A constructed Peace The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963

In late 1961, German policy did shift in the direction favored in Washington. In early September, according to the German ambassador in Moscow, Adenauer now "realised that Germany would have to make sacrifices to avoid the very real danger of war and to save the freedom of West Berlin." The one area where he "refused to contemplate any concessions" had to do with "the armament of the Bundeswehr"--that is, with German access to nuclear weapons.¹¹⁸⁸ On September 17, Rusk and Foy Kohler, a high State Department official, told a British diplomat that the Germans had "come along very nicely so far." They expected even greater flexibility after the German elections, which were being held that same day. The one point on which the Germans "would probably remain very stiff," Kohler and the British official agreed, was on the issue of "discrimination against German forces in the matter of arms." But "even on this point," Kohler thought, the Germans might be susceptible to American pressure.¹¹⁸⁹

The nuclear issue was thus emerging as the sticking point. On every other issue, Adenauer was prepared to be flexible. Even on the question of dealings with the GDR, it seemed that "the Chancellor was fully open to persuasion." The one point Adenauer was stressing was that "there was to be no nonsense about atom-free zones" and so on. "All the fire is concentrated on this," the British ambassador in Bonn reported, "and not a word is reported to have been said about recognition, de facto or de jure."¹¹⁹⁰

In November Adenauer came to Washington for an important series of meetings with American leaders. He was "very gloomy," "more discouraged," U.S. officials felt, "than we had expected." The use of nuclear weapons, he argued, was out of the question, and in a conventional war the West would be crushed. A military confrontation thus had to be ruled out. "Therefore," he concluded, "we must negotiate."¹¹⁹¹

German hard-liners were upset by the weakening of Adenauer's position, and de Gaulle by now considered him a broken man. But Kennedy was delighted by Adenauer's new-found flexibility, and he considered the chancellor's visit his best meeting with a foreign leader since taking office.¹¹⁹² Adenauer had told him that if the negotiations with the USSR resulted in "improved living conditions for the people of Berlin, along with the maintenance of their freedom, then the U.S. need not fear any difficulties from the German side."¹¹⁹³ It was true that on many points Adenauer had defended the standard German positions. But Kennedy came away from the talks with the impression that if an agreement strengthened western rights of access to Berlin, the Germans would be "quite forthcoming on other points."¹¹⁹⁴

From Kennedy's point of view, the main problem now on the NATO side had to do with the French. Adenauer may have given way, but this did not mean that the German people would ultimately accept what was going on, and de Gaulle's main concern at this point was with the effect of the new American policy on Germany as a whole. The French government, it is important to remember, did not object on fundamental grounds to the substance of the American position. French officials from de Gaulle on down were quite comfortable with the status quo, and in itself (as noted above) a deal to stabilize it would have been perfectly acceptable to them. As part of a Berlin settlement, Couve said, the West might even recognize the sovereignty of the GDR; in return, the Soviets might agree to respect western rights in Berlin. He felt, in fact, that this was the best arrangement the West could hope for.¹¹⁹⁵ As for the other "broader questions," as they were called, the French were not in principle opposed to concessions. De Gaulle had been the first western leader to openly accept the Oder-Neisse line. The French would in principle have liked to head off a German nuclear capability. Even the issue of the western powers' legal right to be in Berlin, and whether it could be formally based on something other than their rights as occupying powers, was for Couve an "academic question" which his government did not take too seriously.¹¹⁹⁶ So a negotiated settlement was by no means out of the question. "We obviously had to try to make a deal," Couve bluntly told his American and British colleagues on August 5, "and this involved giving something away."¹¹⁹⁷ The American talks with Gromyko "would constitute real negotiations," he said, and Rusk would be engaging in those discussions "with the general support" of all the main western governments.¹¹⁹⁸

