FRANCE: The Assassination

The manner of EDC’s passing did credit to no one. Premier Pierre Mendès-France. famed man of decision, refused to decide. Deputies pleaded with him to give a clear lead; he would not.

“It was an assassination, not even an execution, for the witnesses were not called and the verdict was given in the most irresponsible manner imaginable,” said one Frenchman.

Before the debate had run two days, EDC’s friends felt their cause was lost, and sought to delay. They even offered a motion urging Mendès to return to Brussels for one more try at persuading other EDC partners to accept his sweeping amendments. It was a desperate retreat for men who had previously denounced Mendès’ revisions. EDC opponents countered with the deadliest weapon in the rules of order, a question prealable—which calls for an immediate vote to decide whether the subject before the Assembly is worth discussing at all. To adopt it would be to kill EDC humiliatingly.

The Old Bear Speaks. Under the préalable rule, only one speech is allowed each side before the vote. For this speech EDC’s foes shrewdly called on ailing old Edouard Herriot, honorary President of the Assembly, who for years has appealed more to French emotions than to French intelligence. Bowed under the weight of his 82 years and long illness, he was too feeble to rise and mount the rostrum, but from his bench the “old bear” spoke theatrically in his deep voice. “I have read the documents with anguish,” he rumbled. “No one can say that Great Britain is engaged to stand by our side. That alone would be enough to make me reject EDC . . . The treaty does not give France the right to withdraw from the community as it does Germany. By leaving Germany freedom of action, we offer her the possibility of negotiating with Russia, who has much to trade.” Concluded Herriot: “The treaty, and I say this at the end of my life, would be the end of France.”

At 7 p.m. the voting began. Deliberately, Mendès-France and his Cabinet abstained. When it was over, Assembly President Le Troquer, who had lost an arm to the Germans in World War I, announced: “By 319 votes against 264, the National Assembly adopts the question préalable. In consequence, ratification of the European Defense Community Treaty is rejected.”

Songs & Blows. With a shout, the Gaullists leaped to their feet. The Communists burst into the Marseillaise. “Back to Moscow,” M.R.P. Deputies hooted. A Gaullist and a Socialist almost came to blows. Ex-Premier Paul Reynaud climbed the rostrum, shouted above the uproar: “This is the first time in the history of the French Parliament that a treaty has been rejected without the author [ex-Premier René Pleven] or the signer [Robert Schuman] of the treaty having been heard.” Then EDC supporters struck up the Marseillaise. “Why not Deutschland über Alles?” shouted a heckler.

After 27 months and four Premiers, France had at last made its decision. Out of suspicion, misguided patriotism and ancient prejudice, it rejected the formula France itself had devised for a controlled rearmament of the Germans within a homogeneous six-nation European army. In the crucible of decision, party lines shattered. Three big groups held themselves together: all 99 Communists voted solidly against EDC; so did all but six of the 73 Gaullists. The Catholic M.R.P.s of Bidault and Schuman voted 86 to 2 for it. But 53 out of 105 Socialists bolted party discipline to vote against* 34 out of 76 Radicals (Mendès-France’s own party) voted against EDC; so did ten out of 24 Deputies of Pleven’s U.D.S.R.

End of the Lie. “The monster is dead . . . the era of the lie is ended,” proclaimed the leftist Combat. The Communist Humanité crowed: “A great victory.” Pro-EDC critics charged bitterly that Mendès had allowed the 99 Communist votes to decide the fate of France. Mendès apologists insisted that had the debate continued to the bitter end, the anti-EDC majority would have swelled to about 115, enough to kill EDC even without Communist help.

In the Assembly, Mendès’ foes launched a savage attack designed to bring him down. There was now no alternative to a revived and uncontrolled Wehrmacht, they charged. Cried ex-Premier Reynaud: “You have killed a French idea which restored French prestige . . . You often appeal to young France, but what do you offer her? You hurl her back into the blood of the past!”

Said ex-Premier Antoine Pinay: “In comparing the conferences of Geneva and Brussels, Mr. Premier, you have implied it was easier to get along with the Communist countries than with our friends and allies. If Chou En-lai seemed a more ami able negotiator than Monsieur Spaak, that is no doubt because you did more to reach understanding with the former than with the latter.”

“That is abominably base,” cried Mendès, stung.

“But the results are there to prove it,” cried a rightist Deputy.

“Results, yes,” retorted Mendès. “Before July 20, we lost 400 soldiers every day. Since July, 400 human lives have been saved daily.”

Pinay got tougher: “You exactly predicted our majority yesterday . . . But you omitted yourself—the influence you could have had in the vote if you had worked for ratification . . . The Soviet Machiavelli desires a government which would ruin the [Atlantic] alliance in pretending to defend it. Such a government, I hasten to add, is not yours. But if it existed, it would do what you are doing.”

Means, Not Ends. Pale and defiant, Mendès took the rostrum. Looking at Pinay and Reynaud, he snapped: “I admire your energetic attitudes, although they have not always been in evidence . . . The treaty hung fire for 2½ years. It was signed by the Pinay government, but I don’t recall Monsieur Pinay trying to bring it to a vote.”

Mendes pressed on: “We were paralyzed by our indecision. Now that we are freed of that particular indecision, we must act and quickly.” He proposed to recess the Assembly, but demanded a vote of support for the foreign policies he intended to pursue. The debate showed, he argued, that “if there is a division, it is not on the end, but on the means of organizing Western defense . . . Our policy is unchanged: that of the Atlantic alliance and the organization of Europe, which should be founded on Franco-German reconciliation … I cannot believe that we shall fail to find the means.” By a surprising 418 to 162 vote, the Assembly gave Mendès its support and recessed until November. The divided Socialists, who want to have a hand in Mendès’ economic reform, supported him solidly.

After the Battle. Mendès retired to his country retreat at Marly, relaxing in slacks and sweater. On the littered political field of battle, musketry still rattled and firing squads went about their melancholy tasks. Reynaud, Pinay, Schuman, Bidault, Pleven and Laniel issued a defiant pledge that they would never give up the fight for EDC. The Socialist Party expelled Jules Moch and two other prominent anti-EDC rebels. The M.R.P. expelled three. Three pro-EDC Ministers resigned from the Cabinet, exactly counterbalancing the three anti-EDC Gaullists who had resigned three weeks ago in protest against Mendès’ compromise proposals. Forced to his first Cabinet reshuffle, Mendès brought three new EDC supporters into the government, got one of the Gaullists to return—a balance designed to demonstrate that Mendès was seeking a substitute formula which “good Europeans” could support.

But Mendès had seriously shaken the nation’s—and the western world’s—confidence in him. True, the Assembly vote had borne out his oft-repeated contention (in the face of the U.S. State Department’s insistence to the contrary) that there was not a majority for EDC in the Assembly. But conceivably, on the impetus of his triumphs in Geneva and Tunisia, Mendès could have pushed EDC through. He still had, and has, great popular support in a country which is fed to the teeth with most of the old political faces.

His countrymen were disappointed that the man whose favorite political maxim is “we must choose” had failed to proclaim his choice; that the man of bold actions had acted the part of a man of devious devices. France’s allies were distressed by his accusations that they had ganged up on him, charges that fanned French chauvinism and rekindled old hates. For Mendès, the way back would be harder now; doubts were now planted.

*A larger revolt than anticipated by U.S. diplomats, and a crucial factor in their misreading.