Transforming NATO in the Cold War

Based on original documents from the archives of NATO and member nations,
the 12 essays in this collection focus on the expansion of NATO’s political role
rather than its military and force planning functions. These essays show how, in
the context of the Berlin crisis, NATO dealt with the twin challenges of
Gaullism and détente, evolving into a more political and less hierarchical
alliance later in the decade. Focusing on the multilateral dynamics of NATO’s
political deliberations rather than on national policies, the book explores the role
of small allies that could “wag the dog” and underscores the importance of
democratic consensus in the successful reinvention of NATO in the 1960s. Inte-
grating insights from social and cultural history, the book also examines the role
of transnational groups in NATO’s transformation and shows that NATO’s
nuclear dilemmas were driven as much by domestic and social changes as by
technological factors and elite considerations. The conclusions about the
resilience of political NATO highlight the importance of common norms and
values, of institutional flexibility and adaptability, and of transgovernmental and
transnational groups to the cohesion of NATO in a period of a declining threat.
This book will be of much interest to students of international history, Cold
War studies, and strategic studies.

Andreas Wenger is professor of international security policy and director of the

Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. His latest publications include Inter-
national Relations: From the Cold War to the Globalized World (2003). Chris-
tian Nuenlist is senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH
Zurich. Anna Locher is senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at
ETH Zurich.
CSS studies in security and international relations
Edited by Andreas Wenger and Victor Mauer
Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich

War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War

Threat perceptions in the East and West
Edited by Vojtech Mastny, Sven G. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger

Transforming NATO in the Cold War

Challenges beyond deterrence in the 1960s
Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist, and Anna Locher
Transforming NATO in
the Cold War
Challenges beyond deterrence in the
1960s

Edited by Andreas Wenger,

Christian Nuenlist, and Anna Locher
First published 2007
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
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“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2007 editorial matter and selection Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist,
and Anna Locher; individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Transforming NATO in the Cold War : challenges beyond deterrence in
the 1960s / Edited by Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist and Anna
Locher.
p. cm. – (CSS studies in security and international relations)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. North Atlantic Treaty Organization–History–20th century. 2. Cold War.
I. Wenger, Andreas. II. Nuenlist, Christian. III. Locher, Anna. IV. Series.
UA646.3.T7328 2007
355'.03109182109046–dc22
2006013284

ISBN10: 0-415-39737-5 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-08884-0 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-39737-7 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-08884-5 (ebk)
Contents

List of contributors vii

Preface x
Acknowledgments xii

PART I
Introduction 1

1 New perspectives on NATO history 3

ANDREAS WENGER, CHRISTIAN NUENLIST, AND
ANNA LOCHER

PART II
The Atlantic community: the promise of alliance 13

2 The normative resilience of NATO: a community of

shared values amid public discord 15
JEREMI SURI

3 Not a NATO responsibility? Psychological warfare, the

Berlin crisis, and the formation of Interdoc 31
GILES SCOTT-SMITH

4 Beyond NATO: transnational elite networks and the

Atlantic alliance 50
THOMAS W. GIJSWIJT

PART III
NATO, de Gaulle, and détente 65

5 Into the 1960s: NATO’s role in East–West relations, 1958–63 67

CHRISTIAN NUENLIST
vi Contents
6 Through the looking glass: the Berlin crisis and
Franco-American perceptions of NATO, 1961–63 89
ERIN MAHAN

7 A crisis foretold: NATO and France, 1963–66 107

ANNA LOCHER

PART IV
Nuclear dilemmas: NATO consultation and social protest 129

8 Diverging perceptions of security: NATO, nuclear weapons,

and social protest 131
HOLGER NEHRING

9 From hardware to software: the end of the MLF and the rise
of the Nuclear Planning Group 148
ANDREW PRIEST

10 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty: triangulations

between Bonn, Washington, and Moscow 162
OLIVER BANGE

PART V
Changing domestic perspectives on NATO 181

11 Striving for détente: Denmark and NATO, 1966–67 183

JONATHAN SØBORG AGGER

12 A decade of delusions and disappointments: Italy and

NATO in the 1960s 201
LEOPOLDO NUTI

PART VI
Conclusion 219

13 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s and the ensuing political

order in Europe 221
ANDREAS WENGER

Index 243
Contributors

Jonathan Søborg Agger is currently head of section within the Danish Ministry
of Defense. Until late 2005, he was a researcher at the Department of Cold
War Studies at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Copen-
hagen. From 2001 to 2005, he worked on DIIS’s government commissioned
White Paper on Danish security policy from 1945–1991, Denmark during the
Cold War (2005). His articles on Danish security policy during the Cold War
have appeared in Contemporary European History and the Danish Historisk
Tidsskrift.
Oliver Bange is a senior researcher at the University of Mannheim, working on
the international project “Ostpolitik and Détente.” He holds a Ph.D. in
modern history from the London School of Economics (1995). He is the
author of The EEC Crisis of 1963: Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and Ade-
nauer in Conflict (Macmillan, 2000) and of several book chapters and art-
icles. He completed his Habilitationsschrift on Ostpolitik and Détente in
Europe, 1966–69 in 2004.
Thomas W. Gijswijt is a Curt Engelhorn Ph.D. scholar at the University of
Heidelberg. He holds an MA in modern history from the University of Ams-
terdam and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in 2001–02. He is
currently writing a history of the Bilderberg Group during the first half of the
Cold War.
Anna Locher is senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH
Zurich. Her research interests cover transatlantic relations, the modern history
of Finland, and the role of language in history. Her publications include art-
icles on Canada and NATO and NATO’s search for a new role in the 1960s
in International Journal and Journal of Transatlantic Studies. She is cur-
rently completing a monograph on NATO’s management of intra-bloc dissent
in the 1960s.
Erin Mahan is chief of the Asia and Americas Division at the Historian’s
Office of the US Department of State and a research historian at the Miller
Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. She is the author of
Kennedy, de Gaulle, and Western Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) and an
viii Contributors
associate editor of The Great Crises: The Presidential Recordings Series of
John F. Kennedy (Norton Press, 2001). Her articles have appeared in
Diplomatic History, The Journal of Economic Integration History, and Amer-
ican Diplomacy. She is currently editing three volumes of The Foreign Rela-
tions of the United States.
Holger Nehring is lecturer in contemporary European history at the University
of Sheffield, UK. He was Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford, lecturer
in modern history at University College and Pembroke College, and junior
research fellow at St. Peter’s College, University of Oxford. His articles have
appeared in Cold War History, Contemporary British History, Zeithistorische
Forschungen, and Historical Social Research. He is currently working on a
monograph on the comparative history of the British and West German
protests against nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 1960s.
Christian Nuenlist is senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at
ETH Zurich. His research focuses on transatlantic relations, the history of
détente, and Swiss foreign policy during the Cold War. He is the author of a
political biography of McGeorge Bundy in the Kennedy years (1999) and of
articles in International Journal and Journal of Transatlantic Studies. He is
currently working on a monograph on Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Political
Cooperation in NATO: Western Reactions to Khrushchev’s Foreign Policy,
1955–1963.
Leopoldo Nuti is professor of the history of international relations at the Univer-
sity of Rome III. He is the author of Gli Stati Uniti e l’apertura a sinistra,
1953–63 (Laterza, 1999) as well as the editor of International Crises and
Diplomatic Sources (1998) and Dividing the Atom: Essays on the History of
Nuclear Proliferation in Europe (1998). His articles have appeared in Storia
delle Relazioni Internazionali, Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique, Diplomacy and
Statecraft, Relations Internationales, and Contemporary European History.
Andrew Priest is a lecturer in international politics at the University of Wales,
Aberystwyth. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, UK. His
main areas of research interest are the history of US foreign policy and
US–UK relations. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Military
History and Contemporary British History. His book Kennedy, Johnson and
NATO: Britain, America and the Dynamics of Alliance is due to be published
by Routledge in 2007.
Giles Scott-Smith is senior researcher with the Roosevelt Study Center in
Middleburg, Netherlands. He has published The Politics of Apolitical
Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-War Amer-
ican Hegemony (Routledge, 2001) and, with Hans Krabbendam, The Cultural
Cold War in Western Europe 1945–60 (Frank Cass, 2003). His articles have
appeared in Diplomacy & Statecraft, Journal of Contemporary History, and
Intelligence and National Security. His research interests cover Cold War
 Contributors ix
public diplomacy and transatlantic relations, and he is now completing a
book on the Foreign Leader Program in Western Europe.
Jeremi Suri is associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin. He
received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2001 and was awarded the John
Addison Porter Prize for the best dissertation in the humanities and the Hans
Gatzke Prize for the best dissertation in international history. He is the author
of Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Harvard
University Press, 2003). He has published articles in International Security,
Journal of Cold War Studies, Cold War History, Diplomatic History, and
Contemporary European History.
Andreas Wenger is professor of international security policy and director of the
Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. His main research interests are in
security and strategic studies and the history of international relations. His
publications include International Relations: From Cold War to the Global-
ized World (Lynne Rienner, 2003), and Living with Peril: Eisenhower,
Kennedy, and Nuclear Weapons (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). He has pub-
lished articles in Journal of Cold War Studies, Cold War History, Presiden-
tial Studies Quarterly, and Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte.
Preface

