The Experience

Abstract

The story of the EDC experience is a long one. This is so because of the complicated roles of the many participant and observer nations involved and the length of time — four years — over which the tale unfolds. Mere narration of the relevant national and international facts, however, would not only have been thinly inadequate, but tedious. It would have also been very misleading as to the true nature of the imperatives, the covert pressures, the interrelationships and the dynamics for EDC progress, on the one hand, or of the major obstructive efforts or more subtle campaigns waged for its defeat, on the other. Because the ramifications of the EDC were so wide, however, and in order to contain the subject within manageable proportions, it has been necessary to restrict the scope of this book to recounting only the mainstream of the evolving events. Many aspects, particularly those related to national domestic political developments, have therefore only been briefly touched upon, and some have had to be omitted altogether. Nevertheless, this book has consistently sought throughout to provide sufficient depth of international contemporary background — be this political, economic or military — against which the unravelling thread of the EDC (illusive enough at times) could be properly set into perspective, and highlighted.