journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Ronald W. Pruessen
means of making it safe to tap the resources of a reviving Germany, that is – also
discussed above – had a reach that went beyond the defeated enemy and had origins
of a far more generic nature. If Europeans – not just Germans – could move
toward cooperative rather than competitive relationships, it was argued, the vicious
cycle of war and peace might at last be broken. If they could begin to break down
traditional walls of trade and currency restrictions, for example, functional collaboration
would rationalize the economic environment – and generalized prosperity
would reduce the likelihood of new internecine clashes.
The Marshall Plan was a crucial early product of such thinking, a means of vivifying
Washington’s interest in the need for a new kind of European house. The
Plan’s cooperatively drafted blueprint spurred optimistic thoughts of a new era in
transatlantic relations. But by the end of 1949, it seemed clear that the pace was not
being maintained in the way desired by US policy makers. Britain, France, and others
were seen as dragging their feet on the kind of ongoing economic reforms originally
envisioned, for example. Early discussions of taking further steps toward the
rehabilitation and reintegration of Germany produced little cooperation, as well. In
a pessimistic conversation with colleagues Charles Bohlen and Paul Nitze, George
Kennan revealingly argued that “Europe is a patient whom we have been treating
and who we can now say will not die but who, during the convalescent period, is
showing decided tendencies to drift back into its former bad habits of disunity.”
(Italics added.) 42
Halting this drift became a major Washington objective, beginning well before
the outbreak of conflict in Korea and emphatically continuing long after its conclusion.
Working with like-minded Europeans, US policy makers more and more
enthusiastically pushed an integrationist agenda. Spring 1950’s Schuman Plan
became the most dramatic early effort, prompting heartfelt Washington support. Its
successful execution, John McCloy argued, would serve as “a sort of test of
whether the European countries are yet prepared to work together in creating a progressive
European community which will advance the interests of all and overcome
the cleavages of the conflicts of the past.” 43 This was exactly the kind of logic soon
attached to EDC. Building a new supranational institution within which to achieve
German rearmament would fortuitously accomplish a number of goals in one fell
swoop. The tools of “dual containment” would be strengthened, to be sure, but
progress toward the construction of a new European house would also be advanced
– and Europeans would be better able to enjoy the peace and prosperity threatened
by the Soviets, the Germans, and themselves. It would be possible, as Dean Acheson
put it, “to reverse incipient divisive nationalist trends on the continent” and
forestall what George Ball called “the insidious exhumation of old, dark rivalries,
fears, and complexes.” 44
42. FRUS, 1950, III, 620.
43. Quoted in SCHWARTZ, America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany,
198.
44. Acheson in FRUS, 1949, IV, 471; Ball quoted in SCHWARTZ, America’s Germany: John J. Mc-
Cloy and the Federal Republic of Germany, 96.