In August 2004, the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich sponsored a con-
ference on NATO in the 1960s. The theme centered on the changes in NATO
from a US-dominated military alliance in the 1950s to a more political relation-
ship in which the European allies loomed larger than they had in NATO’s first
decade. This is not a new perception; NATO historians over the years have
recognized the ways in which the organization has evolved from its inception in
1949. What distinguishes this book from other contributions to NATO scholar-
ship in this decade are new approaches to the 1960s, ranging from newly access-
ible sources to innovative concepts.
First, the scope and depth of research in the archives have increased. The
authors have taken full advantage of records that were not available to earlier
historians. Among the sources tapped are the NATO archives opened in the past
few years. Although the records are not complete, they cast light on key prob-
lems of the 1960s. As the Cold War recedes into the past, member nations have
quickened the pace of declassification of documents relating to the alliance. The
language capabilities necessary to exploit these opportunities are present in
abundance among the contributors to this collection.
Second, the focus of this volume is not on the familiar Soviet–US or
NATO–Warsaw Pact confrontations but on the transformation of the alliance in
the 1960s from the military orientation of the 1950s to a more nuanced relation-
ship that modified some of the disparities between Europe and the United States.
The Cold War did not dissolve, as some historians believed likely in the 1960s.
But its hold over the alliance dissipated after the end of the Cuban and Berlin
crises. The subsequent relaxation of tensions between East and West permitted
the influence of transnational groups to interact with the national interests of
NATO members. Transforming NATO – to use the language of the title – meant
giving voice to the smaller nations as the Wise Men’s advice of 1956 became
the accepted wisdom of the Harmel report in 1967. It is noteworthy that the
United States, while not invisible in the book, does not dominate its chapters.
Third, US scholars working on the 1960s are conspicuous by their absence.
Out of 12 studies in this volume, representing scholars from eight NATO coun-
tries and three from Switzerland, only two are from the United States. The ques-
tion arises: why are there not more? This is a subject I have addressed in the
 Preface xi
past, particularly in an American Historical Association Newsletter on the occa-
sion of NATO’s 25th anniversary and at a conference in Kansas City on the
occasion of the alliance’s 40th anniversary.1
In 1974, and again in 1989, I found reasons for the relative lack of interest
among US historians in NATO’s history: the treaty initially was subsumed as a
subject of research under the Truman Doctrine; NATO was an ongoing alliance
with no immediate termination in sight; and archival records were not available.
These deterrents are not valid today. Interest in NATO as an institution is no
more alive among US scholars than it was a generation ago. That there is a
wealth of material open to scholars and a variety of new interpretations possible
is made clear in this book. Fortunately, European scholars have recognized what
their US counterparts have neglected. I like to think the intellectual excitement a
book of this quality should generate might revive NATO scholarship in the
United States.
Lawrence S. Kaplan
Director Emeritus, Lyman L. Lemnitzer Center for NATO and
European Union Studies, Kent State University
Professorial Lecturer in History, Georgetown University

Note
1 “After Twenty-Five Years: NATO as a Research Field,” American Historical Associ-
ation Newsletter 12 (November 1974), pp. 6–7; “After Forty Years: Reflections on
NATO as a Research Field,” in NATO: The Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the
Integration of Europe, ed. Francis H. Heller and John R. Gillingham (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1992), pp. 15–23.
Acknowledgments

This book evolved in the context of the Parallel History Project on NATO and
the Warsaw Pact (PHP: www.isn.ethz.ch/php). In an attempt to shed new light
on the achievements and failures of the two Cold War alliances, the PHP brings
together a network of scholars and academic institutions to collect, analyze, and
interpret formerly classified documents from Eastern European and NATO
records. In 1999, the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, as one of the
founding members of the PHP, initiated an international NATO history project
that aimed at providing new scholarly perspectives on the transformation of
NATO from the US-dominated military alliance of the 1950s to the more polit-
ical and participatory alliance of the late 1960s.
The opening of the NATO archives in 1999, together with the release of doc-
uments in NATO member archives, promised a wealth of new material for such
a project. The research for the chapters in this book was originally undertaken
for a conference held at the ETH Zurich in August 2004 that brought together an
extensive mix of leading NATO scholars and young academics from ten coun-
tries. The original texts were rewritten based on the discussion during the con-
ference and the editor’s comments. Thus, this book represents the final product
of what for us has been an exiting and stimulating collaboration among a group
of friends and colleagues.
We have been extraordinarily fortunate to have been assisted by many people
and in a variety of ways, from the development of the conference concept
through to the publication of the book. We thank Lawrence Kaplan, Gustav
Schmidt, and Vojtech Mastny for sharing their insights at the conference. We
would like to thank all the conference participants who presented their views
and provided useful comments. In addition to the authors of this volume, they
are Bruna Bagnato, Ralph Dietl, Vincent Dujardin, Daniele Ganser, Robin
Gendron, Mary Halloran, Oliver Benjamin Hemmerle, Michael Kieninger, Ine
Megens, Daniel Möckli, Erwin Schmidl, Heide-Irene Schmidt, David Tal, and
Bruno Thoss.
Many of the book’s chapters have drawn on sources from the NATO archives
in Brussels. While all archive staff members have been unfailingly helpful to all
of us, we wish to extend our special thanks to Paul Marsden for sharing his
insights with the group gathered at the conference in August 2004. Our thanks
 Acknowledgments xiii
go also to Jennifer Gassmann and Thomas Holderegger from the Center for
Security Studies for their invaluable help with the organization of the conference.
We are delighted that our project ended up in the capable hands of Andrew
Humphrys at Routledge, who has handled the review and production process
with great skill. We wish to extend our thanks also to Victor Mauer, the co-
editor of the CSS Studies in Security and International Relations series, for his
support of the project. Finally, we thank Michelle Norgate and Christopher
Findlay for their excellent editorial assistance. While we are indebted to all
those mentioned above, the final responsibility for any errors is ours alone.

Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist, and Anna Locher

Center for Security Studies
ETH Zurich
Zurich, 31 January 2006
Part I
Introduction
1 New perspectives on NATO
history
Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist, and
Anna Locher

This book about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the 1960s
concentrates on the political dimension of the alliance. Most studies on NATO
have centered on the alliance’s deterrence and defense functions, that is, on how
changing perceptions of the Soviet threat and the military balance informed
NATO’s debate on military strategy and force planning. Far less attention has
been paid to how NATO evolved into a forum of political consultation and
cooperation and how it reacted to the challenges beyond deterrence that culmi-
nated in a debate about the future political order in Europe. NATO’s political
roles go back to the foundation of the alliance itself and are rooted in the unset-
tled nature of the postwar order in Central Europe. The alliance’s role in keeping
the Anglo-Saxon powers engaged on the continent and in ensuring West
German integration into an emerging Europe is well documented.1 By the mid-
1960s, however, the key political challenges had shifted from keeping “the Rus-
sians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down” (Lord Ismay) to designing
political structures that would allow the multilateralization of détente and
accommodate the demands of an economically revived and politically more
assertive Europe.
The 1960s are the crucial decade for studying the political dimension of
NATO, not least because at the time the future of the alliance seemed uncertain.
As NATO’s twentieth anniversary in 1969 approached, one member – France
under President Charles de Gaulle – seriously seemed to consider using its right
under Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty to cease its alliance membership.
De Gaulle’s opposition to military integration and central nuclear control is also
well documented. At the heart of the Gaullist challenge to NATO, however, was
the questioning of NATO’s political legitimacy: was NATO, dominated by the
United States, the right political forum for achieving German and European
unity, for proceeding with détente with Eastern Europe, and for negotiating a
lasting European settlement? De Gaulle was convinced that the Europeans had
to assume political leadership outside of NATO’s structures.2 The fact that
policy makers in Bonn and other European capitals at times raised the possibility
of dissolving NATO and the Warsaw Pact as an alternative model for designing
a new European order stirred considerable anxiety in NATO’s corridors.
The founders of the alliance, in the context of the early Cold War, had not
4 Wenger et al.
conceived NATO in the tradition of a classical defense coalition of sovereign
states. NATO was founded as an alliance of like-minded states with a common
heritage – shared democratic values and common interests – that combined the
defense of values with the defense of territory.3 The North Atlantic Treaty
represented a compromise between the European aim of securing US guarantees
to deter and defend Western Europe in case of a Soviet military attack, on the
one hand, and Washington’s goal of encouraging (Western) Europe’s economic
reconstruction and democratization as a means of curbing Soviet political influ-
ence in Europe, on the other.4 It was the outbreak of the Korean War in June
1950 that catalyzed NATO’s militarization. The Korean War shifted the focus
from the political to the military field – from Soviet intentions to Soviet cap-
abilities – thus jumpstarting a process of military integration that resulted in the
buildup of a centralized command structure and the nuclearization of NATO.
The evolution of NATO’s strategic thinking dominated NATO’s cooperative
efforts for the remainder of the 1950s.5
Policy makers at that time – like scholars in later periods – paid much less
attention to the expansion of NATO’s political functions and consultative proce-
dures than to the development of its military and force planning efforts. While
the peaceful coexistence policy of Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev put the
issue of how to approach détente onto NATO’s agenda in 1955–56, a series of
international crises in Asia and the Middle East, along with a growing percep-
tion that the locus of the East–West confrontation was shifting from Europe to
the global south, led to conflict among the allies over “out-of-area” issues. As a
consequence, the perception took hold within NATO that the changing patterns
of East–West as well as West–West conflicts demanded a strengthening of the
political dimension of the alliance. The 1956 exercise and report of the “Three
Wise Men” represented a first attempt to strengthen NATO as a forum for
transatlantic political consultation and cooperation – a development that was met
with French opposition once de Gaulle had returned to power in June 1958.6
By the end of its first decade, NATO had entered a phase of transition that led
to a widespread perception of crisis and a pronounced public and governmental
debate about the future of the alliance. Disagreement over NATO’s political role
built up through the Berlin and Cuban missile crises and erupted in January
1963, when de Gaulle announced his veto to Britain’s admission to the Common
Market, rejected US Polaris missiles, and signed a treaty of friendship with
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. The malaise of the mid-1960s revolved
around such important questions as the management and application of nuclear
power, out-of-area issues – including Vietnam – and the perception of a decreas-
ing Soviet threat. Once France had left NATO’s military structures in the spring
of 1966, the transformation of NATO into a more political and less hierarchical
alliance became possible. The new balance between its military and its political
functions, as recorded in the public statement of the landmark 1967 Harmel
report, would carry NATO into the post-Cold War world.7
This book distinguishes itself from earlier studies in that it focuses on topics
pertaining to NATO’s political dimension and in that it invites an assessment of
 New perspectives on NATO history 5
the alliance’s role in the debate and design of a new political order in Europe. In
general, the evidence presented here broadens the scope of existing analyses in at
least three ways: first, most of the authors have benefited from the release of new
archival material. Since the opening of NATO archives in 1999, a wealth of newly
declassified material on NATO has become available in Brussels, as well as in
many archives of the member states. Studies on the history of NATO require
multinational and multi-archival research, as demonstrated by the exemplary
multi-volume project on the history of NATO from 1949 to 1956, launched by the
Military History Research Institute (MGFA) in Germany in the 1990s.8 This fresh
scholarship on NATO at times challenges earlier readings of the alliance and
reveals the valuable contribution of new sources and perspectives to a fuller appre-
ciation of the complex intra-West interactions during the Cold War.
Second, in an attempt to complement research focusing primarily on the
NATO policies of key member states, the contributions of this volume explore
the multilateral dynamics of NATO’s political deliberations. Analyses of NATO
as a multilateral forum for political consultation tend to shift the focus from the
East–West conflict to the West–West conflict and from a situation where the
superpowers had the initiative to a situation where the small allies seized the
opportunity to “wag the dog.” Trans-governmental coalitions emerged that
shaped the political agenda, sometimes with a decisive impact on the domestic
policy making process of key member states.9 Third, integrating insights gained
in other fields of study, such as international relations and social and cultural
history, some of the chapters of this book examine the perceptions of trans-
national actors. Investigations into transatlantic elite networks and anti-nuclear
protest movements can enrich our understanding of NATO’s political impact.
Arguably, the transformation of NATO was driven as much by domestic polit-
ical and social changes as by great power policy initiatives.10

