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Schmidt in the past has scarcely concealed the personal animosity and near scorn he feels toward Carter. He has made frosty comments about Carter's "preachy fanaticism" on human rights and his "narrow evangelistic approach" to the problem of nuclear proliferation. The President's turnabout on the neutron bomb, when he suddenly stopped plans to develop the weapon after imploring West European governments to accept it into the NATO arsenal, deepened Bonn's suspicions about the Administration's capacity for leadership. Actually Schmidt could not escape a share of the responsibility in the neutron bomb affair, having stonewalled Carter's urgings in the first place.
When the dollar went on the skids last year, Schmidt's view of what he regarded as Carter's unpredictability and vacillation became downright disdainful: "What sort of a government is it that lets its country's currency go to hell?" he is said to have asked American visitors in Bonn.
Reciprocal suspicions were aroused on the U.S. side when Bonn cautiously dragged its feet about reflating its economy in order to serve with the U.S. and Japan as a "locomotive" of the world economy. Schmidt stirred up other apprehensions about what Washington regarded as West Germany's self-centered approach to economic problems. A key example: Schmidt's vigorous campaign for the European Monetary System, which, except for the British pound, ties European Community currencies together within a narrow band of fluctuation. The scheme was originally devised as a protective measure for Europe against the gyrations of the dollar. But as the deutsche mark became an increasingly popular reserve currency in the treasuries of many countries, some economists suspected Schmidt was chauvinistically trying to create a "mark zone" that would eventually rival the dollar's dominion in international finance.
The diplomatic friction between Washington and Bonn eventually led to fears that Bonn's assertively independent approach, which French Pundit Raymond Aron dubbed "Gaullism in a minor key," might prove a threat to Western solidarity. The first hint that West Germany might possibly be distancing itself from NATO was delivered by a leading figure of the left wing of Schmidt's own Social Democratic Party. Just as General Alexander Haig and other NATO commanders were warning about the Soviet Union's ominous military buildup, the S.P.D.'s parliamentary floor leader, Herbert Wehner, insisted that Moscow's moves were "defensive and not offensive." Wehner argued against the deployment of U.S. Cruise and Pershing II nuclear-tipped missiles on West German soil to counter Soviet intermediate-range weapons not covered by SALT II.
Schmidt, whose personal commitment to NATO is unquestioned in Washington, managed to squelch Wehner and reassure his European allies. But the dovish words from S.P.D. leftists could not help raising the specter of a West Germany one day seeking a "special relationship" with the Soviet Union at the expense of the West, perhaps in the