A constructed Peace The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963
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| Ambiguity and Deterrence, an excellent overview, provides a critical assessment of much of this literature.
760. The U.S. government felt that British pretentions were not in line with Britain's real strength, that British attempts to portray themselves as standing side by side with America as the West's two leading powers were to be discouraged, and that it would be best if Britain came to think of herself as a regional power, "join Europe," and concentrate on ground defense in the NATO area. See, for example, Dulles-Eisenhower meeting, October 22, 1957, FRUS 1955-57, 27:800, and Bowie-Eisenhower meeting of August 16, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):613. The Americans had felt this way even during the Truman period. Note, for example, a State Department comment from 1951 about the British always liking to "inflate their special relationship with the U.S.," quoted in Eisenhower Papers, 12:130. 761. See Caccia to Foreign Office, March 18 and March 20, 1960, Defe 11/312, PRO. 762. The State Department position at this point was a good deal tougher than the line Eisenhower took with Macmillan. A memorandum from Undersecretary Dillon handed to Macmillan on March 29 ruled out a bilateral deal on Polaris until the NATO MRBM issue had been "satisfactorily disposed of in NATO." Eisenhower's own position, which was not nearly so stringent, is reflected in Macmillan to Eisenhower, March 29, 1960; Macmillan here was simply repeating back to Eisenhower what the President had told him in their meeting that day. See Macmillan to Defense Minister, March 29 and 30, 1960, Defe 13/195, PRO; Macmillan to Eisenhower and Dillon to Macmillan, both March 29, 1960, in "Prime Minister's Visit to Washington, March 26-30, 1960," Cab 133/243, PRO. The Dillon memorandum is mistakenly attributed to Eisenhower in FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):863-864. 763. Caccia to Foreign Office, March 20, 1960, Defe 11/312, PRO. In an internal American document, however, Herter, or whoever in the State Department wrote the document for him, was a good deal more hostile to the idea of an independent British deterrent, and thus more insistent on the goal of centralized NATO control. Herter to Eisenhower, March 27, 1960, FRUS 1958-60:7,2, p. 860. This typified the incoherence of U.S. policy in this area in 1960. 764. Defense Minister Watkinson to Macmillan, June 7, 1960 (see both such memoranda with this date); Gates-Watkinson meeting, June 6, 1960 (document dated June 9); de Zulueta to Macmillan, June 10, 1960; and (for Macmillan's views) Macmillan-Watkinson meeting on "Nuclear Deterrent Policy," June 15, 1960; all in Prem 11/3261, PRO. 765. Gates-Watkinson meeting, December 12, 1960, Defe 13/211, PRO. 766. See especially Bishop to Macmillan, "European Rocket Project," June 30, 1959, Prem 11/3713, PRO (for the quotation). Caccia to Foreign Office, March 18, 1960, and Chilver to Minister of Defence, "Discussions with the Americans on M.R.B.M.s and on deterrent weapons," March 21, 1960, in Defe 11/312. All in PRO. The British even opposed an Anglo-French project when the French proposed it in early 1960. See Roberts to Foreign Office (for meeting of British and French defense ministers), March 31, 1960, Defe 11/312, PRO. 767. Watkinson to Macmillan, April 12, 1962, Prem 11/3712, PRO. 768. Watkinson to Macmillan, June 7, 1960, Prem 11/3261, PRO. Note also the following passage from an unsigned paper on "Mid-range Ballistic Missiles," undated, but written around September 1960, which began with a short section reviewing the history of the issue: "In July and August, 1959, the United Kingdom expressed to the Americans anxiety about the manufacture of such a weapon in Europe, particularly in the event of German participation, but stated that the British attitude to the project would be greatly influenced by that of the United States Government and that the United Kingdom did not wish to discourage the project if the U.S.A. were going to support it." Defe 11/312, PRO. 769. Watkinson to Macmillan, May 12, 1960, Prem 11/3713, PRO. See also a memorandum to the prime minister on the "N.A.T.O. M.R.B.M." of October 27, 1960, in Prem 11/3714. The author asked whether Britain should continue "to do what we have done so far"--namely, "avoid any commitment" and "play the question along, in the hope that the project will die away." 770. Bishop to Macmillan, "European Rocket Project," June 30, 1959, Prem 11/3713, PRO. 771. Macmillan note of meeting with Norstad, November 26, 1958, and Richards to de Zulueta, December 1, 1958, Prem 11/3701, PRO; Roberts to Lloyd (reporting on meeting with Norstad), December 18, 1958, Prem 11/2929, PRO. On the German desire for IRBMs, see Nash, Other Missiles of October, pp. 57-60. 