No. 70

850.33/12–1551: Telegram

The United States High Commissioner for Germany ( McCloy) to the Secretary of State 1
confidential

743. Adenauer suffered minor but sharp rebuff at hand of Parliament Dec 13 when Council of Elders rejected his request to schedule Schuman Plan debate before Christmas.

[Page 138]

Difficulty arose when, at early session of Council of Elders, CSU Horlacher allegedly slightly intoxicated broke coalition front by agreeing to SPD motion to postpone debate till Jan 3 taking with him FDP and DP with CDU abstaining in resultant confusion. Thereupon Adenauer summoned coalition leaders reestablished majority front for debate Dec 18 and thereafter attended second session of Council of Elders where he sharply demanded debate before Christmas on ground he needed early ratification to strengthen hand in coming international conferences. SPD deputies cleverly avoiding issue of Schuman Plan per se, roundly berated Chancellor for his highhanded treatment of Bundestag citing numerous instances in which he had snubbed his own coalition floor leaders. Smouldering resentment of latter was thus aroused and acrimonious exchanges on issue of Adenauer attitude to elected representatives ensued in which Adenauer found himself attacked by all sides. Finally Chancellor apparently lost patience and told his attackers he didn’t care what they decided. Council with somewhat sheepish concurrence of coalition representatives then decided to hold debate Jan 9 when Parliament would normally reconvene except for fact Chancellor will be unable to report ratification at Dec 27 meeting of EDC Ministers, no real damage has been done save to his feelings and prestige. Incident may well have salutory effect on tendency of Adenauer to ignore Bundestag and ineptness of his subordinates notably Hallstein in dealing with Deputies. Furthermore by desisting from rushing ratification thru Bundestag Chancellor may have deprived SPD of additional ammunition for attack on plan. There is no reason to believe that ultimate ratification has been endangered. In fact majority reported April at seventy odd may well run to nearer a hundred at final vote.

McCloy
  1. Repeated to Paris and London.