Word: brandts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...week. The Bundestag ratified both agreements by wide margins-248 to 10 for the Moscow treaty. But 238 opposition members of the Bundestag abstained from voting on the Moscow treaty. In the Bundesrat, the upper house, a majority of the members-21 out of 41-also abstained. Chancellor Willy Brandt, leader of the Social Democratic Party, grandly described the vote as opening "a new phase in the history of the Federal Republic." That may well be so, but, reports TIME'S Bonn Bureau Chief Benjamin Cate, the result was a triumph for neither Brandt nor Rainer Barzel, head...
...final vote was announced, Brandt, his face impassive, sat stoically on the government's front bench. The treaties-and with them the attendant progress toward East-West détente-had carried well enough. But the fact that the opposition C.D.U. had abstained almost to a man deprived Brandt of the "broad majority" he had labored to achieve and was a dismaying reversal of a carefully worked out bipartisan compromise...
...vote dramatized Bonn's present crisis of leadership. Both Brandt and Barzel had seen the impasse coming at least three months ago, but did little to head it off. Brandt, the brilliant idea man, remained characteristically aloof. He knew that his unstable coalition of Social Democrats and Free Democrats included some potential defectors on the treaty votes; they were treated like traitors, which simply strengthened their resolve to defect...
...newspapers had gone to press with headlines telling of the supposed Soviet intransigence. As the Bundestag assembled for the vote the next morning, it was evident that Barzel had lost control of his party, which was lining up against the treaties. Taking the floor, Barzel pleaded for a delay. Brandt imprudently pressed for a vote, but after balloting on a procedural issue ended in a deadlock, he agreed to yet another postponement and set the vote on the treaties for this week. That respite would presumably give Barzel, who at week's end was collecting support from the C.D.U...
Even so, Bonn's parliamentary crisis still will not be solved. Though the Christian Democrats may help ratify the pacts, they intend to seek the overthrow of the Brandt coalition on the next order of government business-the passage of a new budget...