number 1 - Centre d'études et de recherches européennes Robert ...

American Monnetism and the European Coal-Steel Community in the Fifties 23
ence: Why could not Europe, in breaking away from its past, form a federal union
as did the thirteen colonies in parting company with the British? More immediately,
the chokehold had to do with the existence of a State Department clique derided
by its policy-making enemies as "The Theologians". 8 These were disciples
Monnet had gathered after the war, men committed to framing American policy
around his ideas. The faction operated under the patronage of Secretary of State
Dulles, a pious devotee of Monnetism, as well as with the blessing of President
Eisenhower, a man also under the Frenchman's spell. 9 To discuss the influence of
this faction without prior description of its origins would invite suspicion as a conspiracy
theorist. Fortunately, the memoirs, both published and unpublished, of
many of its members together with a growing body of officially-sponsored writings
as well as a budding scholarly literature leave no doubt about its immense influence.
10 What does remain to be determined is its full extent and the nature of its
legacy.
One cannot expect too much of a brief essay like this one, if only because American
foreign policy is a coat of many colors. The National Security Council is
where, since 1947, the patches comprising it have been stitched together into a
complete garment, however ill-fitting. The influence of particular agencies of
government, then as now, varies immensely by issue. No line of policy is ever
without institutional challengers. On the issue of European integration in the
1950’s, some of the more prominent among them were the Departments of Commerce,
Treasury, and Agriculture; the Federal Trade Commission; the Bureau of the
Budget; the Atomic Energy Commission; the Marshall Plan and its successor organizations;
the Pentagon and the security apparatus; important ad hoc creations like
the Council on Foreign Economic Policy; and, as always, the United States Congress.
The State Department itself was by no means single-minded, even as regards
Europe. Advocacy for Asia and the Third World was strong and Europeanists were
themselves divided. Opposed to the "Monnetists" were "Atlanticists" whose guru
was the world federalist, Clarence Streit. 11 Suspicious of French designs as well as
of Monnet, they warned incessantly that a Europe of The Six could someday turn
hostile to the United States. Their objective was to cement the nations of the continent,
along with Britain, into a security structure built around American nuclear
power, to turn NATO, as it were, into an economic and political organization by
replacing institutional buttresses of bricks and mortar with pre-stressed girders of
ferro-concrete. 12
8. Th. ACHILLES, "Memoirs of an Irresponsible Memory", ms.737N f.
9. Ibid, 520I.
10. See most recently D. BRINKLEY and C. HACKETT (eds.), Jean Monnet: The Path to European
Unity, New York, 1991.
11. Achilles, 329E f
12. Ibid, 460H-495I; Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS),1952-1954/VI "Memorandum by
the Minister in France (Achilles), 28 November 1952