The book consists of four main sections. Part II analyses NATO as a pluralistic
security community (Karl Deutsch) and discusses the extent to which NATO’s
survival beyond the 1960s was the result of a common political culture. Intro-
ducing the section, Jeremi Suri argues that a set of shared values, which tran-
scended the actions of US and West European leaders, allowed for the continued
prosperity of NATO into the 1970s. According to Suri, the alliance fulfilled two
vital political functions during the second half of the Cold War. One the one
hand, NATO provided a vehicle for overcoming the unavoidable disunity of the
Western states by assuring acceptable West German participation in European
politics, by keeping the United States and Britain engaged militarily and politic-
ally on the European continent, and by facilitating the emergence of a West
European identity. On the other hand, the alliance successfully leveraged the
political order among the Western states as the basis for building new bridges to
Soviet-dominated Europe, in effect legitimizing the process of East–West nor-
malization. By the late 1960s, Suri concludes, NATO’s commitment to
democratization and détente had proved as important as the military functions
that had underpinned the initial formation of the alliance.
6 Wenger et al.
NATO politicians were in fact concerned about the alliance’s democratic
image, which was very much at stake in its handling of the delicate psychologi-
cal warfare issue. Roused by the Berlin crisis and West German fear of isolation,
Bonn proposed at the end of the 1950s the development of an offensive political
warfare capability within the NATO structure. West Germany’s proposal, Giles
Scott-Smith notes, transcended NATO’s established political role and radically
challenged the identity of the alliance. But since London opposed a psychologi-
cal warfare agency within NATO, and since Washington’s reaction was only
lukewarm, Bonn proposed to work through an independent private group. As
Scott-Smith demonstrates, the establishment of the private and transnational
“Interdoc” network provided the West Germans with an outlet for their concerns
about Eastern bloc propaganda, in effect giving them an alternative to an offen-
sive psychological warfare capability within NATO. Within the alliance, psy-
chological warfare remained in the hands of the military for use in times of
conflict only. Psychological warfare never made it into a formal NATO body,
Scott-Smith concludes, because it clashed with NATO’s democratic values.
Transatlantic elite networks, Thomas W. Gijswijt argues in his contribution,
were a key characteristic of the Atlantic political culture. Elite networks like the
Bilderberg Group were deeply concerned about the cohesion of the alliance, and
with their activities they contributed to Western unity and to a basic consensus
on transatlantic cooperation. Gijswijt traces the influence of this private informal
network of high-level policy makers on NATO decision making, demonstrating
how the Bilderberg Group played a key role in forming the international
response to the Franco-German treaty. Supplementing rather than replacing offi-
cial NATO gatherings and procedures, the Bilderberg conventions, according to
Gijswijt, formed part of the overall fabric of the Atlantic alliance. Transatlantic
elite networks provided Washington with an effective instrument to legitimize
its leadership role while offering the Europeans an opportunity to understand
and influence US policy. The participants’ list of the Bilderberg meetings, which
included such influential NATO personalities as Washington’s Undersecretary
of State George Ball and NATO Secretary-General Dirk Stikker, confirms the
important role of the network in shaping ad hoc coalitions that could be used as
leverage to influence national policy making.
Part III deals with the two challenges – Gaullism and détente – that resulted
in a fundamental disagreement about the legitimacy of NATO’s political role.
De Gaulle’s demand that NATO move to a tripartite directorate – which chal-
lenged the United States and embarrassed and infuriated the smaller allies – put
the issue of the alliance’s political leadership up for discussion. And
Khrushchev’s Berlin ultimatum brought conflicting détente policies to the fore,
which in fact seemed to prove that incompatible visions of Europe’s future had
emerged within the alliance. Within this context, Christian Nuenlist discusses
the political debates among NATO ambassadors in Paris and NATO foreign
ministers from 1958 to 1963. Political consultations on the Berlin crisis and on
the related issue of East–West détente revealed serious intra-bloc tension among
Western allies. Nuenlist argues that NATO political consultations dramatically
 New perspectives on NATO history 7
deteriorated in the second half of 1959, both because of de Gaulle’s anti-NATO
stance and because of Eisenhower’s policy of bilateral détente with Khrushchev.
Reconciling superpower détente and alliance politics became increasingly diffi-
cult for the United States as NATO’s hegemonic leader. Comparing Eisen-
hower’s record of political consultation with NATO on East–West relations with
Kennedy’s, Nuenlist concludes that Kennedy was more successful than Eisen-
hower in managing détente within the NATO forum. In addition, Secretary-
General Dirk Stikker’s handling of the NATO Council encouraged substantial
multilateral political debates within NATO, whereas the restless efforts of his
predecessor Paul-Henri Spaak to improve political cooperation within NATO
produced less concrete results.
Erin Mahan narrates the battle between Kennedy and de Gaulle over power
politics, international economics, and NATO strategy in the context of the esca-
lating Berlin crisis. Mahan offers a comprehensive account of how the Berlin
crisis led to the emergence of incompatible, if nebulous, US and French visions
for the future of Europe. The Berlin crisis convinced de Gaulle that France
would have to withdraw from military NATO, once the direct threat to the city
had passed, and it bolstered his determination to veto Britain’s membership
application to the Common Market as a means of minimizing Anglo-Saxon
influence in Bonn. In Washington, by contrast, tension over Berlin persuaded
Kennedy that a war with the Soviet Union could be avoided only through his
grand design of a unified Western Europe, tightly bound economically and mili-
tarily to the United States. Mahan blames both leaders for establishing too many
linkages between economic policy and security policy – connecting nuclear
sharing with British entry into the Common Market – so that the two policy
areas became difficult to separate.
The question of how NATO insiders coped with the alliance’s internal crisis
between 1963 and 1966 is the topic of Anna Locher’s chapter. The French
stance in NATO triggered crisis perception and “crisis talk” at NATO’s routine
political meetings, and among NATO and national officials from January 1963
on. This talk anticipated, and prepared the alliance for coping with, the 1966
crisis following France’s withdrawal from NATO’s military command. While de
Gaulle used Secretary-General Manlio Brosio as a channel for informing the
allies about his next moves, small allies, led by Canada and Belgium, initiated a
debate about the future of the alliance that paved the way for the understanding
that NATO was necessary beyond 1969 and would continue, even if France
were to leave the alliance. NATO’s multilateral discussions were an expression
of the general malaise that had beset the alliance since the early 1960s and thus
highlighted the need for reform. But at the same time, Locher emphasizes, this
West–West bargaining process produced methods of crisis management and a
set of ideas that proved instrumental to the successful transformation of NATO
towards the end of the decade.
Part IV addresses NATO’s perennial nuclear dilemmas. The focus of the
three chapters, however, is neither on the evolution of NATO’s nuclear strategy
nor on the history of the Multilateral Force (MLF).11 Rather, the contributions in
8 Wenger et al.
this volume concentrate on the political aspects of NATO’s nuclear challenge,
exploring the role of anti-nuclear protest movements, the delicate balance of
political interests in the evolution of the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG), and the
interconnection between NATO’s nuclear sharing schemes and the negotiation
of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Addressing the nuclear issue from the
perspective of social history, Holger Nehring locates the fundamental dilemma
of the alliance in the diverging perceptions of security within Western societies
from 1955 on. For the anti-nuclear weapons protesters, Nehring argues, NATO’s
nuclearization would not contribute to a “long peace” (John Lewis Gaddis).
Analyzing the discussion of NATO within the protest movements against
nuclear weapons in Britain, West Germany and France, Nehring is struck by the
degree to which the protest movements framed NATO’s nuclear issues as
national problems. While Britain and West Germany both experienced large-
scale anti-nuclear protest movements between 1955 and 1963, France had no
strong protest movement. This can be explained by de Gaulle’s unilateral
nuclear policy, which became the symbol for the stabilization of the French
state. While protesters in all countries regarded the NATO crisis as severe, only
a vocal minority among them in Britain and France wanted their countries to
leave NATO. By 1963, in the wake of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the anti-
nuclear weapons protest movements began to transform into broader protest
movements that cumulated in the violent protests of 1968.
The long petering out of the MLF project and the parallel, initially almost
unrecognized rise of the NPG is the subject of Andrew Priest’s chapter. The
campaign of the MLF “theologians” in the State Department to bind West
Germany more permanently into the alliance through the MLF is well-known.
Priest argues that support for the MLF remained only lukewarm in many coun-
tries because the question of control – of central importance to national nuclear
sovereignty – was never solved and because the MLF was perceived as anti-
détente in the domestic political debates of some NATO countries. After the
unofficial demise of the project in December 1964, US Secretary of Defense
Robert S. McNamara introduced, in May 1965, the idea of a select committee of
NATO defense ministers to discuss nuclear problems and to share expertise in
the nuclear field. Gradually, West Germany was won over to the idea, the
demands of the smaller allies that the new committee would not be a trilateral
affair were accommodated, and the Soviet Union decided not to oppose a “soft-
ware solution.” The NPG, Priest concludes, represented a significant change in
NATO’s political and military structures that facilitated a consensus on flexible
response and made progress on the NPT possible.
Connected with the issue of NATO’s nuclear sharing, if much broader in
scope and with wider-ranging implications, was the search for a nuclear nonpro-
liferation treaty. Examining the “triangulations” between Bonn, Washington,
and Moscow that were necessary to make the NPT possible, Oliver Bange notes
that a majority of European statesmen saw the NPT as a means to perpetuate
Germany’s non-nuclear status. While Johnson had decided by late 1966 to move
ahead with bilateral talks between the United States and the Soviet Union and
 New perspectives on NATO history 9
had confronted the allies with the Soviet–US draft treaty as a fait accompli,
policy makers in Washington and elsewhere realized that West Germany had to
be compensated by an expansion of its role in NATO’s nuclear policy making
that would at least amount to limited sovereignty over nuclear weapons on
German soil. Given this context, Bange argues, the nuclear ambitions of the
ruling conservatives in Bonn and their opposition to the NPT became an
obstacle to both the NPT and Ostpolitik. Progress became possible only after
Willy Brandt, who understood that the success of his Ostpolitik depended on
West Germany’s participation in the NPT, had won the West German elections
of September 1969. Bange thus shows how the NPT negotiations and the paral-
lel rise of the NPG legitimized NATO’s political role and facilitated the recon-
stitution of political NATO.
Part V of the book addresses the perception of NATO in the domestic politics
of selected member states and the impact of these domestic perceptions on
national policies within the alliance. Jonathan Søborg Agger examines the
factors that motivated the Danish government to promote NATO’s role as an
instrument for peace. At the request of the United States, Denmark suggested
that NATO should promote East–West détente, and it proposed a European
security conference in May 1966. The Danish initiative was partly driven by a
genuine interest in détente – prompted by an increased interest of the East bloc
in détente, by a Western unwillingness to leave the propaganda value of détente
initiatives to the Warsaw Pact, by the wish to pre-empt de Gaulle’s 1966
Moscow trip with a multilateral initiative, and by a fear of the possible outcome
of bilateral negotiations between the Soviet Union and West Germany.
However, domestic factors also provide an explanation for the Danish push for a
multilateral détente. According to Agger, public support for NATO was being
eroded in Denmark by stirrings of détente in Europe and by the unpopular US
war in Vietnam. Thus, it was considered essential that NATO should become a
modern, progressive organization that embraced East–West dialog in order to
sustain public support into the 1970s. Further, Agger notes, Danish policy
makers wanted to avoid a showdown with France, not least because of Paris’s
considerable influence over Denmark’s membership application to the Common
Market.
The crucial effects of the decreasing public support for NATO, with regard to
national perceptions of NATO and to policies within NATO, are also evident in
the case of Italy, examined by Leopoldo Nuti. Italy’s traditional firm reliance on
the alliance was mitigated during the 1960s by frustration in Italy over its
nuclear ambitions, US involvement in Vietnam, and a growing perception of
instability in the Mediterranean. Since the 1950s, Italy had tried to achieve
nuclear status through NATO. By the late 1960s, however, the success of the
NPG was more than offset in the eyes of Italian policy makers by the bitter pill
of the NPT, which sanctioned a permanent, discriminating division between the
five nuclear states, on the one hand, and Italy as a non-nuclear state, on
the other. According to Nuti, the Italians feared that the NPT was the price the
United States had to pay to get out of Vietnam. The US preoccupation with
10 Wenger et al.
bilateral superpower détente and with finding a way out of Vietnam forced Italy
to sign the NPT, work out its own limited détente with the East, and shift to a
policy of “equidistance” in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. While
NATO remained crucial as Italy’s insurance against domestic revirements and
Soviet pressure, Nuti concludes, NATO gradually became less useful for pro-
moting Italy’s interests in other fields.
Building on some of the major findings presented in the chapters of this book,
Andreas Wenger, in the concluding section, offers a more general assessment of
NATO’s transformation in the 1960s. Tension over NATO’s political legiti-
macy, induced by de Gaulle, accumulated between 1958 and 1963. The Berlin
crisis forced NATO into a transition phase that witnessed the emergence of
contradictory visions of a new European order, while at the same time suppress-
ing open disagreement until the direct threat by the Soviet Union had passed. De
Gaulle’s double non of January 1963 refocused NATO members’ attention from
the East–West crisis to the future of NATO at a time of détente. In the period
from 1963 to 1966, NATO dealt with France’s dissent and managed to isolate
Paris within the alliance. At the same time, policy makers began to realize that
domestic changes within the members states demanded a reform of NATO’s
form and functions. NATO’s transformation culminated in the trilateral talks
and the Harmel exercise of 1966 to 1968, which strengthened the alliance’s
political functions and transformed its institutional structures. Wenger argues
that the essence of NATO’s transformation from the integrated military alliance
of the 1950s – dominated by the United States – into the less hierarchical and
more participatory alliance of the late 1960s was political: the new NATO
emerged as a tool that anchored the multilateralization of détente during the
early Helsinki process in the multilateral structure of the alliance and that wel-
comed the emergence of a more assertive political voice of an enlarged Europe
through the European Economic Community.

