Word: schmidts
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...Europeans were to "stop a moment" as Schmidt asked on the 30th anniversary, they might see through the clear glass of the present that the postwar achievements of West Germany he listed are already far more than anybody could have expected. Even those Europeans who quibble with Bonn's economic policy know that the country that turned the Ruhr into the peacetime turbine of Europe should be more than capable also of becoming more outward looking and less tightfisted, given time. Many are willing to bet on it, and therefore to welcome the growing West German power. "What disturbs...
...Schmidt in the past has scarcely concealed the personal animosity and near scorn he feels toward Carter. He has made frosty comments about Carter's "preachy fanaticism" on human rights and his "narrow evangelistic approach" to the problem of nuclear proliferation. The President's turnabout on the neutron bomb, when he suddenly stopped plans to develop the weapon after imploring West European governments to accept it into the NATO arsenal, deepened Bonn's suspicions about the Administration's capacity for leadership. Actually Schmidt could not escape a share of the responsibility in the neutron bomb affair, having stonewalled Carter...
When the dollar went on the skids last year, Schmidt's view of what he regarded as Carter's unpredictability and vacillation became downright disdainful: "What sort of a government is it that lets its country's currency go to hell?" he is said to have asked American visitors in Bonn...
Reciprocal suspicions were aroused on the U.S. side when Bonn cautiously dragged its feet about reflating its economy in order to serve with the U.S. and Japan as a "locomotive" of the world economy. Schmidt stirred up other apprehensions about what Washington regarded as West Germany's self-centered approach to economic problems. A key example: Schmidt's vigorous campaign for the European Monetary System, which, except for the British pound, ties European Community currencies together within a narrow band of fluctuation. The scheme was originally devised as a protective measure for Europe against the gyrations of the dollar...
...fears that Bonn's assertively independent approach, which French Pundit Raymond Aron dubbed "Gaullism in a minor key," might prove a threat to Western solidarity. The first hint that West Germany might possibly be distancing itself from NATO was delivered by a leading figure of the left wing of Schmidt's own Social Democratic Party. Just as General Alexander Haig and other NATO commanders were warning about the Soviet Union's ominous military buildup, the S.P.D.'s parliamentary floor leader, Herbert Wehner, insisted that Moscow's moves were "defensive and not offensive." Wehner argued against the deployment of U.S. Cruise...