772. Chilver to Minister of Defence, March 21, 1960, Defe 11/312, PRO. British efforts to bring about a rethinking of NATO strategy, especially in 1961-62, were in large part driven by the goal of undercutting the military rationale for MRBMs, which they opposed mainly on political grounds: their primary concern was to keep control of strategic nuclear weapons out of German hands. See especially Defe 13/254, PRO, a very rich file on this whole question. For two published documents reflecting British concern with Germany acquiring strategic weapons, see Irwin in State-Defense meeting, September 25, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):485, and Lloyd in foreign ministers' meeting, June 1, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):374-376. 773. Working Party on Nuclear Weapons for NATO, "United States Proposals for a NATO MRBM Force," PNWN/P(60)3, October 26, 1960, Prem 11/3714. Emphasis added. This document reflects what by this point had become the conventional wisdom in official British circles. 774. Bevin memorandum on "Germany and Berlin," February 4, 1949, Prem 8/791, PRO. Lord Home, "Berlin," July 26, 1961, C(61)116, Cab 29/106, PRO. De Gaulle-Macmillan meeting, June 29, 1958, DDF 1958, 1:871. 775. Macmillan-Chauvel meeting, February 5, 1959, FO 371/145858. Macmillan frequently expressed views of this sort. As late as October 1962, he still made a point of saying that "our great fear is Germany." Reston-Harriman meeting, October 30, 1962, Harriman Papers [HP], box 565, chronological files, Library of Congress, Washington. 776. State Department comments on British paper on European security, attached to Hood-Reinstein meeting, April 18, 1958, 740.5/4-1858, RG 59, USNA. 777. See chapter 8, n. xxx. 778. See, for some typical examples, Dulles-Eisenhower telephone conversations, January 20 and January 25, 1959, 5:15 p.m., DP/TC/13/DDEL; Steel to Foreign Office, February 3, 1959 (for an Adenauer view) FO 371/145773, PRO; Chauvel to Couve, July 11, 1959, Eisenhower-de Gaulle meeting, September 2, 1959, Adenauer-de Gaulle meeting, December 2, 1959, DDF 1959, 2:37, 284, 658; and Massigli note of meeting with Macmillan, January 28, 1959 (for an account by an astute and experienced French observer), MP/100/FFMA. British leaders themselves often stressed the importance of domestic political considerations. See, for example, Beam to State Department, April 30, 1955, and Jackson log, July 11, 1955, FRUS 1955-57, 5:161, 304; and Dulles's note of a meeting with Lloyd, October 19, 1958, DP/GCM/1//DDEL. 779. For Dulles's concern about the drift of British policy, see, for example, Dulles-McElroy meeting, September 11, 1958, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):821-822; Dulles's "Thinking Out Loud," January 26, 1959, DP/WHM/7/White House Correspondence--General 1959/DDEL and ML, a short essay provoked by a similarly-entitled "think piece" by British foreign secretary Selwyn Lloyd; and especially Dulles-Herter meeting, April 24, 1959, with attached outline, "British and United States Views on Dealing with the Soviet Union," DP/SACS/14/DDEL.The British were also aware of a certain deterioration in their relations with the United States. See especially de Zulueta to Macmillan, March 8, 1960; for an analysis, see de Zulueta's "The Future of Anglo-American Relations"; both in Prem 11/2986, PRO. 780. For the French proposal for integrating American nuclear weapons into the NATO forces in Europe, see Dulles-Mollet-Pineau meeting, May 6, 1957, DDF 1957, 1:738-740. The corresponding passages were deleted from the American account of the meeting published in FRUS 1955-57, 27:121, but were released subsequently; see DSP/225/103315/ML. See also Elbrick to Dulles, July 9, 1957, with attached July 6 memorandum for talks with Joxe on NATO atomic stockpile, 740.5611/7-957, RG 59, USNA. When Dulles endorsed the idea in his July 16 press conference, the French were delighted. Their defense minister was "tremendously pleased" and told the Americans a couple of days later that if American nuclear weapons could be made available immediately in the event of an emergency, "either directly or through NATO," and if French forces could be trained in their use, the whole problem of a French nuclear capability "would be solved." Houghton to Dulles, July 18, 1957, 740.5611/7-1857, RG 59, USNA. But when the Americans presented a formal proposal along these lines at the NATO heads of government meeting in December, the French were unhappy and felt it did not go far enough toward giving them outright control of the weapons. Burgess to Dulles, December 5, 1957, 740.5611/12-555, and State Department to embassy in Paris, December 6, 1957, 740.5611/12-557, RG 59, USNA. 781. De Gaulle-Macmillan meeting, June 29-30, 1958, DDF 1958, 1:883. 