The early 1960s exposed NATO to unprecedented tension; there was a real pos-
sibility that NATO would cease to exist after its twentieth anniversary. By the
mid-1960s, however, it had become clear that the new NATO would persist into
a time of détente. NATO, accepting the risk of fragmentation, had successfully
managed the arduous task of reinventing itself to adapt to a rapidly changing
international environment. The political structures of the alliance had absorbed a
great deal of dispute and disagreement, and the alliance had lived through
instances of great-power unilateralism, while also witnessing a considerable
degree of anti-hegemonic behavior. But through all of this, NATO had provided
a working environment in which a world of diffusing power could be organized
into a world of diffused responsibility.
In addition to addressing different themes and providing varying perspectives,
the chapters of this book draw three overarching conclusions that explain the
resilience of political NATO in a period of a decreasing military threat. First, the
importance of common norms and values – of soft power in addition to hard power
– emerges in a majority of the contributions in one form or another. The effects of a
 New perspectives on NATO history 11
“habit of consultation,” as these effects accumulated in NATO’s institutions and in
associated transatlantic elite networks, brought about a sense of a community of
values and interests among the allies that facilitated NATO’s political role. While
the impact of norms on concrete policy decisions is often hard to pin down, demo-
cratic values certainly transcended the declaratory level of policy and shaped the
policy making cultures within and outside NATO’s institutional structures.
Second, over time, NATO’s decision-making process integrated and
expanded elements of democratic consensus building. Political consultations
within NATO were marked by continuing consideration of the balance between
bilateralism and multilateralism and between genuine consultation and post-fact
information. The United States had to learn to lead by persuasion, rather than by
control; the Europeans, in turn, were able to exert considerable influence on
NATO’s political structures, even with regard to the highly contentious issue of
nuclear sovereignty. The growing political influence of the smaller allies, both
within NATO’s multilateral framework and in bilateral and trilateral bargaining
processes, is evident in most of the contributions in this book. Moreover, coali-
tions of transgovernmental and transnational actors were at times able to
decisively influence domestic politics in key member states. Transatlantic elite
networks facilitated personal contacts between policy makers on a regular basis,
which in turn contributed to the formation of ad hoc coalitions that allowed
quick reactions to often fluid and ambiguous policy challenges.
Finally, many chapters emphasize the importance, at the time, of institutional
flexibility and adaptability to the successful integration of the often disparate
political interests of the alliance’s members. The focus of the individual chapters
ranges from a detailed analysis of the multilateral gatherings of permanent rep-
resentatives and ministers to the workings at the level of NATO working groups
and committees. Moreover, the chapters bring the NATO secretaries-general
Paul Henri Spaak, Dirk Stikker, Manlio Brosio, and the national ambassadors to
NATO back into the picture as influential actors. The alliance’s institutional
structure was flexible enough to accommodate the growing assertiveness of
West Germany, to meet the increasing demand of the smaller allies for trans-
parency and consultation, and to keep France in NATO’s political bodies, while
leaving open the possibility of its return to NATO’s military bodies.
A close look at NATO’s transformation during the Cold War of the 1960s
helps us to understand why NATO was able to avoid a sudden collapse in
1989–91 and why the alliance continued expanding its political role and evolv-
ing into a organization that was able to deal with the broader management of
security in the 1990s. Although the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001
entailed the first invocation of Article V in the alliance’s long history, NATO, in
the context of the US war against terror, is currently once again struggling to
redefine its political role. While the current international environment and the
character of today’s security problems are remarkably different from the Cold
War setting, policy makers and analysts might find it useful to look back and
reflect on what it takes to successfully manage an alliance of democracies that is
facing a long-term but primarily political threat.
12 Wenger et al.
Notes
1 See Lawrence Kaplan, NATO and the United States: The Enduring Alliance (New
York: Twayne, 1994).
2 See e.g. Frédéric Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and
the Atlantic Alliance (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001); Maurice Vaïsse, La
grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle, 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard,
1998); Michael Harrison, The Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).
3 Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department (New
York: Norton, 1969), p. 329; George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–50 (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1967), pp. 397–414.
4 See e.g. John English, “‘Who Could Ask for Anything More?’ North American Per-
spectives on NATO’s Origins,” in A History of NATO: The First Fifty Years, vol. 2,
ed. Gustav Schmidt (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 305–20; Klaus A. Maier and
Norbert Wiggershaus (eds), Das Nordatlantische Bündnis, 1949–1956 (Munich: Old-
enbourg, 1993); André de Staercke, edited by Nicholas Scherwen, NATO’s Anxious
Birth: The Prophetic Vision of the 1940s (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985);
Escott Reid, Time of Fear and Hope: The Making of the North Atlantic Treaty,
1947–1949 (Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1977).
5 Andreas Wenger, “The Politics of Military Planning: The Evolution of NATO’s Strat-
egy,” in War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East
and West, ed. Vojtech Mastny, Sven G. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger (London:
Routledge, 2006), pp. 165–92; Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britain, France, and the
FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1997); Richard L. Kugler, Laying the Foundations: The Evolution of NATO in
the 1950s (Santa Monica: RAND, 1990).
6 Christian Nuenlist, “Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Political Cooperation in NATO:
Western Reactions to Khrushchev’s Foreign Policy, 1955–63” (Ph.D. thesis, Univer-
sity of Zurich, 2005).
7 Anna Locher, “Crisis – What Crisis? The Debate on the Future of NATO, 1963–66”
(Ph.D. thesis, University of Zurich, 2006); Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear
Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility, 1966–1967 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996);
Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilat-
eralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (2004), pp.
22–74.
8 Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (ed.), Entstehung und Probleme des Atlantis-
chen Bündnisses, vols 1–6 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1998–2005).
9 Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence
on U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
10 Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 2003); Andreas Wenger and Jeremi Suri, “At the
Crossroads of Diplomatic and Social History: The Nuclear Revolution, Dissent and
Détente,” Cold War History 1, no. 3 (2001), pp. 1–42.
11 See e.g. Jane E. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response: NATO’s Debate Over
Strategy in the 1960’s (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988); Helga Haftendorn, “Das
Projekt einer multilateralen NATO-Atomstreitkraft (MLF): Vademecum für die
Glaubwürdigkeit der nuklearen Strategie? Das ‘Nukleare Patt’ und die Zweifel an der
Glaubwürdigkeit der nuklearen Abschreckung,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen
54, no. 2 (1995), pp. 417–51.
Part II
The Atlantic community
The promise of alliance
2 The normative resilience of
NATO
A community of shared values amid
public discord
Jeremi Suri

