ABSTRACT
In late April 1965 the six permanent representatives of the founding member-states of the European Economic Community (EEC) gathered in Brussels to hear a serious complaint from one of their number, Jean-Marc Boegner, about the behaviour of the European Commission. The French government, Boegner explained, was growing ever unhappier with the work of the Press and Information Service of the European Communities. In the most serious of a number of recent abuses of its power, the Commission Service had assisted an American academic, Professor Daniel Lerner, to circulate to around one thousand Europeans of note, a questionnaire, which invited participants to give their opinions of the policies of Charles de Gaulle, the French President. This was not appropriate behaviour for a Community institution. Boegner had thus written to Walter Hallstein, the President of the European Commission, raising this issue but had yet to receive a reply. The French government had therefore decided to demonstrate its disapproval by cancelling the planned visit to Brussels of its representative on the ‘Information’ working group, with the result that the scheduled April 28 meeting of this committee would not go ahead.1
