It was wonderful how quickly diplomats could agree when they were willing to be reasonable.
When the foreign ministers of Britain and France sat down with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, almost everyone expected that their conversations would be of the dull and profitless sort that are officially known as "exploratory." The talks proved to be nothing of the kind. Last week, after months of recriminations, bickerings and mutual suspicions, France's Robert Schuman, Britain's Ernest Bevin, and Acheson swiftly compromised their quarrels and wrote what amounted to an interim peace treaty for...