Word: germanism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...powers lectured away at each other (see box), neither side budging an iota from its own plan. For the Western powers, the week of rhetoric had one advantage; it was an opportunity to impress on the world's consciousness the sweep and fairness of their package plan for German reunification and European security (TIME, May 25). But by midweek a fair share of the 120-odd diplomats and diplomatic gun bearers seated around the table in the council chamber were visibly drowsing through all speeches...
Giving away nothing, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko tried a feeble side game of trying to drive a wedge between Britain and the other Western powers. The Russians lost no opportunity to point out to U.S., French and West German diplomats how well Gromyko and Britain's Selwyn Lloyd got along, regularly praised Lloyd's speeches as "reasonable" and "well thought...
...Gromyko & Co. labored endlessly, too, to build up the prestige of their East German stooges and to label the West Germans as neo-Nazi warmongers. Although both East and West Germans had been admitted to the conference at separate tables only as "advisers," the Russians demanded that the speeches of Lothar Bolz, East Germany's pompous, vitriol-spewing Foreign Minister, be published as part of the official conference record. (Refusing, the conference secretariat noted that the question was one on which there was "permanent disagreement.") And at the week's first formal session, Gromyko, who was chairman, broke...
Seeking a way out of this impasse, the British delegation began to talk hopefully of the usefulness of "villa-hopping"'-informal "social" meetings of the Big Four foreign ministers unencumbered by their German advisers. When Herter invited Couve, Lloyd and Gromyko to dinner (fish, chicken and strawberries), the rumor spread that serious bargaining was about to begin. But guests and host sat uncommunicatively on love seats and agreed on nothing beyond the superb view of Mt. Blanc by moonlight...
Thus prospects for demilitarization are not particularly attractive. But another possibility exists, that of neutralization: Germany could have complete sovereignty except in the making of military alliances, and foreign troops would not be allowed on German soil. This plan should certainly appeal to the West: militarily, Germany would be willing and able to defend itself; politically and economically, the extremely hopeful post-war developments of the Franco-German rapprochement and the European Common Market could be preserved; Germany, legally forbidden to enter NATO, would be none-the less committed in principle to the Western point-of-view...