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Integrating Europe or Ending the Cold War? 47
Prime Minister’s summit diplomacy constituted a western trap. At least, a statement
by the Soviet diplomat Rodionov supports this interpretation. In a conversation
with British diplomat Frank Roberts in mid-August 1954 Rodionov admitted that
Moscow had to bear some of the responsibility for the failure of Churchill’s summitry.
He indicated:
“that the Russian leaders were by no means sure what the Prime Minister really
wanted to do at such a meeting and, with their naturally suspicious outlook, were
reluctant to commit themselves to something the outcome of which they could not
quite foresee.” 166
In the following months Churchill attempted several times to continue his work
for a summit conference. 167 However, partly due to skillful manipulation by Foreign
Office officials the opportunity did not arise. 168 Above all, the final refusal of
the French Parliament to ratify the EDC treaty in August 1954 led to a crisis in the
western capitals which made all summit diplomacy impossible. An alternative solution
for West German rearmament and integration with the West had to be found.
Eventually, at two conferences in London and Paris in September and October
1954, Eden succeeded in realizing the so-called NATO/WEU solution which
Churchill supported as well. This was basically the solution both the Attlee and
Churchill administrations as well as the Foreign Office had always hoped to
achieve. In May 1955 the Federal Republic became a member of NATO and at the
same time obtained its semi-sovereignty. Its integration with the West had been
realized. 169 Churchill’s constant advertisement of the NATO solution between 1952
and 1954 may well have contributed to the fact that in the end such a solution was
seen as the only reasonable alternative to the EDC. Eden’s successful crisis diplomacy
was above all the result of the careful search for alternatives by the British
experts throughout 1953 and 1954. The simultaneous inclusion of West Germany
into the reformed Western European Union (WEU) to control the amount of armaments
and troops the Federal Republic possessed and Britain’s agreement not to
166. PRO: FO 800/823, minute Kirkpatrick to Churchill with enclosed memorandum about the conversation
between Roberts and Rodionov on 14 Aug. 1954, PM/IK/54/131, dated 16 Aug. 1954
(Churchill circulated the memorandum in the course of the cabinet meeting on 18 Aug. 1954: CAB
129/70, C.(54)271).
167. He still spoke of the necessity of a “parley at the summit”. See BOYLE (ed.), Correspondence,
p.167: Churchill to Eisenhower, 8 Aug. 1954.
168. In March-April 1955, for example, the officials prevented a visit by Eisenhower to London which
would have given Churchill an opportunity to postpone his retirement once again. He would undoubtedly
have attempted to persuade the President once again of the necessity to convene a summit
conference. See Bodleian Library, Oxford: Woolton Papers, 3, diary 1942-1960, p.150, 15
March 1955; PRO: FO 800/763; PREM 11/893; CAB 128/28, C.C.(55)23rd conclusions, 14 March
1955; GILBERT, Never Despair, pp.1102-11; SELDON, Indian Summer, pp.52-53; COLVILLE,
Fringes of Power, pp.705-06.
169. For the nine power London conference (28 Sep. – 3 Oct. 1954), the most important meeting to work
out an alternative solution to the EDC to realize the western integration of the Federal Republic,
see PRO: FO 371/125 146 (Sep.- Oct.1954); FO 371/109 773-76 (Oct.1954). For secondary literature
see notes 81 and 133 above; also H. EHLERT et al. (eds.), Die NATO-Option, Munich 1993;
GERSDORFF, Adenauers Außenpolitik, pp.249 ff.