But de Gaulle had come to dislike certain aspects of the new American policy. The Americans were thinking in terms of an arrangement that would prevent the Germans from getting nuclear weapons. The French might not have been too happy about the thought of a nuclearized Germany, but they now viewed this aspect of U.S. policy in the context of America's new NATO policy--the increased emphasis on conventional forces, the opposition to nuclear forces under national control, the refusal to base MRBMs on the continent, and so on. All of these things, in the French view, pointed in one very clear direction. The United States, with her own cities increasingly at risk, was withdrawing from the nuclear defense of Europe, and indeed was aiming at a kind of denuclearization of the continent, which de Gaulle, of course, considered extremely dangerous. Denuclearization ultimately meant the neutralization of western Europe. The denuclearization of Germany was a major step in this direction; it certainly was a step toward the neutralization of the Federal Republic. But if West Germany were neutralized, what then would be the fate of France? And if the Americans were so unreliable, so unwilling to commit their power to the nuclear defense of Europe, wasn't it important for the Europeans to have a degree of independence, and to have the kind of military force that could sustain an independent policy? Maybe the continentals needed to get together and develop a nuclear capability of their own; the door could not be shut on a German nuclear option or on the possibility of Franco-German nuclear collaboration.¹¹⁹⁹

And substantive considerations aside, the French had also come to dislike the way the United States was playing the western hand. The crisis, Couve said, was "essentially a test of strength between the Soviet Union and the United States." To press for negotiations would "merely show what was really at the bottom of our hearts--fear of war." It would be taken as a sign of American weakness. It would only encourage the Russians to dig in their heels.¹²⁰⁰ The Americans had the power, and it was therefore natural for them to take the lead. But the French government did not want to identify itself too closely with U.S. policy. The Americans could move forward if they wanted to, but it had to be clear where the real responsibility lay. "Go on with your probing," de Gaulle told Rusk on August 8, "we have nothing against it." But France, he said, would not have chosen that route, and France would not be held liable for the consequences: "you really are doing it on your own account."¹²⁰¹

In October, as the details of the new American thinking about a Berlin settlement became more widely known, the French attitude hardened. On October 9, de Gaulle still "approved warmly" of Rusk's and Kennedy's discussions with Gromyko.¹²⁰² But just five days later, the French ambassador in Washington, Hervé Alphand, made what a high U.S. official called a "very serious communication." Whereas Couve had said on September 15 that Rusk would be negotiating "with the general support" of the four major western governments, now France announced that she could "give no mandate" for continued exploratory talks in Moscow. The French government, Alphand said, was in fact now against further talks and "wished explorations to stop." The French government wanted a modus vivendi, but the proposed talks would not lead to one. The French view was that the USSR was being rewarded for her outrageous behavior. The implication was that with the Americans so eager to negotiate, the West could only expect more of the same from the Soviets. "If we wanted a modus vivendi," Alphand said, "a showdown was necessary."¹²⁰³

But the French did not want a real showdown with Russia. Berlin itself, in their view, might well have to be abandoned in the end. What was crucial was that West Germany not be lost in the process. The American insistence on negotiations, at a time when the Soviets were continuing to take an intransigent line, was a sure sign of weakness; indeed, de Gaulle now thought that the "hour of Munich" was at hand. Whatever the Adenauer government now agreed to, de Gaulle was certain that the German people would eventually feel betrayed by America. There would then be a sharp nationalistic reaction and Germany would turn away from the NATO system, possibly toward a kind of weak neutralism, possibly toward a strong independent policy. In either case, the consequences would be disastrous. The "Anglo-Saxons," de Gaulle felt, did not quite grasp the seriousness of the problem, and were not sufficiently attuned to the risk of losing Germany. But because of their geographic position, the French were able to see things more clearly: the fate of Germany was a "vital" interest for France, but merely an "important" interest for America and Britain.¹²⁰⁴

So if the Americans ultimately capitulated over Berlin and the whole NATO structure collapsed, France would have to do what she could to save the situation. If Berlin were lost, it was crucial that the Germans not blame the West as a whole. The "Anglo-Saxons" were pressing for negotiations, and really for concessions at Germany's expense. France alone could not prevent them from acting in this way, but she could openly disassociate herself from that policy. "Perhaps we shall end up with a new Western retreat," de Gaulle said in late September. "If so France will not take part in it. France will remain firm on the position which she has never ceased to defend and for the future this is a very important thing."¹²⁰⁵

