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as their future security in a world
increasingly dominated by the
United States and tbe Soviet Union.
Tbe disconcerting fact remains
that Europeans stood helplessly on
the sidelines while the two super–
powers brought the world to the nu–
clear brink right in their own
backyard. They watched mutely as
Washington first poured billíons of
dollars of aid into the Israelí
c~mp
and then, with its nuclear arsenal
poised, withstood Soviet attempts to
rnilitarily intervene in the Middle
East with " peace-keeping" forces.
Neitber Chancellor Brandt of
West Germany nor President Pom–
p idou of France nor Britain's Prime
Minister Heath were consulted by
the United States prior to the world–
wide alert of U.S. forces. Sorne ob–
servers belíeve Washington felt no
cornpunction to inform allies who
had a few days earlier denied it as–
sistance in bringing aid to belea–
guered Israelí forces.
lntensifying the chilly trans–
Atlantic atmospbere, Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger ftew to
Mos·cow and engineered a strictly
Soviet-American cease-fire resolu–
tion that was ramrned through the
U.N. Security Council. The initial
reaction in Europe, of course, was
one of relíef, but upon further re–
fl.ection, continentals felt that their
particular interests had not been
taken into account one whit.
The " Brutal Truth"
Europe's grandstand view of tbe
líghtning fast chain of events in the
Mideast produced rnuch bitter
hand-wringing in the press.
In an editorial in the French
newsweekly
L ' Express,
Jean
Jacques Servan-Schreiber lamented
the fact that "these three weeks of
October" 1973 revealed "the pow–
erlessness, the silence and tbe
absence of Europe." According to
West Germany's
Hamburger Abend–
blall,
"the latest war in the Middle
East has brought to light the whole
brutal truth. Europe as a whole is
politically powerless."
The politicians were not long in
4
echoing the same sentiments as the
journalísts.
French Foreign Minister Michel
Jobert charged before the French
National Assembly that the United
States and the Soviet Union were
trying to domínate the world. He
accused the two superpowers of
"brutally brushing aside Europe"
and treating
it
"like a non-person."
France's Premier Pompidou also
had sorne stern remarks to rnake.
The war in the Middle East, he said,
had exposed the weakness of Eu–
rope in a way that even the blindest
person could not fail to see.
In addition, the conduct of the
superpowers in the conflict showed
how tenuous détente between the
two really was - and how quickly it
could break down to the detrirnent
of the whole world.
The American and Soviet domi–
nated Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks (SALT) and the Vienna con–
ference on troop reductions, in
which the European Commuoity
countries had practically no say,
were yet more proof, in Pompidou's
eyes, of Europe's powerlessness.
Worse yet, at the Middle East peace
conference, held in Geneva in the
very heart of Europe, no Western
European nations had been invited.
At the same time, the ambitious
timetable of a European union by
1980,agreed upon at the París Common
Market sumrnit of October 1972, re–
mains very much a nebulous goal.
The Vatican, too, felt compelled
to add its voice to the chorus of
larnent. Pope Paul VI told a leading
European parliamentarian that the
recent international cr isis showed
once again the "necessity" for Euro–
pean union. The search for Euro–
pean union should combine both
"boldness and realism," Pope Paul
said. "You know the profound inter–
est which the Holy See has long felt
for tbe progress ofEuropean unity."
Must Have a European
Government: Brandt
l t remained for West Germany's
Willy Brandt, .however, to make the
most urgent plea for Europe to
PLAIN TRUTH February 1974