Basic HTML Version
advance
news
in the wake of today's WORLD EVENTS
•
Americans Display
lgnorance of
European Affairs
Common Market? Over half of the Americans
questioned in a poli earlier this year confessed they had
neither heard nor read about the nine-nation com–
mercial bloc in Western Europe, otherwise known as the
European Community.
The shocking disclosure - to Europeans at least -
was contained in the resulting taily of a Gallup poli
commissioned by the European Community Informa–
tion Service (ECIS) office in Washington, D.C.
Fifty-five percent of the nationwide sampling -
1,030 Americaos aged 18 and older - replied that the
concept of the Common Market was new to them.
In addition, only 5 percent of those who said they
were acquainted with the Community koew that the
Community's population was greater than that of the
United States, that it exports more than the United
States, and that its industrial production is growing at a
faster rate.
The poll's results clearly showed that today's
Americans bave been largely unaware of the historie
events that bave occurred in Western Europe in the
last quarter century. They apparently have paid little
atteotion to the heroic attempt to heal the French–
German enmity after two world wars and to forge a
union of the original six European nations. Enlarge–
ment of the Market less than a year ago to include Brit–
ain, lreland and Denmark also went largely unheeded.
Little wonder Europeans have complained of late that
Americans have treated them with benign neglect.
•
Europe's
Nuclear
Dilemma
Pressure is mounting in tbe U. S. Senate for a
drastio reduction in the American troop commitment to
NATO. There is now sorne question whether the Ad–
ministration, its power orippled by Watergate, wiU be
able to honor its NATO pledge in full force.
A unilateral reduction of
U.
S. troop strength in
Western Europe would intensify already existing Euro–
pean doubts as to the reliability of the protective
U.
S.
PLAIN TRUTH November 1973
nuclear umbreila over the Continent. American troops
and conventional weapons in Europe are viewed by
many Europeans as «benigo hostages" insuring that the
United States would back up its nuclear commitment.
Already, growing cordiality between the United
States and the Soviet Union, spotlighted by the Nixon–
Brezhnev agreement in June to work together to pre–
vent nuclear war, has raised European fears of "deser–
tion" by the United States and a " new Yalta." All of
Europe, claim sorne, is in danger of becoming "one big
Finland," totaily at the merey of the Soviet Union.
Viewed in the light of the continuing building of
Soviet conventional military strength in Eastern Eu–
rope, nervous West Europeans - especially West Ger–
mans - are facing a serious dilemma. At the present
time, there simply is no alternative to the assurance of
U. S. nuclear protection for Western Europe's defense
posture. An Anglo-French nuclear "umbrella," built on
existíng British and French nuclear mini-forces, would
hardly provide an adequate substitute at this point.
In July, West German Chancellor WilJy Brandt
rejected proposals for the creation of an independently
manned and controlled West E:uropean nuclear deter–
rent to replace the present D. S. umbrella. "1 cannot
imagine," Brandt said, "that one could create a Euro–
pean nuclear force without having a European govern–
ment to control it.'' Such a United European
government is not yet on the horizon.
The changes taking place could leave West Ger–
many, the most vulnerable West European state, with
only one eventual altemative: to work out a "modus
vivendi" or working arrangement with the Soviet Union
to gain breathing room to strengthen its own defenses.
And such a development could be the most dangerous
of all, ironically, to both the Soviet Union and tbe West.
As one leading U. S. news weekly put it:
"Without heavy U. S. suppoJt to lean on, West
Germany would be confronted with the pressures to
take such politícally sensitive steps as enlarging the
467,000-man Bundeswehr and perhaps going nu–
clear. The German issue would again become the cen–
tral question in Europe."
7