Word: brandts
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...facing elections, though they are still quite a way off. Nonetheless, political maneuvering has already begun between the Socialists and the Christian Democrats, now joined in an uneasy coalition that will be dissolved just before the voters go to the polls some time in autumn 1969. Last week Willy Brandt, the Socialist leader who is also Foreign Minister in the Grand Coalition, took the occasion of a Socialist Party convention in Nürnberg to fire an opening salvo designed to shred some of the areas of agreement that have held the coalition partners together...
...most of the past 150 years. The banquet had a double purpose: to celebrate the return of the palace, seized by the French at the end of World War II, and to set the mood for this week's visit by Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger and Foreign Minister Willy Brandt. Of such importance was the occasion, in fact, that West German President Heinrich Lübke had flown in from Bonn to act as De Gaulle's host...
...Many? The dispatch reported that Willy Brandt had just told a rally of his Social Democratic Party that De Gaulle, far from being a friend, was a "power-thirsty old man" obsessed by "rigid, un-European ideas." Stunned, Couve said to an aide: "Power-thirsty! Perhaps Herr Brandt had one glass too many." When De Gaulle heard the news, he was furious. Next morning he summoned Couve to the Elysée Palace, and Couve in turn summoned German Ambassador Manfred Klaiber to demand an explanation. The ambassador was in agony. He apologized profusely for the dispatch, which had been...
Even when a tape recording of the speech proved that Brandt had not insulted De Gaulle, De Gaulle refused to listen, using the episode to embarrass the Germans and crack a whip over their heads. To show the Germans what he thought of them, he summarily canceled luncheon invitations to two visiting Bonn Cabinet ministers, treated President Lübke with frosty politeness and left hanging the threat of a formal French protest. It was not until later in the week, after he had extracted what he could from the situation, that De Gaulle allowed his information minister to announce...
...stop vetoing British entry into the Common Market and stop meddling in such West German affairs as relations with East Germany. But De Gaulle overplayed his hand, making the Germans more determined than ever to press him. "I will not travel to Paris in sackcloth and ashes," said Brandt, "and this applies all the more to the Chancellor. It is high time that we put an end to what many in this country regard as sheer mischief...