De Gaulle now repeatedly argued along these lines. In a meeting with Macmillan in late November, he laid out his views with characteristic bluntness. France, he said, "was concerned above all, and perhaps even more than her British and American Allies, to ensure that Germany was tied in to the West." Berlin was simply "one part of this problem, and not in itself of capital importance." Adenauer might now be willing to accept negotiations with the Russians about Berlin, but even if his government "accepted the concessions which would be asked of them," what really mattered was that "the German people would be left with a sense of betrayal." So whatever Britain and America did, France "would not be a party to such an arrangement. The Germans would then in the future feel that at least they had one friend left in the West."¹²⁰⁶

In opposing the United States, the French leader was not being perverse or nationalistic. His Berlin policy was rooted in his most basic assumptions about international politics in the nuclear age. In his view, the American nuclear guarantee would sooner or later be exposed as fraudulent, and indeed it was natural that the United States would not wish to commit suicide for the sake of Europe. But that meant that some alternative had to be worked out. When the NATO system collapsed, there had to be something else which could be put in its place. Berlin itself might be indefensible and might well have to be written off, and he was ultimately prepared to take the loss of the city philosophically.¹²⁰⁷ The key thing was to make sure that it did not lead to the loss of West Germany as well. France, therefore, had to lay the basis for an independent European policy, a policy which necessarily would pivot on a close understanding between France and Germany. If British policy had been different, Britain too might have played a fundamental role in building an independent Europe. But Britain was too dependent on America, and even less inclined than the Americans had been to worry about how the Germans would react to what was going on. So an independent Europe had to be a continental Europe, a Franco-German Europe.

Ideas of this sort had played a certain role in French policy even during the early Gaullist period. In March 1959, for example, less than a year after his return to power, de Gaulle told Adenauer that the NATO alliance would not survive a western defeat over Berlin. For the time being, there was not much that could be done to affect what might happen. The Americans had the power and the policy of the West would thus be set in Washington. But even if the West were defeated and NATO collapsed, France and Germany had to remain together. Their power was rising; soon they would be able to control their own destiny.¹²⁰⁸

But until late 1961, this strand of French thinking, the "European" or "continental" strand, coexisted uneasily with two other and somewhat contradictory strands of policy. There was first of all a certain tendency for France to think of herself along with Britain and America as one of the three western powers. Germany, in this conception, was an ally to be sure, but not quite a full member of the club. This was reflected, for example, in de Gaulle's concept of a tripartite "directorate" for the West. But it also came out in little ways. There were certain things, French leaders sometimes said, which they could discuss freely with the British and the Americans, but could not talk about if the Germans were present.¹²⁰⁹ And then, of course, there was a third element in French policy, a certain tendency to think more parochially in terms of French national interests and French sovereignty strictly defined.

These three strands of policy--"European," "western" and "nationalistic"--were all rooted in a de Gaulle's conviction that French policy had to be active, that France could not just be a follower country. But they pulled in different directions. Sometimes, for example, de Gaulle and his followers argued that the main function of the armed forces was the defense of French territory, that in the event of war there would be a "battle for Germany" in which France was not fully engaged, followed by a "battle for France." But this nationalistic conception was at variance with the idea that the defense of Germany was as important as the defense of France herself, and that idea lay at the heart of the concept that France and Germany could act as a bloc, that continental western Europe could become a third force, independent of America and able to withstand Soviet pressure on its own.¹²¹⁰

By late 1961, in reaction to Kennedy's handling of the Berlin crisis, French policy was becoming less ambiguous. De Gaulle was leaning increasingly toward the "European" approach. France was taking her distance from the United States, and thus, increasingly, from Britain as well. She was identifying her interests with those of Germany and portraying herself as Germany's one true friend in the West. If the Germans came to feel that the United States had sold them down the river, they would at least still have France to turn to. The Germans would thus be less inclined to turn in on themselves, after the great betrayal, after the collapse of NATO. Instead of the parochial nationalism of the 1920s variety, they could embrace a kind of European "nationalism," with a distinct anti-American flavor to be sure, but not nearly as dangerous as the other courses that would remain open to them. France and West Germany should therefore think of themselves as countries with identical strategic interests. They should bind themselves together, develop their own power and operate as a unit politically and indeed ultimately militarily as well.

