France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (70 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 239
75. Minutes, tripartite preparatory talks, London Conference, April 27, 1950, MAE, EU 194955, Généralités, vol. 87.
76. On the evolution of Monnet's ideas, see the accounts by his friends and former collaborators in Fondation Jean Monnet,
Temoignages ä la mémoire de Jean Monnet,
and Majone, Noël, and van den Bossche,
Jean Monnet et l'Europe d'aujourd'hui,
both published to mark the centenary of his birth. Also, essays in Brinkley and Hackett,
Jean Monnet: The Path to European Unity
. Monnet's
Mémoires
present a fair, if at times self-serving, account of his thinking in this period and his role in the Schuman Plan (33460). Other accounts that stress Monnet's personal role include Gerbet, "La genèse du Plan Schuman: Des origines à la déclaration du 9 mai 1950"; Bromberger and Bromberger,
Jean Monnet and the United States of Europe,
esp. 95107; Mayne, "The Role of Jean Monnet"; and Mayne,
Postwar: The Dawn of Today's Europe,
296303. On Monnet's "methods" more generally, see Rostow, "Jean Monnet: The Innovator as Diplomat." Gillingham, in "Jean Monnet and the ECSC: A Preliminary Appraisal,'' neglects Schuman's role when he writes that "only Monnet was in a position to engineer the Schuman Plan. . . . [H]e alone had the clout to make it a reality" (135).
77. This is true too of Milward, in
The Reconstruction of Western Europe,
who argued that "the Schuman Plan was invented to safeguard the Monnet Plan" (395). That is, Monnet's ambitious plan for French industrial recovery relied heavily on continued French access to German coal, which the innovative coal-steel pool could provide. See also Lynch, "The Role of Jean Monnet in Setting up the ECSC." The tendency to focus too heavily on Monnet and his economic objectives and too little on French foreign policy considerations has been echoed in recent works by American diplomatic historians. Hogan,
The Marshall Plan,
focused chiefly on the economic origins of the plan, stressing the influence that the "New Deal synthesis" in America exercised on sympathetic Europeans like Monnet (36469, 37879). Hogan followed a more general argument made by Maier in an inflential 1977 essay, "The Politics of Productivity: Foundations of American International Economic Policy after World War II." Gillingham,
Coal, Steel, and the Rebirth of Europe,
has provided an excellent account of French Ruhr policy in the late 1940s, but tells us very little about the role of international politics in the formation of the Schuman Plan (14877); Wall,
The United States and the Making of Postwar France,
does not address the diplomatic origins of the plan, saying simply that it bore "the imprint of Washington" (189); Schwartz,
America's Germany,
84105, depicts the Schuman Plan as emerging from extensive contacts between Monnet and influential figures in the American government.
78. Two important French works have addressed this question. Yet although Poidevin's solidly researched biography,
Robert Schuman,
charts Schuman's views toward Germany at the time of his arrival at the Quai in 1948, it doesn't fully follow France's German policy through to 1950; see esp. 20820, 24460. Bossuat's
La France, l'aide américaine et la construction européenne
is an immense two-volume study chiefly concerned with the implementation of the Marshall Plan in France. Bossuat provides only brief commentary on the political origins of the plan (65575, 73545).
79. Gillingham has carefully adumbrated the economic aspects of the plan
 
Page 240
and provided a comprehensive account of the subsequent negotiations for the ECSC in
Coal, Steel, and the Rebirth of Europe,
22898. On the background to the Franco-German coal and steel industries, see Diebold,
The Schuman Plan,
1646; and Burn,
The Steel Industry, 19391959,
389407.
80. Monnet's letter of May 1, 1950, selections of which he quotes in his memoirs, has been photographically reproduced in Beyer,
Robert Schuman: L'Europe par la récancilitaion franco-allemande,
15360.
81. For the text of Schuman's proposal, see Poidevin,
Robert Schwman,
26163.
82. David Bruce Diary, Virginia Historical Society, May 10, 1950. Bruce had been discussing the plan with Monnet for some time before the May 9 announcement. See entries of April 28, May 2, 6, and 7, 1950. For reaction in the United States, see Hogan,
Marshall Plan,
36773; Acheson,
Present at the Creation,
38289; and Monnet,
Mémoires,
35672. Ambassador Bonnet reported that the U.S. government was pleased by France's initiative, and urged the Quai to assure the Americans that the plan would not lead to anything like a European bloc, separate from the broader Atlantic community (Bonnet to Quai, May 23, 1950, MAE, EU Généralités, vol. 65; and May 25, 1950, MAE, DE/CE, vol. 321). The American high commissioner in Germany, John J. McCloy, became an ardent supporter of the scheme (Schwartz,
America's Germany,
18997).
83. Record of a meeting at No. 1, Carlton Gardens, on May 10, 1950,
DBPO,
Series II, 1: 57; Hall-Patch to Bevin, May 10, 1950, ibid., 1516; Minutes from Robert Hall, May 11, 1950, ibid., 2425; Memorandum by I. Kirkpatrick, May 11, 1950, ibid., 3235.
84. Minutes of the first meeting of the Committee on Proposed Franco-German Coal and Steel Authority, May 15, 1950,
DBPO,
Series II, 1: 5355; minutes of same committee, May 17, 1950, ibid., 6566; Makins to Bevin, May 18, 1950, ibid., 6872; Economic Policy Committee meeting, May 23, 1950, ibid., 7880.
85. Memorandum from Massigli to Younger, May 25, 1950,
DBPO,
Series II, 1: 9091; Harvey to Bevin, May 26, 1950, ibid., 97; Bevin to Harvey, May 26, 1950, ibid., 9899; Harvey to Bevin, May 27, 1950, ibid., 1034; Memorandum by Robert Schuman for Harvey, May 30, 1950, ibid., 110-11; Harvey to Younger, May 31, 1950, ibid., 11213; Younger to Harvey, sending memo to Schuman, May 31, 1950, ibid., 11516; cabinet meeting, June 2, 1950, ibid., 14044. Kenneth Younger took over the Foreign Office on May 30 while Bevin was in the hospital. The French record is less complete than the British. One long memorandum summarized the exchange of notes:
Négociations franco-britanniques relatives au projet de mise en commun des ressources européennes du charbon et d'acier,
n.d. [about May 31], MAE, EU Généralités, vol. 65. See also the documentation in the Bidault papers, AN, 457 AP, box 30.
86. David Bruce Diary, Virginia Historical Society, May 22, 1950.
87. Massigli to Paris, May 27, 1950; and see his other pleas for moderation, June 6, 8, and 9, 1950, MAE, EU Généralités, vol. 65.
88. François Seydoux, Note, June 5, 1950, MAE, EU Généralités, vol. 65.
89. Note, European Office, June 1, 1950, MAE, EU Généralités, vol. 65.

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