Rich Uncle From Germany

It is said that Konrad Adenauer keeps an autographed photo of John Foster Dulles in back of his desk. The photo, if it really exists, can be made symbolic of many things, one of which being the extent to which West Germany feels out of touch with the Kennedy administration.

For there is no western nation so anxious as Germany about the shape of things to come under Kennedy; Berlin and, to a lesser extent, re-unification haunt the Germans, who feel that any change in the perpetual Berlin crisis is automatically a catastrophe and want new reassurance from the U.S. Bonn's recent offer to ease America's balance of payments dilemma and the forthcoming visit of Foreign Minister von Brentano on the sixteenth testify to this anxiety.

It is thus a pity that Germany's aid offer is niggardly and selfish, for generous assistance at this point would allay their worries about estrangement from Kennedy. Germany had a two billion dollar surplus in its balance of payments last year, compared with America's $3,800,000 deficit. Yet all but ten million of the billion dollar aid offer German officials have billed "generous" is earmarked for pre-payment on arms purchases and loans from the U.S. which Germany would have spent the money on anyway.

Part of the reason for Germany's poor show--besides Finance Minister Erhardt, who claims that the U.S.'s money troubles are short-term--is that this is election year. There is popular worry at home over the need for a better atmosphere between Germany and its friends and the usual opposition to spending money on practically anything. Von Brentano's meeting with Kennedy, like Adenauer's talks with De Gaulle costs nothing and can be presented to a smug electorate as a diplomatic merit badge: personal diplomacy is cheap.

When von Brentano reaches Washington, Kennedy will have to be blunt. The immediate root of Bonn's difficulties is not Berlin, but Germany's refusal to assume its share of the West's financial burden. In return for the guarantees Kennedy is prepared to offer on Berlin, he must insist on systematic German contributions for economic assistance to underdeveloped countries. The United States is in for a prolonged recession, no matter what Erhardt says, and it is time for the Germans to pick up some of the West's checks.