Iron Chancellor
Sir: Brian Crozier makes a superficially good point about Messina (Letters, 15 November) in that it is difficult to influence events if you stay out of things, but this underestimates or ignores Chancellor Ade- nauer of West Germany's will to set the agenda himself. There are some illuminat- ing details about this on page 275 of Francois Duchene's biography of Jean Monnet (W.W. Norton & Company, 1994). For example:
He wanted a political union but increasingly kept his options open on ways to achieve it .. He briefly inclined to Britain early in 1955. The uncharacteristic mood passed ... Ade- nauer was not ready to move anywhere too far out of step with the French government.
Chancellor Adenauer was no pushover and I am by no means sure that 'it is simply wrong to argue that Britain could not have taken control of the European experiment', as Mr Crozier says.
Norman Henry
29 Inglefield Avenue, Heath, Cardiff
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