Man Of The Year: On the Road to a New Reality

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defeats, Brandt went into a deep personal decline. He drank so much that the old epithet, "Weinhrandt Willy," came back into vogue. Close friends got the impression that he no longer cared particularly whether he lived or died. But his friends and a tough core of character helped pull him through. He decided that he no longer had to be Chancellor, and he developed a measure of detachment toward the idea.

Germany was in the process of profound change, and by 1969, many of Brandt's liabilities were converted into assets. Once in office, he swiftly began executing a broad diplomatic design that had been ripening in his mind for years. Less than six weeks after he became Chancellor, Brandt went to The Hague for a meeting of the six heads of government of the Common Market countries. Largely because of Charles de Gaulle's refusal to allow the six to admit new members, the Common Market was stagnating; there was feeling that it might fall apart unless it regained momentum. "The German Parliament and public expect me to return from this conference with concrete arrangements for the Community's enlargement," Brandt told France's President Georges Pompidou in an open session. "Those who fear the economic strength of West Germany," he shrewdly added, "should favor expansion." Pompidou, who has come to regard London as a necessary counterbalance to Bonn, reversed his predecessor's policy and voted to reopen negotiations looking toward Britain's admission.

Once his Westpolitik was launched, Brandt began a complex series of diplomatic maneuvers with the East. In Communist capitals, West German diplomats became almost as ubiquitous as West German businessmen. Working seven-day weeks and driving his staff equally hard, Brandt began to negotiate renunciation-of-force pacts with the Communist nations that in effect are de facto peace treaties for ending World War II on the Eastern front. In a risky, bold gamble, Brandt tied the ratification of the treaties completely to the results of the current Big Four talks on Berlin. Unless the Soviets agree to guarantee civilian access by land from West Germany to West Berlin, located 110 miles inside East Germany, all bets will be off; Brandt will not submit the pacts to the Bundestag. As Brandt stated on a recent visit to West Berlin: "The chance for Europe to enter into a new period of easing tensions will either be lost here or won here. Where the cold war was coldest, it will be the most difficult."

In other installments of his Ostpolitik, Brandt: > Flew to the Soviet capital last August to sign the Treaty of Moscow. The agreement in effect recognized the unpleasant reality of Russian hegemony in Eastern Europe by accepting present borders.

>Shattered one of Bonn's most sacred cold war shibboleths by renouncing claims to 40,000 sq. mi. of former German lands, including Silesia and most of East Prussia and Pomerania, that were granted by the wartime victors to Poland after World War II.

The treaty that Brandt signed last month opens the way for the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between Bonn and Warsaw. Similar negotiations have begun with Prague, and are expected to start soon with Budapest and Sofia.

> Met with East German Premier Willi Stoph last spring in the first two summit meetings ever held between