Introduction
In retrospect, the survival of NATO in the 1960s and early 1970s seems to have
been inevitable. At the time, however, many prominent observers predicted
otherwise. Henry Kissinger, among others, expected that the alliance would
neither survive nor prove effective at deterring external challengers in future
years. During the Berlin crisis of 1958–59, he published an article in the New
York Times Magazine that pointed to “grave doubt about our [America’s] will-
ingness to run risks on behalf of our allies, and even about our ability to under-
stand what might constitute a threat.”1 He followed this article with a barrage of
prominent pieces making similar arguments in Foreign Affairs, The Reporter,
Harper’s Magazine, and a book entitled The Troubled Partnership.2 Kissinger
argued that America’s failure to consult more substantively with its West Euro-
pean allies, combined with the gaping power differential on the two sides of the
Atlantic, made it unlikely that productive NATO relations could continue much
longer.3 This argument became more persuasive as relative Soviet nuclear power
grew during the 1960s and as the United States showed a clear desire to avoid
direct conflict with Moscow, especially around contested strategic areas – most
particularly West Berlin. Kissinger was hardly alone when he wrote, in the after-
math of France’s military withdrawal from NATO command in 1966: “The
present crisis marks the end of the phase of US–European relationships that was
ushered in by the Greek–Turkish aid program and led through the Marshall Plan
to the construction of the Atlantic Alliance.”4
Kissinger believed that NATO could remain a vital international force only if
the West Europeans played a more active and self-confident role in their own
defense. Contrary to the official policy of the United States, this included the
development of an independent, or at least semi-independent, West European
nuclear capability.5 It also meant that the United States should encourage polit-
ical leaders on the Continent, including French President Charles de Gaulle, to
move toward a more unified political and military structure that would allow for
the development of a true “third force.” This third force would work in conjunc-
tion with Washington as more of an equal than a dependent.6 US President John
F. Kennedy had, in fact, given credence to this concept when he spoke in
16 Jeremi Suri
Frankfurt, Germany, on 25 June 1963 of an “Atlantic partnership” that
addressed “questions” about “America’s nuclear position.” Echoing Kissinger,
Kennedy called for the development of “a more closely unified Atlantic deter-
rent, with genuine European participation.”7
Domestic unrest in nearly every NATO country during the late 1960s encour-
aged public criticism of the alliance. Throughout the United States, West
Germany, France, Great Britain, and other states, a new Cold War generation of
youth challenged the apparent contradiction between public rhetoric about “new
frontiers” and the reality of a stalemated, divided world. The anger and disillu-
sion surrounding this contradiction was particularly evident in urban university
settings, where the best and the brightest of each society found themselves
stifled by institutional barriers to progressive change. NATO, in the eyes of
many students and social activists at the time, was one of the powerful
conservative institutions that froze the divided geopolitical status quo in place
and prohibited alternative policies. Accordingly, many protesters throughout the
United States and Western Europe condemned the Western alliance in the late
1960s, calling for both nuclear disarmament and significantly reduced troop
commitments.8
NATO had become a perceived enemy of political reform. In this context,
democratically elected leaders felt strong pressure to disengage, at least in part,
from the alliance. Those national figures who remained strong supporters of
NATO – including US President Lyndon B. Johnson, British Prime Minister
Harold Wilson, West German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, and others –
sought to articulate a strategic re-orientation for the alliance and a new purpose
for NATO beyond Soviet containment. The transformed nature of the domestic
Cold War environment in the Western states necessitated a change in NATO’s
international behavior.9
Andreas Wenger has recently argued that NATO addressed these and other
challenges in the 1960s by building a more multilateral framework for consulta-
tion and coordination. The creation of the Nuclear Planning Group in 1966 and
the Harmel exercise of 1967 are the clearest examples of how the alliance
reformed the hierarchical proclivities that so alarmed Kissinger, not to mention
de Gaulle and other European leaders.10 Wenger’s analysis points to important
institutional changes within the structure of NATO, but these alterations did not
reconfigure the basic elements of the alliance. For all the talk of joint planning,
the United States continued to control the major force of nuclear weapons at the
disposal of the alliance. No politician or general could order the use of these
weapons without the White House’s approval. Similarly, in pursuing super-
power détente, the United States continued to operate primarily through direct
exchanges with Moscow. Ostpolitik gave West European states, particularly the
Federal Republic of Germany, a leadership role in détente, but this role
remained subsumed beneath the Soviet-American negotiations that determined
the geopolitical setting for the Continent. In the aftermath of NATO’s ground-
breaking reforms during the late 1960s, US President Richard Nixon pursued a
form of détente with the Soviet Union that largely operated through secret “back
 The normative resilience of NATO 17
channels,” at the exclusion of allies. Ironically, it was Henry Kissinger who,
despite his frequent criticisms of America’s alliance mismanagement, oversaw
this period of extended European separation from substantive US strategic con-
sultation.11
This observation should not trivialize the significance of the reforms within
NATO during the late 1960s. The institutional changes of the period were
important and far-reaching. Nonetheless, they alone do not explain the survival
of the alliance through its most challenging time. The institutional reforms did
not transform the core operations of NATO and, more significantly, they did not
alleviate the problems of inequality among the member states. This chapter
argues that a set of shared values, transcending the actions of US and West
European leaders, allowed for the survival and continued prosperity of the
alliance, despite recurring structural frictions. These shared values underpinned
the policies pursued by reformers and critics alike. By the 1960s, NATO had
developed into more than a mere alliance of states confronting a common adver-
sary. From its initial mission to contain communist advances, the alliance had
grown into a true “security community” that defined interests and ideals in
broad, transnational terms.12
As a security community, NATO served two vital political functions during
the second half of the Cold War. First, it provided an architecture for overcom-
ing the inherited disunity of the Western states, particularly with regard to their
long-term national interests. In place of state-to-state competition, NATO
encouraged a broad definition of shared interests, including stability on the
European continent, arms control, and collective security. It also propagated a
transnational set of common ideals centered on free markets and liberal demo-
cratic politics. NATO was a hinge of political order in what had been the largely
anarchic world of European international relations.
Second, by the late 1960s the alliance leveraged the political order among the
Western states as the basis for building new bridges to Soviet-dominated Eastern
Europe. This is the context, of course, for the Harmel exercise of 1967 and its
explicit advocacy of “détente.”13 NATO provided its member states with the
core security needed to pursue openings with the East. Cooperation between
Western governments through the alliance assured that bilateral agreements with
the Soviet bloc would not undermine unity. NATO encouraged improved
East–West relations, and it assured that overtures in this direction followed “par-
allel courses” that did not jeopardize basic security interests.14 In this sense, the
alliance provided a necessary and conducive setting for the progress of détente.
This chapter consists of two main parts. It begins with an analysis of the
common values and “Western” identity that emerged among the NATO member
societies. The first section of the chapter examines how the articulation and
propagation of these values, within the institutions of NATO, contributed to the
remarkably resilient political order that formed among the Western states by the
second half of the Cold War. From here, the second section investigates how the
political consensus underlying NATO contributed to détente with the Soviet
bloc. The concluding analytical section assesses the implications of common
18 Jeremi Suri
values and of a “Western” identity for the continued functioning of the alliance
and for the broader formation of transnational and transgovernmental coalitions
in the post-Cold War world.

