DECLASSIFIED
American government documents show that the US intelligence
community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build
momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European
federalist movement.
The documents confirm suspicions voiced at the time that
America was working aggressively behind the scenes to push Britain
into a European state. One memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives
instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European
parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the
American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.
The documents were found by Joshua Paul, a researcher at
Georgetown University in Washington. They include files released by
the US National Archives. Washington's main tool for shaping the
European agenda was the American Committee for a United Europe,
created in 1948. The chairman was Donovan, ostensibly a private
lawyer by then.
The vice-chairman was Allen Dulles, the CIA director in the
Fifties. The board included Walter Bedell Smith, the CIA's first
director, and a roster of ex-OSS figures and officials who moved in
and out of the CIA. The documents show that ACUE financed the
European Movement, the most important federalist organisation in the
post-war years. In 1958, for example, it provided 53.5 per cent of
the movement's funds.
The European Youth Campaign, an arm of the European
Movement, was wholly funded and controlled by Washington. The
Belgian director, Baron Boel, received monthly payments into a
special account. When the head of the European Movement, Polish-born
Joseph Retinger, bridled at this degree of American control and
tried to raise money in Europe, he was quickly reprimanded.
The leaders of the European Movement - Retinger, the
visionary Robert Schuman and the former Belgian prime minister
Paul-Henri Spaak - were all treated as hired hands by their American
sponsors. The US role was handled as a covert operation. ACUE's
funding came from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations as well as
business groups with close ties to the US government.
The head of the Ford Foundation, ex-OSS officer Paul
Hoffman, doubled as head of ACUE in the late Fifties. The State
Department also played a role. A memo from the European section,
dated June 11, 1965, advises the vice-president of the European
Economic Community, Robert Marjolin, to pursue monetary union by
stealth.
It recommends suppressing debate until the point at which
"adoption of such proposals would become virtually inescapable".
