"That I should be forced to make a German national army is ridiculous; it is grotesque," West Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer complained not long ago. But having accepted the necessity, Adenauer decided to get on with it, and to have something started before Geneva could undo it. In his haste, Chancellor Adenauer, a democrat at heart but sometimes an autocrat in practice, had demanded a blank check from the Bundestag (TIME, July 11). Last week the Bundestag gave the chancellor a salutary lesson.
The lesson was administered principally by a member of Adenauer's own Christian Democratic Party, Richard Jaeger, 42, chairman...