Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 42. (1992)
BISCHOF, Günter: The Anglo-American Powers and Austrian Neutrality, 1953–1955
Günter Bischof Council chambers „almost in tears.“ Dulles concluded triumphantly: „Neutralization is no substitute for the European Defense Community, as many Western Europeans believed or would like to believe“55). This probably was the real message of the Austrian episode at Berlin for Dulles. It also demonstrates Dulles’ deep ambiguity towards neutralism in spite of what he said about Austrian neutrality in Berlin. Raab’s concessions to the Soviets bore no fruit in 1954. It may be that Molotov personally was responsible for the Soviet hardline position. Mr. „Njet“ apparently was not ready to retreat from any position conquered by the Red Army in the course of World War II, including Eastern Austria. But the international landscape was changing in the course of 1954 and it did not turn out to the advantage of Molotov. Churchill continued his exercise in futility; the old Prime Minister kept pushing the Americans for a summit with the Soviets, in which the Kremlin could help reestablish confidence in the Soviet Union by ratifying an Austrian Treaty56). Churchill told Eisenhower that signing an Austrian Traty was „a dream; if I were a Russian I should think it would be good politics“57). After the French National Assembly voted down the EDC treaty in late August, the British quickly engineered an alternative and even more dramatic solution to the problem of integrating the Federal Republic into the Western defense system. In the Paris Agreements of October 1954, the Western powers decided to admit German contingents into NATO58). The Kremlin started a propaganda offensive to try to block the ratification of the Paris Agreements in the German and French parliaments. But this time the din from the Kremlin did not have its expected 55) Memorandum of Discussion at the 186th NSC-meeting, 26 February 1954, FURS 1952-1954 VII/1 1222. 56) See the Eisenhower-Churchill conversation during their Washington meeting, 26 June 1954, and the other instances in Gilbert Never Despair 1012, 1028, 1031. 57) Meeting Eisenhower-Churchill, 26 June 1954, Folder „June 1954 (1),“ Box 2, Ann Whitman Diary Series, Eisenhower Library. 58) Churchill commented after the French Assembly rejected the EDC: „The throwing out of EDC is a great score for the Russians,“ see Gilbert Never Despair 1055. On the military integration of the Federal Republic into the Western defense community (EDC/NATO), see Rolf Steininger Das Scheitern der EVG und der Beitritt der Bundesrepublik zur NATO in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B17 (27 April 1985) 3-18; see also the essays of Stephen E. Ambrose and Hermann-Josef Rupieper in Deutsche Frage und europäische Sicherheit: Politisch-strategische Überlegungen 1955/1955 in Zwischen Kaltem Krieg und Entspannung. Sicherheits- und Deutschlandpolitik im Mächtesystem der Jahre 1955-1956, ed. by Bruno Thoss and Hans-Erich Volkmann (Boppard am Rhein 1988) 25-33, 179—209; for a detailed examination of the British role, see Saki Dockrill Britain and a West German Contribution to NATO, 1950-1955, Ph.D. dissertation King’s College (London 1988) 233-378. 382
