WEST GERMANY: Man in a Hurry

As West Germany's Minister of Defense, beefy, hard-driving Franz Josef Strauss has been a vigorous foe of Prussianism. Whenever the officers of West Germany's new, "democratic" army showed any signs of reverting to the autocratic traditions of the Junkers, Bavarian-born Minister Strauss cracked down hard—and thereby won the applause of most of his countrymen. But last week Franz Josef Strauss was learning firsthand the full depth of West Germans' postwar distaste for jack-in-office arrogance.

The trouble began when Strauss, on his way to an appointment with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, decided to use...

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