Word: erhard
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Only three months ago, Ludwig Erhard was firmly maintaining that if Charles de Gaulle insisted on pulling his troops out of the unified NATO command, he could hardly keep 72,000 of them on German soil, no matter how much he wanted to keep a watch on the Rhine. "There can be no throwback to an occupation status," Erhard declared. Then, as De Gaulle's July 1 deadline for France's NATO withdrawal began to creep nearer, Erhard allowed technical experts in Paris to negotiate a "temporary" agreement under which the French troops might stay in Germany...
From the moment De Gaulle arrived, everything pointed to success for the visitor from Paris. What with his defeat at the North Rhine-Westphalia polls fortnight ago and the constant badgering of the "Gaullist" wing of his party, Erhard presumably felt it was no time to give his enemies grounds for charging him with gumming up relations with France. In any case, he gave De Gaulle a reception that was far beyond what protocol requires for an ordinary working visit. Honor guards and anthems were in profusion, and Erhard's luncheon toast was especially cordial...
...table was tactless enough to suggest that le général had scored another tactical victory. Instead, the story was that De Gaulle had made a "concession" to Erhard by telling him that West Germany did have a right to request France to withdraw its troops, since France had clearly abrogated the 1954 NATO agreement that allowed them to stay in the first place. Erhard replied to this face-saving gesture by informing De Gaulle that West Germany would be delighted to have the French troops remain, and he "hoped and expected" that some sort of agreement would...
...nation. The state's 17 million inhabitants represent fully a third of the West German electorate, and exercise a political power that in U.S. terms would equal California's and New York's combined. Heavily Catholic, the region has traditionally given wide majorities to Erhard's Christian Democratic Union. Hence the surprise last week when, in the state's first election since 1962, Willy Brandt's Social Democrats grabbed 49.5% of the popular vote and 99 seats to the C.D.U.'s 86. The C.D.U.'s ally and coalition partner, t he Free...
Normally, Wirtschaftswunderkind Erhard has been able to allay economic fears with his prosperous presence and confident campaign style. This time the hecklers got the better of him. Speaking in Gelsenkirchen during the last week of the campaign, Erhard was confronted by a grim-faced chorus of Kumpel (miners) who closed in about the speaker's platform carrying black flags and muttering about impending mine closings. "Shameless riffraff!" snapped Erhard when they booed him. "If it hadn't been for me, these louts and hoot owls would have rotted in their diapers. Never have I seen so much stupidity...