782. De Gaulle-Dulles meeting, July 5, 1958, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):59. 783. De Gaulle-Dulles meeting, July 5, 1958, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):58. This particular charge was not justified, but one should note that the Eisenhower administration was not above using arguments about Congress in this way. See, for example, Dulles-Eisenhower telephone conversation, September 24, 1954, SSMC, no. 669. 784. For a striking example, see Alain Peyrefitte, C'était de Gaulle (Paris: Fayard, 1994), pp. 367-368. 785. See Hervé Alphand, L'Etonnement d'être (Paris: Fayard, 1977), pp. 331, 343, 397. 786. As the French leader bluntly pointed out in a letter to the American president: De Gaulle to Eisenhower, November 24, 1959, in Charles de Gaulle, Lettres, Notes et Carnets, June 1958 - December 1960 [LNC] (Paris: Plon, 1985), p. 283. 787. Dulles to Eisenhower, December 15, 1958, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):154. 788. See, for example, de Gaulle's views cited in Burgess to State Department, March 9 and 10, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):424, 426. French officials, including de Gaulle himself, often minimized the practical importance of these moves, implying that they were essentially gestures. See Alphand-Herter meeting, March 3, 1959, and de Gaulle-Norstad meeting, January 21, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):417, 569. U.S. policy on Algeria, which was not nearly as supportive of France as de Gaulle would have liked, was also an important--probably the most important--factor. For various documents reflecting the importance of the Algerian issue, see ibid., pp. 416, 418, 421, 423 and 437. 789. Dulles in meeting with Eisenhower, December 12, 1958, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):145. 790. Eisenhower, in meeting with Herter, May 2, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):206. 791. Eisenhower, in meeting with Spaak, September 3, 1959, and in letter to Norstad, January 11, 1960, ibid., FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):482, 566. 792. The Americans frequently argued along these lines. See, for example, Norstad in meeting with Adenauer, December 16, 1957, SS/ITM/4/NATO Heads of Goverment Meeting, Paris, Chronology, December 16, 1957 (1)/DDEL; Eisenhower-Debré meeting, December 21, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):559; and Eisenhower to de Gaulle, August 30, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):415. For a perceptive analysis of the question, see Roberts to Lloyd, "General de Gaulle's Attitude to NATO," December 3, 1959, pp. 4-7, Prem 11/3002, PRO. 793. Eisenhower-Herter meeting, April 22, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):342. Eisenhower's basic strategic concept was in some ways quite similar to de Gaulle's. The U.S. president's notion of America as the "central keep behind the forward forces" (cited in chapter five, n. xx, above) was, for example, in line with de Gaulle's idea of America providing the reserve force for the West. The difference was that while for Eisenhower the European forces were ultimately to be highly integrated, with American power fading increasingly into the background, for de Gaulle each of the major European countries was to play a very distinctive role. Germany, in his view, should be the "advance guard," France should "provide the main armies," and Britain should defend the "coastal flank." For de Gaulle's concept, which he laid out many times, see, for example, de Gaulle-Macmillan meeting, March 12-13, 1960, p. 5, FO 371/154096, PRO, and also Macmillan diary entry, March 13 1960, in Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 1959-1961 (London: Macmillan, 1972), p. 182; de Gaulle-Adenauer meetings, July 29-30, 1960, cited in Georges-Henri Soutou, "De Gaulle, Adenauer und die gemeinsame Front gegen die amerikanische Nuklearstrategie," in Ernst Hansen et al, eds., Politischer Wandel, organisierte Gewalt und nationale Sicherheit: Beiträge zur neueren Geschichte Deutschlands und Frankreichs (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1995), pp. 496-497 (for the French record), and Schwarz, Adenauer, 2:569-570 (for the German record); de Gaulle-Macmillan meeting, January 28, 1961, p. 11, Prem 11/3714, PRO; de Gaulle-Kennedy meeting, June 1, 1961, FRUS 1961-63, 13:313; de Gaulle-Alphand meetings, May 25, 1961 and June 26, 1962, Alphand, L'Etonnement d'être, pp. 351, 379. 794. Eisenhower to de Gaulle, August 30, 1960, Eisenhower-Herter telephone conversation, August 10, 1960, and Eisenhower-Herter meeting, April 22, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):414, 404, 342. 