NATO, democracy, and “Western” identity

Much of the public attention given to NATO during the Cold War focused on
Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty. Article 5 pledged that, in the event
of an attack on any alliance member, the other signatories of the treaty would
offer assistance, “including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the
security of the North Atlantic area.”15 For the nations of Western Europe most
vulnerable to Soviet assault, especially the Federal Republic of Germany, this
meant that US military power – including nuclear weapons – would defend
against foreign incursions. The aim of Article 5, of course, was not to turn a
regional conflict into a global thermonuclear war. By making this commitment
to extensive defense – to core national security interests that far exceeded the
immediate territorial boundaries of each individual state – the NATO signatories
hoped to deter Soviet aggression of all varieties. This was precisely Dwight D.
Eisenhower’s thinking when he sought, first as commander of NATO forces and
then as president of the United States, to assure allies and adversaries that Soviet
incursions into Western Europe would trigger a massive American nuclear retal-
iatory strike. NATO emerged, in this context, as a traditional defensive alliance
with the addition of nuclear weapons.16
Unfortunately, that is where many accounts of NATO and Cold War strategy
leave the story. The North Atlantic Treaty, however, is filled with language that
is not traditional in great power politics or defensive alliance formation. The
preface to the document affirms that the alliance will safeguard “the principles
of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.” Article 2 of the treaty
pledges that:

The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and
friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by
bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these
institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-
being. They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic
policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of
them.

