Word: brandts
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...quaffing a friendly beer together in the Bundestag cafeteria? They were, as it happened, none other than West Germany's two foremost political rivals. Only the week before, Opposition Leader Rainer Barzel had tried and failed by a bare margin of two votes to overthrow Chancellor Willy Brandt. But over beer and in countless hurried conferences, the two men were seeking to find a mutual way out of a severe parliamentary crisis that threatened to have grave repercussions far beyond the borders of the Federal Republic...
...crisis centered on the treaties of Moscow and Warsaw, which Brandt negotiated in 1970 as part of his famed Ostpolitik. The treaties have become keystones to further progress in East-West detente; other major diplomatic initiatives, including the Big Four agreement that seeks to eliminate Berlin as a source of cold war tensions, will go into effect only after the ratification of those two pacts...
Soviet Word. Brandt had originally intended to submit the treaties to the Bundestag for ratification last week. But in the wake of the narrowly won no-confidence test and a subsequent tie vote in the Bundestag on a budget appropriation, he feared that the coalition of his Social Democratic Party and the Free Democrats would no longer command the necessary majority to pass the treaties. Rather than risk a defeat, Brandt postponed balloting for one week so that he and Christian Democrat Leader Barzel could have an opportunity to work out a solution...
Confidence Vote. The crisis began building after last week's state elections in Baden-Württemberg, where the opposition Christian Democratic Union polled an absolute majority of 53.1% v. 37.5% for Brandt's Social Democratic Party and 8.9% for his coalition partners, the Free Democrats. Emboldened by those results, and heartened by the defection of yet another Free Democratic Deputy from the ruling coalition, the Christian Democrats decided to try to replace Brandt with their own leader, Rainer Barzel, 47, a tough and clever political infighter who affects long sideburns and flashy suits...
...Bundestag began its debate on Brandt's request for a record $35 billion budget for 1973, the C.D.U. introduced a "constructive vote" of no confidence, a parliamentary procedure that is unique to West Germany. Mindful of the governmental instability during the Weimar Republic, the framers of West Germany's postwar constitution had provided constructively that a Chancellor could only be ousted by a secret vote that installs...