Lerner Declares Military Community Essential to European Political Unity

Political unity for Europe will come only with a military community that can guarantee European security. Daniel Lerner told a World Federalist-sponsored of such a community rests almost entirely on European evaluation of America's commitment to defend Europe.

Lerner, who has just returned from seven years of studying problems of unity in Europe, said that only default on United States' undertaking in Berlin would be likely to prompt a major reevaluation in the immediate future. But as strategic weapons systems comparable to Minuteman and Polaris make nuclear deterrence cheaper, movement toward a defense organization will probably accelerate.

There is no organized opposition to European unity, and every proposal presented in treaty form has been ratified, excepting only the European Defense Community, Lerner pointed out. Even the opposition to German rearmament that caused the French to reject EDC virtually collapsed when the United States approved the existence of separate German contingents in NATO.

The "astonishing success" of the European Common Market has given rise to a feeling that "the economic problems can be left to th4e economic statisticians," Lerner asserted; "but there is no greater military security in Europe today than in 1945."

Ideologles Faltering

Along with the demise of opposition to European unity has come the death of political ideology. Lerner claimed. "One is struck by the thundering silence of the left; and when the left is articulate, it doesn't sound like the left."

The question today is not whether there shall be unity, but what form it shall take. Inclusion or absence of England, and the role of Canada. It is inconceivable, he said, that America and Canada would link themselves in an economic community that was not a defense community. and it is also almost impossible that any nation should exploit the reservations permitted by the treaty to withdraw from extant obligations, for the cost of withdrawal would, he claimed, be greater than any possible profit.