Word: rearmaments
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That mood was strong late last week when Adenauer, flying back to Bonn, summoned the Bundestag for a showdown over rearmament. The 1949 constitution written by Bonn and the Western powers forbids German rearmament. To make rearmament legal, Adenauer laid before the House an amendment−he called it "clarification"−to the constitution. The proposal was drafted and redrafted a dozen times to make it bulletproof if attacked in the courts by the Socialists, and to make it more acceptable to two balky parties inside Adenauer's coalition...
Other Ways. But more significant than the fact that West Germany had changed its constitution to permit rearmament was the language which changed it. Originally, the Adenauer clarification was designed to permit rearmament only within the European Army. The language approved by the Bundestag last week was far broader, authorized a defense force of any sort−if not EDC, perhaps an army within NATO and, theoretically, even a new German national army...
...listening, Berlin proved one thing: Russia has no intention of yielding her grip on Germany−now or at any time in the foreseeable future. Hope of agreement died early in Berlin; the West must now press ahead with its long-postponed needs, chief among them German rearmament...
...conference last fall, the Labor Party resolved that "there should be no German rearmament before further efforts have been made to secure the peaceful reunification of Germany." In Attlee's view, Berlin satisfied those further efforts. At a meeting of the parliamentary Labor Party last week, he proposed a resolution declaring Labor's support−at last−of German inclusion in Western defense. Up jumped young (37) Harold Wilson, Nye Bevan's right-hand man. The West had been no more conciliatory than Molotov at Berlin, he argued. He proposed an amendment postponing the questions...
...Bloody Silly." But afterwards, in the smoking room, Bevan was surrounded by excited followers urging him to resign from Labor's shadow cabinet. Bevan, who believes German rearmament is inevitable anyway, and has been trying to acquire a reputation as a solid elder statesman, was scornful. "This isn't a resignation issue, I tell you," he snorted. "Why the hell should I resign, perhaps only for a matter of weeks? It would be bloody silly...