence bears him out, a basic continuity between Schuman and Bidault, and sees Schuman's German policy as part of a persistent and pragmatic French effort to extend as much influence as possible over the future West German state (
Robert Schuman,
19798). This point is implied also in Soutou, "Georges Bidault et la contruction européenne."
32. For the Washington meetings and subsequent agreements,
FRUS, 1949,
3: 15686. The Quai's leading policymakers, including Henri Bonnet, Hervé Alphand, Jacques-Camille Paris, Pierre de Leusse, and Jean Laloy, agreed that the framework of the Washington accords would serve French interests far better than anything offered by the Soviets in a four-power agreement on a neutral, demilitarized Germany. See
Eventualité d'une conférence à quatre sur l'Allemagne,
April 20, 1949, MAE, Y-Internationale 194449, vol. 207. Chauvel had just taken over Alexandre Parodi's job as delegate to the U.N.; Parodi in turn took Chauvel's position as secretary-general of the Quai d'Orsay. An officer in Alphand's office in the Quai admitted that a failure of the four-power conference might aggravate East-West tensions, but this was a risk France must take: "France must reject a priori any solution which might liberate Germany from these indispensable security guarantees, or which might allow Germany to play the role of arbiter between East and West" (Memorandum by Valéry, Office of Economic and Financial Affairs, April 23, 1949, MAE, Y-Intemationale 194449, vol. 207).
33. For general accounts of the Paris CFM between May 23 and June 20, 1949, see memo on
Conversations tripartites préalables ß la sixiéme session du Conseil des Mmistres des Affaires Etrangères,
May 19, 1949, MAE, EU 194955, Généralités, vol. 85;
FRUS, 1949,
3: 8561065; Acheson,
Present at the Creation,
293301; Bullock,
Bevin,
69398.
34. Indeed, their relations grew very strained during the summer of 1949, when Britain, without consultation with France, devalued the pound by 30.5 percent, triggering a storm of protest in Paris. The inability of London and Paris to coordinate their economies even in the broadest sense certainly weakened French claims that the OEEC might be able to monitor and control German economic behavior.
35. For accounts of the formal proclamation of the FRG and the role of the AHC, see Adenauer,
Memoirs,
17691, and Schwartz,
America's Germany,
5783. See also the detailed account by the CIA, "Germany," SR-20, December 9, 1949, Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, box 260.
36. Adenauer,
Memoirs,
188, 193.
37. Bevin to Acheson, October 28, 1949,
FRUS, 1949,
3: 61821.
38. Acheson's message to Schuman was included in Acheson to Bruce, October 30, 1949,
FRUS, 1949,
3: 62225.

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