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

A SETTLEMENT TAKES SHAPE

This happened in spite of the fact that 1963 also marked the end of American nuclear superiority. The coming of parity, so long awaited, was bound to dilute the deterrent value of the U.S. nuclear force: the USSR would now have a freer hand to challenge the United States. But the loss of America's nuclear edge did not lead to a more aggressive Soviet policy; instead, political relations between the two sides became more relaxed.

The reason was that in 1963 the elements of a political system gradually fell into place. At the core of this system was a set of understandings about Berlin and West Germany, about the American presence in Europe and the structure of power within the western alliance. This system would provide the basis for a relatively stable peace for the balance of the Cold War period, and beyond.
The Crisis of October 1962

The Cuban missile crisis played a key role in this story: its course and resolution set the stage for what was to come in the year that following. The crisis began when the American government discovered that the USSR was secretly building missile bases in Cuba. After a week of deliberations, President Kennedy and his top advisors worked out a strategy for dealing with the problem. Kennedy laid out the U.S. position in a televised speech to the nation on October 22, 1962. The United States, he said, would not tolerate the deployment in Cuba of nuclear-tipped missiles. A naval blockade was being instituted as a way of underscoring America's determination to see this matter through.¹²⁸²

The Americans had now thrown down the gauntlet. It was clear that the Soviets might respond by establishing a counter-blockade around Berlin, that matters might escalate, and that a Third World War was now a real possibility.¹²⁸³ Kennedy understood that this was the case. But he felt that the showdown with Russia had to be accepted. The Russians, he noted repeatedly during the missile crisis, were getting ready to move on Berlin anyway.¹²⁸⁴ Indeed, it seemed that the point of the missile deployment was to improve the Soviet strategic position quickly and cheaply, and thus to put the USSR in a better position to bring the Berlin crisis to a head.¹²⁸⁵ But if a showdown over Berlin was inevitable, it was best to accept the confrontation while the United States still had an important strategic edge. If the Soviets were getting ready to move, he said just before the crisis, it "might be better to allow a confrontation to develop over Berlin now rather than later."¹²⁸⁶

This is not to say that Kennedy was out to humiliate the Soviets, or that he took an intransigent line in the crisis. On the one hand, it was obvious that the U.S. government could not just sit on its hands and allow work on the missile sites to continue indefinitely, if only because military action would become increasingly problematic as more and more missiles became operational. If the Soviets did not stop work on those sites and agree to talks, it was taken for granted that the United States would have to attack the missile bases and invade the island. On the other hand, Kennedy was worried about escalation and especially about the possibility of Soviet counter-action around Berlin.¹²⁸⁷ He therefore preferred the blockade to direct military action--an air strike or even an invasion--and wanted to see if some sort of negotiated arrangement could be worked out. Perhaps the Soviets would agree to withdraw their missiles from Cuba, and the United States in exchange would dismantle the Jupiter IRBMs deployed in Italy and Turkey. Kennedy considered a trade of this sort the only alternative to an invasion.¹²⁸⁸ The Jupiters, in his view, had little military value in any case, and from early 1961 on the U.S. government had in fact wanted to pull them out. America would be in a "bad position," he thought, "if we appear to be attacking Cuba for the purpose of keeping useless missiles in Turkey"; the United States therefore had to "face up to the possibility of some kind of trade over missiles."¹²⁸⁹

His main advisors, however, all strongly objected to the idea. The very notion of a trade was "anathema" to the Turks. The weapons had been deployed in accordance with a NATO decision, and it would take a NATO decision to get Turkey to agree to their withdrawal. The Cuban business was one thing; the "NATO-Warsaw Pact arms problem," Rusk said, "was a separate problem." If the notion of a trade were now accepted, in Bundy's view, America's position would "come apart very fast." The Europeans would view it as a sellout. It would perhaps be seen, Nitze suggested, as a step toward denuclearizing NATO. But Kennedy was not convinced. He wanted a standstill agreement. Once work on the sites had been suspended, the pressure for military action would subside, and negotiations--both with the Soviets and with the NATO allies--would be possible.¹²⁹⁰

But how should he proceed? The United States might hold off from proposing a trade right away, in the hope that the Soviets would agree to withdraw their missiles from Cuba without a corresponding American concession relating to the Jupiters. But so favorable an outcome did not seem very likely. If the issue were put off, the odds were that the Soviets would come back a day or two later and raise the question of the missiles in Turkey. In that case, precious time would have been lost: more missiles would have become operational, and military action would become more perilous.¹²⁹¹

