For weeks hard-driving Ludwig Erhard, West Germany's portly, pink-faced Minister of Economics, had been looking forward to the day when he would fly off to New York to lecture at Columbia University. Almost alone among the men who govern Western Europe Erhard openly doubted the economic wisdom of the proposed European Common Market ("There is no economic sense in creating an island of protection in Europe"). The New York visit, he figured, would give him a fine chance to disabuse Americans of what he considered their excessive enthusiasm for the project.
Last week, just two days before he was scheduled to leave...
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