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The Vision Ahead. The U.S. is backing Britain's initiative with unalloyed enthusiasm—and, at times, pushing it with so much vigor that the more discreet British are downright embarrassed. U.S. policymakers, like many in Europe, are still fearful that the Six, dominated by France and Germany, could become a "Little Europe" and then retire behind high tariff walls into a political third-force position.
With her ties to the U.S. and the multiracial Commonwealth, Britain's adherence to the Continent is the free world's best hope that Europe will evolve instead into a liberal, outward-looking community committed for the foreseeable future to the Western Alliance.
Despite serious obstacles it is increasingly probable—if by no means certain—that Britain will be admitted to the Common Market. When that happens, the Market will encompass close to 224 million people—more than the U.S. (185 million) or the U.S.S.R. (218 million). It will produce more coal and steel than either of the present-day great powers, be the world's second biggest automaker (after the U.S.), absorb almost half of all world exports. If Britain's partners in the rival European Free Trade Association (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal) become associated with the community, it will number some 264 million people.
Committed by its charter, the Treaty of Rome, to enduring and "ever closer union," the Common Market may become a United States of Europe in the 1970s, with general elections, as British Liberal Leader Jo Grimond predicts, "reaching from the Orkney Islands to Sicily.
" The Man for the Job. The man charged by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan with the day-to-day burden of bringing about this goal is a lifelong, dedicated European. Blue-eyed, silver-haired Ted Heath, 46, was born on the Kentish coast within sight of France—or "the mainland," as he calls it today. In his maiden speech before the House of Commons in 1950, Heath urged the government (in vain) to join the European Coal & Steel Community, the germinal economic pact that was planned as a first step toward the federation of Europe. Last month E.C.S.C. members finally agreed to study Britain's application for full membership. The "Minister for Europe," as Heath is sometimes called, is closer to Prime Minister Macmillan than any other man in British politics. "Ted Heath," drawls Harold Macmillan, "is a man I would go tiger hunting with."
For his current Brussels safari, the Lord Privy Seal* hand-picked a high-echelon band of astute and experienced civil servants. Headed by Sir Pierson Dixon, Britain's ambassador in Paris, they are known as "the Flying Knights" because of their titles and breathless commuting between capitals. With their support, the Lord Privy Seal has won a degree of respect from the Eurocrats that is rarely granted British officials on the Continent. Round the horseshoe table in the faceless slab that houses Belgium's Foreign Ministry on Brussels' Rue des Quatre Bras, they soon discovered that Heath's affable