FRENCH DEFENSE

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The French have provoked your writer (November 4), Mr. Rothenberg. French foreign policy, he tells us, lacks content and compounds injured vanity with a facade of anachronistic grandeur. Asserting that the French are a second-rate power, he wishes them to play the part, with help, if necessary, from the State Department. The current political evolution of Europe is of such historic import that I am writing you an alternative analysis of French foreign policy.

First of all, I gather from daily newspaper reading that de Gaulle wants to weld France and Germany into an economic block around which Italy, the Benelux countries, and perhaps others would revolve. Representing a population equal to that of the United States, this block is intellectually the most fertile region on the globe, and industrially close to the American potential.

Within this entity, the leadership--economic and, in time, political--can fall only to France or Germany. Here enters the German problem for France. The French can manage Western Germany, for the common fear of Germany would cast the smaller powers on France's side in a contest for primacy. And, through a European block, Germany would have a large market for her goods and the ability to make her weight felt in the world. Thus, a marriage de convenance could be effected between Paris and Bonn.

The economic and political configurations this would create have not, I would guess, gone unnoticed in Washington, London or Moscow. Neither London nor Moscow wants to see such a force arise. Now begins the game.

If we assume the feasibility of this new Continental power--with Paris as its capital and with half of Africa under its sway--both London and Moscow will try to prevent its emergence. The decisive stroke to that end would be to separate Germany from France, and this goal can be achieved through a summit meeting.

If Germany is reunited, each side will insist on neutrality and nonalignment with any block, including a new Western block under the French. Further, a reunited Germany would be too strong for France, who, along with other nations, would not accept German domination.

Without publicly admitting his plan, de Gaulle is thus led to oppose reunification of Germany--a stand unpopular with German public opinion, but necessary to his design. At present, time is working for the French. Their industry is expanding rapidly; their birth rate is the highest in Europe; and the end of the Algerian war will strengthen their power on the Continent.

De Gaulle can outmaneuver London and Moscow by putting off the summit meeting as long as possible and, when obliged to attend, by insisting on bargaining terms impossible for the Russians to accept. In other words, by preventing any change in the status quo....

The French insistence on the atom bomb is, of course, based partly on considerations of prestige and of grandeur, but perhaps we can discern more mundane military reasoning involved. Once the French have put their name on the label, I surmise that de Gaulle will quietly "Europeanize" the bomb project, and bring in German technicians. The object of these efforts would be to increase the Continent's nuclear power to the point where it could annihilate the U.S.S.R. Then the block would have won its freedom both from fear of Russia, and from dependence on the United States for protection. In a race of intelligence, the Continent, though a late-comer, can compete with no misgivings.

What I have proposed is, I recognize, a hypothesis, but I advance it as a more plausible explanation of French actions than the moral shortcomings Mr. Rothenberg denounces. Lino Zambrana,   Teaching Felow In Social Relations.