A Big Four foreign ministers conference in Berlin discussed the German and Austrian problems and considered a Soviet proposal for a European security organization. The conference ended in deadlock, but decided to hold a further conference in Geneva to discuss East Asian questions, and to invite Communist China to attend.
The Yugoslav government declined the invitation of the Cominform to “restore the ancient bonds” with Soviet Russia, arguing that political and economic decentralization had reached such a point that restoration of centralized communist control would lead to “convulsion.”
West German president Theodor Heuss signed the constitutional amendment permitting the Federal Republic rearmament as a member of theEDC, if established.
The U.S. Senate unanimously authorized the president to take direct action for the restoration of German sovereignty if France did not ratify the EDC treaty.
Pierre Mendès-France, speaking before the European assembly at Strasbourg, announced French agreement to link West Germany with West European defense arrangements, provided that Britain joined the alliance.
Nine powers (Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, West Germany, the United States, and Canada) reached agreement on an alternative to the EDC.
The Trieste issue was settled by agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia. Italy was accorded Zone A, including the city of Trieste, and Yugoslavia, Zone B. American and British troops were to be withdrawn shortly.
Soviet foreign minister V. M. Molotov urged immediate four-power talks regarding German unification, neutralization, and evacuation, but British prime minister Winston Churchill firmly rejected the proposal (Oct. 26).
A NATOministerial conference in Paris voted to terminate the occupation of West Germany but provided for the retention of foreign troops there; to admit West Germany into NATO; and to expand and revise the Brussels treaty so as to create a Western European Union (WEU) by adding West Germany and Italy and by controlling armaments of the member states.
