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Shadows of the Summit Pointing West | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ulrike Meinhof |
| Publisher | konkret |
| First published | 1960 |
| Type | Article |
1960 promises to become a milestone in the much deplored, praised, and always newly exorcised twentieth century: the century of Einstein’s theory of relativity and two terrible wars, of fascism and people’s revolutions, of concentration camps and struggles for independence. In May 1960 the third postwar summit will be held in Paris. It is the third summit since the world was split into two blocs and the first summit since Cold War politics disqualified itself from the category of wise policy and became a concept with which to denounce others.
Potsdam, Geneva, Paris. Truman, Attlee, and Stalin met in Potsdam; Eisenhower, Eden, Bulganin, and Faure in Geneva. Eisenhower, Macmillan, Khrushchev, and de Gaulle will face each other in Paris. The change in names reflects projected or already established changes in political ideas. In Potsdam they decided to divide Germany into four occupation zones; a new economic order was to be set up, the NSDAP forbidden and all active National Socialists were to be removed from public office. Though the anti-Hitler alliance was no longer fully intact, there was still a certain consensus on these issues. The Paris Accords ended just before the Geneva Conference, thus finalizing the military integration of the Federal Republic into the West Bloc. So in Geneva there were smiles all around, but nothing was achieved. The Paris Conference will take place in the context of a crumbling NATO alliance, Khrushchev’s proposals on arms reductions, the Camp David talks that bore witness to the sincerity of US/Soviet intentions in regard to détente, but also in the context of the war in Algeria, the French nuclear bomb, and German-American tensions.
The summit begins on May 16. Before that date, however, virtually all of the most prominent international leaders will be crisscrossing the planet, right up to the moment the NATO council meets in Istanbul in the spring. The travels our statesmen will embark on are not just in preparation for the Paris Conference; they are being undertaken in anticipation of the situation this summit is expected to create: people know that the opportunities to equalize economic downturns can no longer be found in forced arms policies and are therefore trying to establish trade connections, open up markets, go in search of friends and clients.
When we look back over the developments of the last two years which underlie the situation today, we note a diplomatic offensive on the part of the Soviet Union that began in 1958 when the Soviet government sent out a “message” to “all the governments of the world” proposing a meeting of all leading statesmen to settle disputes. Then came the memorandum of March 19, 1958, that Smirnov, the Soviet ambassador, delivered to Bonn six days before the majority CDU government decided to equip the Bundeswehr with weapons of mass destruction. Then there was the aidemémoire from the Soviet government dated July 9, 1958, calling for a conference of experts to discuss a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. Meanwhile, in the Federal Republic, the anti-nuclear movement had been crushed by the Karlsruhe decision against a referendum, and the plan to make Central Europe a nuclear-free zone had been banned from political discussion (Strauss called the supporters of the Rapacki plan “potential war criminals”). In October the US voluntarily ended their nuclear weapons tests and the Federal Republic’s Ministry of Defense began buying Honest-John missiles and sending Bundeswehr soldiers to the US and North Africa for instruction on nuclear cannons. The result was the Berlin Note sent by the Soviets on November 27, 1958.
The “war” of the notes was followed by Mikojan’s visit to the US, Macmillan’s trip to Moscow, Khrushchev’s appearance in Washington, and the American President’s world tour, and it will be followed by further consultations among the statesmen and finally by the summit conference.
Eisenhower, Macmillan, de Gaulle, and Khrushchev will meet in Paris in May. They will arrive with four different concepts, accompanied by countless, diverse expectations from people, statesmen, and parties. In last year’s election, the leader of England’s Conservative Party already created the impression that his party was best placed to engage in peace talks. Labor, with its much better election platform, was not able to clearly differentiate itself from the government’s program. The Conservatives usurped everything that seemed desirable in terms of the arms reductions the English public emphatically demanded. Macmillan went so far as to fully identify with Khrushchev’s suggestion that there be a total reduction in arms and supported him in every detail. This strategy, apparently devised to attract voters, was realistic enough for its main ideas to be maintained to this day: a politics of détente, the refusal of nuclear weapons testing, and the willingness to reduce arms. The main focus of English economic policy is on the Commonwealth, and not on the reduced territory of Europe. Western European attempts at integration can only restrict the influence England enjoys in the remaining parts of its empire. Moreover, in the struggle to maintain the so-called Free World, England, as the traditional seat of parliamentary democracy, can only feel compromised by a partner such as the Federal Republic, or France, or even Spain. And finally, like France and Belgium, Great Britain is still engaged in Africa; if it wants to successfully offset the East Bloc’s attractiveness for African freedom fighters—in both ideas and material improvements—it must keep a free hand in regard to investments and maintain a politics of goodwill in South Africa, even if this is only feigned. These international interests in Great Britain will determine Macmillan’s position in Paris, and hold some promise for establishing a balance with the East, a balance that is not only necessary but has become possible.
Enough has been said and written about the changes in American foreign policy since Camp David. Eisenhower’s trip around the world was an attempt to explain America’s policy of reconciliation worldwide. At the same time, the new policy was implemented to make the gains that the “Dulles Concept” could not.