795. See, for example, Herter-Couve-Home meeting, September 23, 1960, DDRS 1997/2558. On French policy in this area in the pre-Gaullist period, see Dulles-Mollet-Pineau meeting, May 6, 1957, DDF 1957, 1:738-740. Mollet and Pineau argued here that an integrated system--an "armament atomique européen integré"--was the only way to both provide for the defense of Europe and to deal with the "special problem posed by Germany"--that it, to prevent Germany from acquiring an independent nuclear capability. This strand of thinking did not entirely disappear from French policy during the Gaullist period. As late as mid-1962, de Gaulle himself, for all his attacks on the principle of integration, his criticism of American predominance in NATO, and his calls for a Franco-German Europe with a strategic personality of its own, unambiguously favored the idea of a combined U.S.-British-German-French force in Germany, under American command, "afin d'éviter surtout que l'armée allemande forme des divisions indépendantes." De Gaulle-Alphand meeting, June 26, 1962, Alphand, L'Etonnement d'être, p. 379. 796. For de Gaulle and the question of German reunification, see Eisenhower-de Gaulle-Macmillan meeting, December 20, 1959, pp. 5, 8, Prem 11/2991, PRO, and especially U.S. State Department Historical Office, "Crisis over Berlin: American Policy Concerning the Soviet Threats to Berlin, November 1958 - December 1962" (October 1966) [DOS Berlin History], I:53. For de Gaulle and the German nuclear question, see pp. xxx below. 797. Eisenhower memorandum, August 10, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):405-406. See also Eisenhower-Macmillan meeting, September 27, 1960, p. 3, DDRS 1997/1698. 798. Eisenhower to de Gaulle, August 30, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):417. 799. Couve to Alphand, November 3, 1958, and Alphand to Couve, October 31, 1958, DDF 1958, 2:620, 620n; see also Alphand to Couve, December 4, 1958, ibid., p. 805. 800. Couve to Alphand, January 18, 1959, DDF 1959, 1:68; de Gaulle to Eisenhower, October 6, 1959, LNC 1958-60, p. 263. 801. De Gaulle-Jebb meeting, October 22, 1958, DDF 1958, 2:565. 802. Dulles-de Gaulle meeting, July 5, 1958, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):55-56, and DDF 1958, 2:24. 803. Alphand-Elbrick meeting, July 9, 1958, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):74. Dulles and Norstad also felt that de Gaulle had not "appreciated the far-reaching character" of the U.S. proposal. Dulles-Norstad meeting, September 26, 1958, DSP/79/71882/ML. 804. This issue will be treated in detail in the next chapter, but French reluctance to engage in joint planning was clear at the outset. See especially Couve to Alphand, January 11, 1959, DDF 1959, 1:37. Alphand, the French ambassador in Washington, was embarrassed by the French response to the American proposal for joint planning, and indeed thought that the American position was correct. See Alphand, L'Etonnement d'être, pp. 297-298. 805. On the air defense issue, and the meaning of American pressure for an effective air defense system, see pp. xxx-yyy above. 806. See, for example, Jean Chauvel, Commentaire, vol. 3, De Berne à Paris (1952-1962) (Paris: Fayard, 1973), p. 281. If de Gaulle had wanted joint planning (on African or Levantine questions, for example), Chauvel wrote, he should have made precise proposals, but he never did, because he was not really concerned with what was strategically effective, but rather sought to do "spectacular" things for domestic political purposes. Couve's view was not all that different, as one can tell from certain comments he made many years later. These remarks were phrased in general terms--"il ne faut pas confondre indépendance et irresponsabilité," "la dramatisation serait la pire des politiques"--but it is not hard to imagine what he had in mind. The basic problem from his point of view was not that de Gaulle's instincts were wrong, but rather that he was not subtle, that he tended to oversimplify things. While de Gaulle, for example, spoke of Russia coming to dominate all of Europe east of the Elbe "thanks to the consent given by Anglo-Saxons at Yalta," Couve referred to the partition of Europe "improperly called that of Yalta." See Maurice Couve de Murville, Le Monde en face: Entretiens avec Maurice Delarue (Paris: Plon, 1989), pp. 17, 69, 249; de Gaulle, Mémoires d'espoir: le renouveau, p. 239. 807. See, for example, Norstad's remark that it was "impossible to satisfy de Gaulle's appetite," in Norstad-Eisenhower meeting, June 9, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):462. 