On the other hand, if the U.S. government pressed the issue right away, the NATO allies would be angered. If the United States went to NATO and the allies objected to a trade, Kennedy might find his hands tied. But perhaps the allies could be made to agree. If they were against a trade now, the president believed, this was probably because they had not thought the matter through. The Americans could explain to them that this kind of intransigence would foreclose a political settlement, that Cuba would therefore have to be attacked in "two or three days," and that the Soviets would then probably respond by seizing Berlin or with a strike on Turkey. When they understood this, he argued, their attitude would change. But the answer here was that if the allies were convinced of all this, they might well try to veto an American attack on Cuba, and that once again the President's hands would be tied. In any event, the prospect of America having to frighten the allies in this way was hardly appealing. The United States would come across as the great champion of what could easily be portrayed as a policy of appeasement, with incalculable long-term effects on both Soviet and allied behavior.¹²⁹²

Whichever way he turned, the problems were daunting. It seemed that there was only one way out. Kennedy decided to cut the Gordian knot by going behind the backs of the NATO allies, and indeed behind the backs of all but his closest advisors. He sent his brother Robert to see the Soviet ambassador and deliver an important message. The Soviets were told that the United States was about to attack Cuba. If they wished to prevent this, they would have to promise within twenty-four hours to withdraw their missiles. If those weapons were taken out, the United States would promise not to invade Cuba. As for the Jupiters, the Soviets were told (inaccurately, to obscure the fact that a concession was being made) that the president "had ordered their removal some time ago," and that they would in fact be withdrawn within four or five months. This, the Soviets were informed, was not to be seen as a quid pro quo for the removal of the missiles from Cuba, and they were asked to keep this assurance secret. If they referred to it in public, it would become null and void. "This is not a deal," they were in effect told, "and if you breathe a word of it in public, the deal's off."¹²⁹³

The very next day the USSR announced that the missiles would be withdrawn. The key decision to give way had evidently been made even before word of Robert Kennedy's meeting with Ambassador Dobrynin had reached Moscow. Khrushchev had decided very early on not to risk a real confrontation with the United States: on October 23, he had dismissed the idea of a counter-blockade of West Berlin out of hand.¹²⁹⁴

The Cuban missile crisis was now over. From Kennedy's point of view, the crisis had not ended with a Soviet capitulation pure and simple. He knew that the United States, for its part, had made a concession of sorts involving the Jupiters. But the fact remained that the U.S. government had laid down an ultimatum, and the USSR had acceded to America's terms.

The whole tenor of east-west relations now changed dramatically. The Soviets, it was clear, were not made of steel. The United States did not have to worry so much about them, and indeed might do well to take a tougher line in dealing with them. On Cuban issues, the American position now hardened. The U.S. government, for example, now insisted that the Soviets withdraw their Il-28 bombers from Cuba, which was something Kennedy had earlier thought was not very important.¹²⁹⁵ And the president was inclined to take a harder line with the Soviets in general. He now thought that the earlier policy of trying so hard to reach an accommodation with the USSR had been misguided, and he even wondered now whether it was a mistake to always treat the Soviet leaders "with consideration and courtesy."¹²⁹⁶

But he still wanted a settlement, and on the same basic terms as in 1961 and 1962. If both sides recognized "existing facts"--"the existence of East Germany, West Germany and West Berlin"--and would not use force to change the status quo in central Europe, the two sides could live together in peace.¹²⁹⁷ If the United States and the Soviet Union could agree on something of the sort, the NATO allies could be made to cooperate, and indeed Kennedy thought that now, after the missile crisis, the United States "could push its Allies" even harder than before.¹²⁹⁸ If a settlement was in sight, he was "willing to press the French and the Germans very hard to go along."¹²⁹⁹ America had her own policy and was not beholden to Germany. It was made clear to the Soviets on a number of occasions that if the two major powers reached an agreement, West Germany would not be allowed to "stand in the way."¹³⁰⁰

If, however, an agreement was not within reach--that is, if the Russians were not willing to accept the status quo in West Berlin--then there was no sense going through the charade of a negotiation. If the Soviets were not prepared to be forthcoming on Berlin, there was little point, Kennedy said, "in continuing a dialogue bound to arouse the suspicion, even the antagonism, of our Allies."¹³⁰¹ The earlier attempt in late 1961 and early 1962 to reach a negotiated settlement, he now thought, had been "foolish." France and Germany had been alienated by these American efforts, but no real progress had been made with the Russians.¹³⁰²

