As we watch Brexit developments, ADST’s “Evolution of the European Union: Early Seeds of Dissolution?” [link: https://adst.org/2016/06/evolution-european-union-early-seeds-dissolution/] presents a picture of the EU’s troubled beginnings.
Arthur Hartman, Deputy Chief of Mission to the European Economic Community in the 1960s, discussed the resistance many in the UK felt to joining and noted that many British politicians opposed integration on nationalist grounds and did not like the centralized government in Brussels which even then ruled by edict.
Susan Klingaman, who covered the EEC from the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) from 1970-72, predicted that the EC could mean real problems domestically in the individual countries, particularly if they headed toward monetary union: “The big issue at that time was the application of the British to join the EC [European Community] and much of my work focused on that, on whether or not the British would join. And if they did, what would be the implications for Britain and the United States?”