Because the Americans can no longer fulfill their NATO obligations in material terms but do not yet dare to cancel them, they are trying to pass the responsibility on to their European partners, where—due to confused Euro-politics—these obligations will hopefully just cancel themselves out. This is an important issue in America’s policies on Germany. The Federal Republic, which they spent many years and significant funds developing, may occasionally balk at their policies, and may attempt to annul certain established positions (in his Berlin Declaration Adenauer had the audacity to undermine the western conception established a year earlier at the Geneva Conference of foreign ministers and thus also undo a whole year of world politics). But as surely as Berlin’s freedom was never seriously under threat, it is certain that the present status of the city as a trade object between East and West makes it useful in East-West negotiations. America does not want a war, and definitely not over Berlin. America needs peace. Berlin does too!
De Gaulle, the French partner in this year’s conference, has not only been able to defuse some of the government crises with his comeback, but has also abolished the Republic, without, however, being able to achieve solid support within the country. The war in Algeria is dragging on. Europe is only of interest for economic reasons, not political reasons, and militarily, only because it could become a fourth nuclear power led by the French—a position of supremacy, for which Europe is only the vehicle, not the actual goal. The French are after rights, not duties.
One of De Gaulle’s objectives for this summit is an internationally binding paragraph that prohibits involvement in the business of other countries. This will allow him to treat the war in Algeria as a family affair of the French. He needs the support of Khrushchev for this, who wants a similar agreement to protect the East Bloc states, especially the GDR, from possible western interventions. In the East there is even talk of “aggressions.” Neither Khrushchev nor De Gaulle approve of the way the Federal Republic is developing, though their reasons may differ. De Gaulle, the nationalist, is afraid of Bonn’s striving for hegemony. Khrushchev, the leader of the East Bloc, is afraid of possible West German expansion. On the other hand, there is the so-called Bonn-Paris axis—welded together by a shared position toward the US. Much to De Gaulle’s annoyance, the US has refused to support him in the war in Algeria but is demanding higher contributions to NATO in order to ease its own financial burdens, and contrary to Adenauer’s declared plan it is seeking a change in the status of Berlin in order to pacify Central Europe. The Bonn/Paris alliance thus exists for wholly negative reasons so that we can hardly expect to rely on De Gaulle, despite all his declarations that “Berlin shall remain free.” France, with its relentless nationalism, seems willing to use almost any means to achieve its ends, but is divided in regard to internal and external ambitions, and thus may be a partner for détente, despite the weakening of its democratic system.
Khrushchev, the Communist, peasant storyteller, and the leader of the country that already dismayed European diplomats when it first developed in its current form, was the focus of world attention because of the moon shot that took place before his trip to the US. More recently, he has surprised us by reducing the Soviet Army by 1.2 million men. It is true that he is exchanging soldiers for weapons of apparently enormous size, and our busily anti-eastern press is correct in seeing this as no reduction of Soviet military potential. But a country that has embraced world Communism and been accused for years of wanting to conquer the world through military actions gains some credibility when it insists on slogans such as “peaceful coexistence” and decreases that part of its military potential that plays a decisive role in occupying other countries. In the pursuit of an aggressive politics of peace, the Soviet Union is the country least affected or irritated by internal difficulties or disagreements with its allies.
What the Soviet Union wants is clear: disarmament in the interest of increasing recognition of its system, and the overall political reinforcement of the GDR.
This leaves us with the question about the position of the Federal Republic. Germany is not the center of the world. Nor does it become the center of the world if we gaze at it and pretend it is. But Germany is racked by crises, and so every German policy has the chance to contribute to improving the political situation of the world. And what does Bonn do? It proceeds to nuclear armament. At the same time, federal ministers are promoting reactionary attitudes that scrawl the shadows of an unholy past back onto the walls while the government is planning Emergency Laws to abolish the little bit of democracy that still remains in this country. The government is preparing to use a majority vote in the Bundestag to eliminate everything that the well-intentioned constitution once stipulated as free. This is the same party that uncompromisingly says no to all moves toward reunification, all demands for disarmament, and all plans for détente. Yet it seems to have understood that it is hamstrung by this obstinate approach to foreign affairs, and that a veto by the Federal Republic will not halt this year’s developments. So, the response is to get tough. We can see a time coming when the citizens, dumbed-down by Soraya and Anastasia scandals, will finally grasp the bankruptcy of these policies and refuse to shoulder an arms budget of eleven billion DM, especially in the face of détente initiatives in the rest of the world. This explains the plan to abolish all of the citizens’ democratic rights, and to do what is always done in these situations—rule against the interests and the will of the people. The consequences of such policies are: no nuclear-free zone in Central Europe; no document on German interests at the summit; and lastly, nuclear weapons for the GDR. Two German states; two sets of German nuclear arms. And then what? Germany has the choice between a constructive politics of peace and a policy that will renew its guilt, after two world wars and twelve years of fascism.