The whole course of action his government had pursued on European issues since April 1961 Kennedy now regarded as bankrupt. The policy laid out in the Acheson report had had a profoundly corrosive effect on the alliance. De Gaulle was openly hostile to America, and even relations with Britain had been strained. The MLF, as he had long suspected, was not a solution to anything, but was rather turning into a problem in its own right. The time had come for a fundamental reappraisal of the whole Acheson strategy. America could now contemplate a more liberal policy on NATO nuclear questions. This was the key to restoring decent relations with the French and possibly to avoiding a rift with the British as well.

Britain and France might be helped in the nuclear area, but this did not mean that the Germans would be allowed to come any closer toward acquiring a nuclear capability. In this very fundamental area, Kennedy's views remained unchanged. Acheson and his supporters had long argued that the Germans would not accept this type of discrimination indefinitely, and that if they were to be kept from going nuclear, the United States would have to oppose British and French nuclear forces as well. To help France, and even to go on helping Britain, was to open the floodgates: in the long run, the German problem would become unmanageable.

But Kennedy by now had come to question that basic premise. Even if Britain and France were helped, the Germans could still be told that they could not have their own nuclear weapons. They would not like it, but they were dependent on the United States for protection, and they could be made to swallow the pill. If the issue were ever put to them, what other choice could they make? If they defied America, where else could they go for protection? It was a question of who needed whom. Responsible opinion had, of course, long warned against this kind of thinking.¹³⁰³ And Kennedy had long deferred to the views of the experts in the State Department and elsewhere. But the policies he had adopted on their advice were clearly not working. In April 1961, he had been relatively inexperienced in these matters, and had accepted the views of a distinguished elder statesman like Acheson without giving the matter much thought. But now, after dealing with these issues intensively for almost two years, and after having taken his measure of people like Acheson, he was inclined to give greater weight to his own judgment--especially after his experience during the missile crisis, when his advisors had all told him that anything like a deal involving the Jupiters would wreck the alliance, and he had gone ahead with it anyway and had ended the crisis on quite acceptable terms. America, it was now clear to him, was strong enough to act unilaterally--strong enough, in the final analysis, to lay down the law to the Germans.

This did not mean, however, that he was looking for a confrontation. If possible, a softer course of action was obviously preferable. Kennedy's tactic was to create a situation that would lead the Germans to fall into line more naturally. His aim now was to rebuild the bloc of the three western powers--Britain, France and the United States--and thus to isolate the Germans, leaving them with little choice but to accept a non-nuclear status.

Britain would certainly cooperate if the Americans moved in this direction. Macmillan thought that Britain, France and America would be the only three nuclear powers in the West--or as he put it, nuclear "trustees" for the West as a whole. Their nuclear forces would be coordinated within the NATO structure but would remain in the final analysis under national control. Within that general framework, America and Britain would help France develop her nuclear capability. There would in particular be direct Anglo-French nuclear collaboration--but only if the United States went along with the idea; this was part of Macmillan's more general policy of bringing Britain into Europe, and was thus closely linked to the idea that Britain would be allowed to join the Common Market. Throughout 1961 and 1962 he pressed repeatedly for such a policy and made a number of overtures to the French along these lines. And de Gaulle was by no means averse to an arrangement of this sort.¹³⁰⁴

From Macmillan's standpoint, the problem lay with the Americans. The British leader's idea was that after France was helped and the French force was somehow tied into the western defense system, "no other countries would bother to build a nuclear force."¹³⁰⁵ Key U.S. officials, however, thought that Macmillan was "dead wrong" in this regard, and Kennedy in 1961 simply refused to go along with Macmillan's plan.¹³⁰⁶ And Macmillan was not willing to pursue the project if the United States was against it. But he continued in 1962 to press for a green light. The State Department was still strongly opposed to nuclear cooperation with France, but already in the spring of that year the president's views were more nuanced. He did not "take up an attitude of doctrinaire opposition" to the Macmillan plan, but would go along only it would "buy something really spectacular like full French co-operation in NATO and elsewhere plus British entry into the European Economic Community." The right moment for such a deal might come eventually, but now was not the time to move in that direction.¹³⁰⁷