Word: rearmaments
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Early this year, Aneurin Bevan, the Labor Party's aging Young Turk, decided that the time had come to stake his ambitions on what seemed to be two surefire issues. He challenged the Labor Party's leadership by opposing 1) West German rearmament, 2 ) a Southeast Asia pact. To dramatize his rebellion, he resigned from Labor's "Shadow Cabinet," gave up his front seat on the Opposition benches and retreated bulkily to the "Mountain," the backest back bench in the House of Commons, to await the showdown...
...M.P.s agreed overwhelmingly to back the Manila Pact, and afterward Nye did not even bother to appear in the House of Commons when it won easy approval. A few days later the second blow fell: in another private session the Labor M.P.s voted 124 to 72 to support German rearmament. When the Bevanites began their insurrection, they had come within nine votes of defeating Clem Attlee on this issue; now Attlee carried the day by 52 votes...
...provided much evidence of a relaxation of the old British attitude. Self-sufficiency was obviously impossible to Britain and the Commonwealth in 1945. The minimum involvement in Europe consistent with European stability and British defense was Britain's aim. That minimum was a substantial effort in terms of rearmament programs and the stationing of the major part of Britain's armored divisions in Germany. It entailed an official abandonment of the belief that the Channel could be a defense. That has been the starting point of the post-war move away from isolationism...
...defiance of French national will, London and Washington are infatuated enough to insist on German rearmament, then the French are entitled to obtain what security they can against the evil consequences of their allies' blindness. Yet this does not mean that the issue is settled. The French Prime Minister still has a chance of preventing the Treaty ever coming into force. Having appeased his allies and thereby restored Western unity, Mendes-France must surely use the position of strength thus created in order to seek negotiations with the Russians for a German peace treaty. When that French initiative comes...
...Persuade the National Assembly, a sizable majority of which opposed Germany's rearmament, to vote 350 to 113 in favor of the principle of rearming West Germany and admitting it to NATO. ¶ Soften the big Socialist Party (105 Assembly seats) for an almost certain switch from hostile noncooperation to participation in the Mendes government. ¶ Win from fading Charles de Gaulle the promise that his followers will soon be freed to support Mendes and his program for France...