Word: bonne
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Secretary of State Cyrus Vance sounded out U.S. allies on possible economic moves against Iran during two days of hopscotching around Western Europe. He consulted with government leaders in London, Paris, Rome, Bonn and finally at the NATO meeting in Brussels. The allied governments previously had denounced Tehran for holding the hostages, but most of them are heavily dependent on Iranian petroleum and seemed unwilling to support any action that might cause Tehran to shut off their oil. Observed Harvard International Affairs Professor Stanley Hoffmann, who is on sabbatical in Paris: " There is on the part of Europeans a tendency...
...members of NATO, notably The Netherlands and Belgium. The opposition socialist parties in The Netherlands managed to collect enough support to put the Dutch Parliament on record as opposing the missile plan. Caught in a domestic political dilemma, Premier Andreas van Agt dashed off to Washington, Rome, London and Bonn in search of a compromise...
During the six-hour session, the West Germans were openly impatient with the Dutch and the Belgians on the missile question. Said Bonn's Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher: "We Germans realize you have political difficulties. But two out of three of the new rockets will be based on our territory." He called on the organization to make "a clear-cut decision for the sake of the alliance...
That was certainly true for the West German government. In a move that left Bonn officials sputtering in helpless surprise, Morgan Guaranty Trust, the U.S.'s fifth largest bank and a leading creditor of the Iranian government, quietly went into an Essen court and attached Iran's 25% share of two of West Germany's best-known companies, Friedrich Krupp GmbH, a diversified steel and engineering combine (1978 sales: $5.9 billion), and Deutsche Babcock, a manufacturer of industrial equipment (1978 sales: $1.6 billion). Iranian stakes in the two companies were acquired under the Shah...
...West Germans, the Morgan Guaranty action was an unnecessary power play that, because of the court action, threatened to propel West Germany directly into the U.S.-Iranian conflict. Said a finance ministry official in Bonn: "It was a damned stupid thing to do. This is endangering not only our business interests, but the lives of 1,500 West Germans still in Iran...