Word: bevin
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...began with Yalta: "The solution arrived at . . . was looked upon by His Majesty's Government at that time as a sensible compromise . . . [but] the Communist process goes ruthlessly on. . . . You have only to look at your maps. . . ." With a sort of elephantine perversity, Bevin droned over the old ground of Greece, Trieste and Lake Success. His audience fidgeted. He said: " [The] policy on the part of the Soviet Union [is] to use every means in their power to get Communist control in Eastern Europe and . . . in the West as well." What did the British government propose...
...Spiritual Union." Then Bevin gave them the phrase they were waiting for: "Western Union." It was a milestone in postwar history. Bevin explained it: "I believe the time is ripe for a consolidation of Western Europe...
...Luxembourg. Later (if the April elections there go the right way), "the new Italy" might be brought in, as well as Portugal. There was no hard & fast schedule, no thought of immediate federation or a United States of Europe. More than the western edge of Europe was involved. Bevin pointed to the British Commonwealth, to the overseas territories of Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Portugal. And Bevin said what the union could not be-a system for dominating the smaller states. Said Bevin: "It must be a spiritual union . . . more of a brotherhood and less of a rigid system...
...week, that their Ernie had indeed made or confirmed a historic change. A main tradition of British foreign policy had been to stand aloof from Europe, and to use Britain's weight to keep two opposing continental groups in a balance where British power could tip the scales. Bevin still believed that "no one nation should dominate Europe." But he added: "The old-fashioned conception of the balance of power should be discarded...
Cabled TIME'S London Bureau Chief John Osborne: "Perhaps Bevin's words seemed flat to his British hearers because so much of his history had already been made. Part of the profound change that has overtaken Britons in the last year has been the growing awareness that they are Europeans, no longer islanded in glorious and superior detachment. Recognition of Russia as Britain's enemy and European Communism as the enemy's instrument has proceeded apace for many months; the process is now well nigh complete...