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Alphabetic Cipher. If EDC were fact, the Communists might respond to these stirring challenges. As it is, they can thumb their noses at an alphabetic cipher. Three years of delay and cavil have convinced many Europeans and more Americans that nothing so troublesome, and so lukewarmly supported, as EDC can ever work well. The case against EDC:
¶That having lost its momentum, EDC is stalled, and likely to stay stalled.
¶ That EDC is too complicated. "An imperfect treaty, full of faults," complained a Dutch supporter.
¶ That EDC demands too great a surrender of a nation's sovereignty (control of its armed forces) to be politically acceptable. Coalitions are consistent with a nation's selfesteem; a common uniform and an intertwined command are not.
¶ That EDC is militarily cumbersome and impractical. General Gruenther insists that EDC is "completely feasible and workable," but a lot of lesser hands don't think so.
¶ That EDC is part of a "crash" buildup program to meet an emergency that no longer exists in so threatening a form. Those now unwilling to make the sac-rifi es demanded in EDC point out that the U.S. (despite its talk of no relaxation) is now cutting its arms budget and its foreign aid. General Gruenther, called home to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee on becoming head of NATO, said: "I do not think war is ever going to come [in Europe]. We are going to stop it from starting . . ."
Counterforces. To be sure, Gruenther added that "if ever there was a time for relaxation, this is not it." But Europeans are resigned to this kind of U.S. moralizing. Not even EDC's most ardent champions expect ratification before mid-1954. Three big counterforces bar the way:
The First is Russia, which can be expected to pay a high diplomatic price to prevent German rearmament on the side of the West. In France, the Russians peddle the line that German arms are no longer necessary because the danger of Soviet attack is "remote and receding." In Germany, its agents hint that the Red army might be withdrawn from the rebellious East Zone in return for a German pledge of "neutrality."
The Second counterforce is German unity, the only campaign issue that could upset Konrad Adenauer in the September elections. Adenauer's Socialist opponents charge that the integration of the West German Republic into a West European alliance will make permanent the partition of their country.
The 77-year-old Chancellor vigorously repudiates this point of view. So does the U.S. "I do not and have never accepted the theory that EDC and [German] unification are mutually exclusive," wrote President Eisenhower in an open letter to Adenauer. "Quite the contrary." EDC, said the President, is "the simplest, most unequivocal, and most self-evident demonstration of strength for peace . . ."