Word: mend
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...offer created a sensation. It gave Frenchmen the assurance they most had desired, the prerequisite they most insisted on before letting the Germans, whom they do not trust, rearm. In the conference room, tears shone in Frenchmen's eyes. Paul-Henri Spaak put said his hand on Mendès shoulder and said quietly "You've won." Mendès replied: "Britain's guarantee will rejoice the heart of France...
Fourth Day. Feeling bad from a cold, Mendès-France suddenly accused the committee on German arms control of ignoring French wishes. His tone was so disagreeable that several delegates feared that he was trying to throw up another roadblock. At this point, Chairman Eden gaveled for silence and read Mendès a pointed lecture: "Some people talk about the importance of their Parliaments. I must say that my own Parliament will be very surprised if a question of arms control is considered more important than the concession my government has made to Western unity." With that, Eden...
...gloom persisted throughout an evening session, in which, confessed a British spokesman harsh words were exchanged." Mendès wanted the Brussels pact powers to control the distribution of U.S. arms aid to Europe. Dulles flatly refused. The Frenchman also insisted that he did not object to the Germans making "submachine guns and cartridges," but did not want them building tanks and planes. At that, the Germans demurred. The usually impeccable Eden emerged from the fourth day's session with his hair ruffled and his face damp with perspiration...
Fifth Day. Next morning, to break the developing stalemate, John Foster Dulles took Mendès-France aside and asked him bluntly: "Just what are you after- everything?" The ministers shooed all but one aide each out of the conference room and settled down to a tough brass-tacks bar gaining session. The result was a compromise plan proposed by Dulles and made acceptable to the French by a generous new pledge from Konrad Adenauer. West Germany, he promised, would "never have recourse to force to achieve reunification [of Germany]." The Dulles-Adenauer compromise provided that: 1 ) Germany would agree...
...France seethed with indignant fascination last week as the arrest of one Communist-hunting policeman mush roomed into a major scandal involving high government servants, top state secrets and espionage. While Premier Pierre Mendès-France labored across the channel at the London Conference, a dizzying succession of arrests, disclosures and confessions revealed that vital secrets of France's National Defense Committee had methodically leaked to the Communists. There were suggestions that the secrets had been going to other foreign powers as well. The permanent secretary-general of the Defense Committee was indicted for negligence...