As French policy moved in this direction, there was (as noted above) a certain shift in the French position on the German nuclear question. Although he had sometimes taken the line that a German nuclear force was inevitable (and indeed, in an important meeting with Adenauer in July 1960, had actually encouraged the Germans to build such a force¹²¹¹), de Gaulle in that early period was generally opposed to the idea of nuclear weapons in German hands. This was still his attitude, for example, when he met with Kennedy in June 1961.¹²¹² Even as late as November 6, a French diplomat was still saying that an arrangement confirming the Federal Republic's non-nuclear status was "definitely" an item "in the concessions column."¹²¹³

But at the end of the month, de Gaulle took the opposite line in a meeting with Macmillan. "The idea of an agreement about nuclear weapons for Germany," he said, "was a gratuitous present to the Russians." France had no "present intention" of helping the Germans develop a nuclear capability, but this, he said, might not always be the case.¹²¹⁴ Couve made a similar point to Rusk in February 1962. In five or ten years, he said, France and Germany might get together to produce nuclear weapons, "but not now."¹²¹⁵

The Americans sensed what was going on and were angered by de Gaulle's new attitude. It was not just that the French leader had begun to toy with the idea of Franco-German nuclear collaboration. This was bad enough in itself. But de Gaulle was now attacking American policy down the line. What was really resented was the way de Gaulle was trying to make America into a "fall guy" in the eyes of the Germans. If concessions had to be made as part of a Berlin settlement, the Germans might eventually complain that their interests had been sold out. De Gaulle wanted to be able to say that his hands were clean, that only the "Anglo-Saxons" had been to blame. The Germans were apparently also trying to pin responsibility on the United States.¹²¹⁶ What was outrageous here was that these two governments were themselves not prepared to face a military confrontation with the USSR. They might "talk as if they were firm and resolute." But in reality, as had become clear in the discussions on Berlin contingency planning, the German government especially "was prepared to take no risk at all." As for the French, although they might talk tough, their real attitude was more ambivalent. Even as late as October 1962, right before the Cuban missile crisis, Couve simply evaded the fundamental issue of whether force would be used if Berlin were cut off--although de Gaulle himself, one should note, did take a very firm line when the issue came to a head during the missile crisis.¹²¹⁷

But that was still in the future, and the American view in late 1961 and through most of 1962 was that France and Germany could not be allowed to get away with their phony displays of "toughness." They would have to face up to their responsibilities. The U.S. government, Rusk said in December 1961, "was determined not to be cast into the role of the 'fall guy' for the French and the Germans--in other words to be the ones who made concessions which were afterwards described as betrayals."¹²¹⁸ France and Germany had to be made to sign on to the common policy. Rusk was therefore furious that de Gaulle at that time simply refused to go along with the American policy on talks with the USSR. He had come to think of the French leader as practically "a devil with horns and a tail."¹²¹⁹ Kennedy was only a shade less hostile. In April 1962, he surprised Macmillan "by the bitterness of his feeling" toward the French.¹²²⁰ Relations now were about as bad as they ever get between allied powers.¹²²¹

De Gaulle had by this point decided to tell the Americans directly that they should keep out of European politics and let the Europeans run their own affairs. America should limit herself to giving a general security guarantee. The U.S. government, he said, "should not be mixed up in Western European difficulties and should keep itself apart only bringing its weight to bear in case of necessity."¹²²² He had occasionally expressed similar views in the past. In September 1958, for example, he had told the NATO Secretary General that France, Germany and Italy should set NATO policy.¹²²³ But now he was telling America to her face that she "should stay out of the affairs of Europe." Ambassador Gavin was "almost startled" by the "cold harshness" of that "unqualified statement."¹²²⁴