808. In fact, French leaders did grasp the basic thrust of the Eisenhower policy and understood that his goal was to make the Europeans more responsible for their own defense and less dependent on America. Unlike Adenauer, who was alarmed when he heard that Eisenhower was thinking along these lines, the French thought that what the president had in mind was natural and indeed desirable. Adenauer-Couve-Debré meeting, December 1, 1959, DDF 1959, 2:651-653. What is surprising, however, is that the French did not press actively for arrangements that would make for a smooth transition to a new, European-based defense system--above all, by supporting Eisenhower's plans for a European SACEUR, a NATO force not subject to a U.S. veto, and so on--and instead took a line which made it much harder for the United States to cooperate with a policy of devolving authority to the Europeans, above all in the nuclear sphere. 809. Norstad-Eisenhower meeting, June 9, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):462. 810. Norstad-Eisenhower meeting, August 3, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):610. 811. Eisenhower-Herter telephone conversation, August 10, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):403. 812. Eisenhower-Herter meeting, May 2, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):204. See also Eisenhower's comments at NSC meetings, August 18 and October 29, 1959, ibid., pp. 251-252, 292. The president's attitude was reflected in the position his government took on the question of legal authority to help the French with their nuclear program. The Atomic Energy Act had been liberalized in 1958 to permit America to help allies who had "made substantial progress in the development of atomic weapons," but the JCAE Report accompanying that piece of legislation had been "loaded in favor of the U.K. and against France." The administration, however, wanted to take as liberal a line as it could with regard to the French nuclear program. From Congress's point of view, the setting off of a single bomb was not meant to be the test of "substantial progress," but Secretary Herter told top French officials in May 1959 that "once the French had effected their first atomic explosion," the legal situation would be different and the U.S. "could talk substance to them." Eisenhower took a similar line in a meeting with de Gaulle a few months later. The U.S. law, he said, was a "mistake": "It seemed to run counter to common sense, but France could receive assistance only after she had expended large sums of money and a great deal of time and had herself detonated nuclear weapons. He regretted this but there was no way he could get around it." Herter-Debré-Couve meeting, May 1, 1959, and Eisenhower-de Gaulle meeting, September 2, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):199, 262 and DDF 1959, 2:279; NSC meeting, August 25, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):619-620. 813. Eisenhower-de Gaulle meeting, December 19, 1959, and Eisenhower-de Gaulle-Macmillan meeting, December 20, 1959, DDF 1959, 2:761, 770. 814. See the policy guidance in NSC 5910/1, "Statement of U.S. Policy on France," November 4, 1959, para. 42(a), FRUS 1958-60, 7(2):308--this represented an overruling, after an NSC discussion on October 9, of the majority view, which sought to put off the issue of bilateral aid and focus efforts on a multilateral solution; see ibid., pp. 290n, 290-295; editorial note, ibid., p. 412; NSC meeting, August 25, 1960, FRUS 1958-60, 7(1):616-617. This was all at the level of formal policy. What was going on in practice is again a clearer test of American policy--or at least of the policy that Eisenhower and a good part of the U.S. national security establishment wanted to pursue. Thus the comment of one exceptionally well-informed French student of these issues is of considerable interest: "Sur le plan nucléaire, on le sait bien maintenant, c'est avec Washington que nos rapports ont toujours été déterminants, sous la forme d'échanges scientifiques ou d'achats de certain matérials sensibles. L'orthodoxie 'gaulliste' a fait que l'on a occulté cette réalité: Directory: polisci -> faculty -> trachtenberg trachtenberg -> The United States, France, and the Question of German Power, 1945-1960 polisci -> Transylvania university committee on program and curriculum polisci -> Pos 6933: History of American Political Thought Course Description polisci -> Urban politics political science polisci -> International political economy polisci -> J. B. Weter History Honors Fellowship, Stanford University (1965-66) polisci -> Handbook on Migration and Social Policy trachtenberg -> The Economic Decline and Soviet Foreign Policy trachtenberg -> Assessing Soviet Economic Performance during the Cold War: a failure of Intelligence? Download 2.48 Mb. Share with your friends:
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