Kennedy was outraged by the line de Gaulle was now taking. It was absurd that Europe should be able to draw freely on American power and conceivably pull the United States into a war, but that the U.S. government should have no control over the policies that could lead to conflict. The Americans could not accept the idea, the president wrote, that "we should stay out of all of Europe's affairs while remaining ready to defend her if war should come." The United States could not give "this kind of blank check." Since American power was engaged, the U.S. government in his view had to concern itself with the "problem of Germany," the central issue in international politics. Indeed, America had to take the lead in dealing with that problem, since no one else was going to confront it realistically. But de Gaulle rejected the idea that Europe should follow the American lead. The U.S. government, as the French leader saw it, acted as though the European states were mere "protectorates" with no right to challenge American policy. They had to resist American domination, especially when they felt U.S. policy was deeply misguided, and de Gaulle made it clear to Gavin that he put America's German policy in this category.¹²²⁵

The gulf between France and America was now profound, but for Adenauer this meant that Germany now had a certain room for maneuver. De Gaulle's game was to make the "Anglo-Saxons" take the blame for whatever concessions needed to be made to prevent the Berlin crisis from escalating into an armed conflict. U.S. leaders wanted to frustrate that strategy; that meant that German support was more important than it would otherwise have been. This was an important consideration for the Americans even in late 1961. Rusk and Kohler, for example, agreed with a British diplomat in September of that year that de Gaulle was probably "thinking ahead to the time when the Germans were confronted with the fact that negotiations had resulted in a substantial deterioration in their position and that a myth might develop that Germany had been let down by her allies. He might then want to claim that it was the Anglo-Saxons alone who were responsible." The two Americans then went on to point out "that this made it extremely necessary 'to keep the Germans on board' at every stage."¹²²⁶

It followed that the Germans could not simply be forced to toe the line. If the United States mishandled the situation, the Germans might "pick up their French option," as Henry Kissinger, then a White House consultant, put it in February 1962.¹²²⁷ It was much easier for Germany to resist American pressure if she had France on her side than if she had to act entirely on her own. A "European" policy, based on Franco-German cooperation, was always more acceptable, even in the eyes of the German people themselves, than a policy that could be labeled "nationalistic."

So by early 1962, Adenauer was starting to take what the U.S. government saw as a more defiant line. He knew that his position had become stronger now that he had a "French card" to play. The German chancellor was certainly encouraged by what de Gaulle was doing, and, like de Gaulle, he was increasingly determined to resist the policy the Americans were now pursuing.

The nuclear question lay at the heart of Adenauer's growing conflict with the United States. The Kennedy administration wanted to prevent the Federal Republic from acquiring a nuclear capability and in its view a Berlin settlement might include an arrangement guaranteeing Germany's non-nuclear status. But the Adenauer government strongly disliked this aspect of American policy. Already in September and October 1961 it was becoming clear that this was the one area where German resistance to concessions would be very strong, no matter how flexible the Germans were on other questions relating to a settlement.¹²²⁸ And indeed the German position on this point began to harden toward the end of the year. In June, the Germans had taken the line that they were not opposed as a matter of principle to promising not to seek an "independent nuclear capability," or to including such a promise in a Berlin settlement. They did not want to give anything away for free, but they would consider such a promise if they got something substantial from the Soviets in exchange.¹²²⁹ In November, however, they took a tougher line. The Federal Republic was now opposed on more fundamental grounds to arrangements that would prevent her from ever becoming a nuclear power. The German ambassador in Washington, the same man who had made the earlier comment in June, now made it clear that the German government was opposed to "freezing" the military status quo--that is, to perpetuating Germany's non-nuclear status through international agreement. "There might be a change in the basic situation in a few years," he said, "and we should therefore keep flexibility in common Western defence arrangements." When Bohlen asked him pointedly what this meant, the ambassador said that "his Government had no present interest in altering their undertaking not to manufacture ABC [atomic, biological and chemical] weapons, but they would like to keep the possibility open."¹²³⁰