This is the so-called “Canadian article” of the NATO treaty, written specifically
to assuage Canadian anxieties about the early militaristic image of the alliance
and the absence of constructive policies for realizing cooperative international
ideals.17 The underlying sentiment of the Canadian article, however, is broader
and more central to the founding NATO document than one would expect from
a section written to appease one single signatory. The entire NATO treaty is, in
fact, couched in terms that affirm the authority of the United Nations as a
 The normative resilience of NATO 19
representative world body defining principles of legitimate international behav-
ior. Article 1 of the NATO treaty, for example, states:

The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to
settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful
means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are
not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat
or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United
Nations.18

Even the rights of collective defense defined in Article 5 of the NATO treaty
look to the United Nations for legitimacy and the UN Security Council, in
particular, for consultation.19 This explicit dependence on an international insti-
tution and its asserted values for normative authority was unprecedented at the
time of NATO’s formation in 1949.
One can still largely dismiss the democratic rhetoric of the NATO treaty as
public packaging for an essentially Cold War military alliance. Formed as a
bulwark for political stability and anti-communist defense on the European con-
tinent, NATO’s military functions became most prominent in its early years,
particularly after the outbreak of war in June 1950 on the Korean peninsula. The
alliance prepared intensely to deter, and if necessary thwart, any possible Soviet-
sponsored aggression around West Berlin. During the 1950s and early 1960s
NATO continued to allocate the lion’s share of its resources to containing
communism. It also concentrated on managing a series of recurring East–West
crises in Central Europe and more distant areas, including the Caribbean Sea and
the Taiwan Strait. Further complicating NATO’s ideological claims, the alliance
included a number of countries with questionable democratic credentials at the
time, notably Portugal and Turkey.
Developments during the 1960s did not alleviate the inconsistencies in the
application of NATO’s democratic rhetoric. As the scope of West European
political and economic integration deepened, however, the alliance’s avowed
democratic mission became crucial. NATO promoted a consensus on political
values among members that allowed for the further development of the
Common Market and its ties to the United States, despite the various domestic
and international challenges during the period. Even during the darkest days of
the alliance – when de Gaulle withdrew French military forces in 1966, when
each of the member countries confronted growing domestic unrest, and when the
Vietnam War opened up a deep rift between the United States and the European
nations – the North Atlantic Council continued to function as a political body,
bringing leaders together for consultation and the moderation of vituperative
public rhetoric. Even de Gaulle recognized the North Atlantic Council as a valu-
able instrument, maintaining France’s membership after 1966.
NATO’s democratic consensus building operated on three levels during the
1960s and early 1970s. It centered simultaneously on integrating West Germany
into Western Europe, on recalibrating British and US commitments to the
20 Jeremi Suri
Continent, and on forging a firm sense of West European identity. Member
states continued to differ on crucial issues, but their differences became far less
significant than their points of common understanding.

The German question

Following the Berlin crisis of 1961–62, NATO assured acceptable West German
participation in the “new” European politics that included more independent
governments in Paris and Bonn, as well as stronger moves toward integration
among the West European states. The controversial Treaty of Friendship signed
between President de Gaulle and West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in
January 1963 exemplified the simultaneous national assertiveness and integra-
tionist impulse. NATO did not endorse the de Gaulle–Adenauer agreement; in
fact, many prominent figures in the alliance strongly opposed it.20 Nonetheless,
NATO played a crucial role in providing an overarching political architecture
that assured that the Franco-West German Treaty of Friendship did not allow for
the emergence of new power centers that threatened Continental stability. In
particular, NATO institutions secured West Germany’s neighbors against a
replay of a recent historical tragedy: the emergence of a revitalized and assertive
German colossus under Adenauer’s leadership.21
This was much more than “keeping the Germans down.” On the contrary,
NATO provided a framework for the West European and Atlantic states to
leverage German resources – military, economic, and cultural – in a manner
consistent with democratic development. As West German power grew, NATO
assured that the Federal Republic retained its consultative obligations with its
neighbors. It further mandated that German strengths in productivity and wealth
be integrated with Continent-wide interests. NATO tied West German institu-
tions to a series of European and transatlantic dependencies, and it also placed a
premium on the maintenance of liberal capitalist hinges of political order –
including individual freedoms, private property, and limits to the exercise of
state power. These qualities, as much as West Germany’s phenomenal economic
growth in the 1950s, were at the core of the postwar Wirtschaftswunder.22
Adenauer’s successor as West German chancellor, Ludwig Erhard, under-
stood the importance of NATO’s integrative and guiding role to his society. He
and other prominent West Germans strongly reaffirmed the primacy of NATO
for the nation’s strategic interests and the future prosperity of democracy in
Europe. Erhard went so far as to renounce many of Adenauer’s more independ-
ent actions, including the 1963 Treaty of Friendship with France. Affirming
West Germany’s commitment to Soviet bloc containment through the institu-
tions of NATO, the leadership in Bonn during the mid-1960s attempted to
enforce the “Hallstein doctrine” – prohibiting the recognition of East Germany –
as a further reinforcement of West European unity and cooperation.23 NATO
transformed West Germany from a strategic problem into a democratic asset.
 The normative resilience of NATO 21
The Anglo-American commitment to the European continent
During the two centuries that preceded the middle of the Cold War, both the
United States and Great Britain maintained an aloof and frequently distant atti-
tude towards military affairs on the European continent. Before the twentieth
century, the United States had lacked the resources and capabilities to play a
serious role among the great powers. In the decades after World War I, Amer-
ican society multiplied its economic and cultural connections with Europe, but
this spread of US influence notably excluded any willingness to become
embroiled in military affairs.24 World War II and the early Cold War muted the
inherited US prejudice against a military commitment in Europe, but not
entirely. As late as 1957, a figure with no less stature than George Kennan called
for a return to US military disengagement in Central Europe and eventually on
much of the rest of the Continent.25 This was exactly the traditional US attitude
that Henry Kissinger and other advocates of NATO feared.
Anthony Eden, the long-serving British foreign minister and prime minister
who succeeded Winston Churchill in 1955, shared Kissinger’s fears of US dis-
engagement from Europe. He also recognized that such a move by the United
States would trigger a British withdrawal from the Continent, as well. London
was dependent on US capital, equipment, and personnel to maintain its deterrent
force. In addition, Eden knew very well that Britain had a long and venerable
tradition of emphasizing its imperial interests in Asia and Africa above Euro-
pean affairs. After all, Britain was primarily a sea power, and its prosperity
derived from empire, not from Europe.26 London had intervened intermittently
in crises on the European continent before World War II, but these periods of
direct British engagement in military conflict across the Channel were the
exception, not the rule.27
Eden worried that, during a period of surface stability, the heavy cost of
Britain’s Cold War military commitments to the defense of the European conti-
nent would motivate London to disengage. British observers would be tempted
to focus their limited resources on the last vestiges of their overseas, and now
underfunded, empire. Eden expressed these concerns to President Eisenhower as
early as July 1956. The British prime minister described the “growing reluc-
tance, among the peoples of the free world, to accept the social and human sacri-
fices required for the maintenance of large forces of the conventional pattern.”28
Eden recognized that in an era of nuclear weapons, large contingents of soldiers
stationed on European soil had diminishing military value, but that these
nonetheless served crucial political purposes – bolstering public anti-communist
commitment and asserting a common purpose between the countries of Western
Europe, Britain, and the United States. Eden explained that:

It was the forces in being under NATO Command, and particularly the pres-
ence of the United States and British forces in Europe, that gave confidence
and courage to those who were ready to resist political encroachment by
Communism in Europe. Or to put it another way: the political cohesion of
22 Jeremi Suri
the Western European countries in resisting the internal threat of Commun-
ism was inspired by growing confidence in the military side of the alliance.
The political need to maintain the solidarity of the European countries is as
strong as ever. For this purpose, even if for no other, it would still be
important that some United States and British forces should remain on the
ground in Europe under NATO Command.29

Eden’s emphasis on NATO’s institutionalization of the Anglo-American

commitment to Europe is deeply significant. For him, as for many of his British
and US counterparts, NATO created a presumption of consistent military
engagement in Europe that had not existed before. One could argue that this
position simply affirmed the defined national interests in London and Washing-
ton, but the institutionalization of this commitment meant something more.
Despite the threats of nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union and the growing
demands on Anglo-American resources in other parts of the globe, NATO made
pledges of military defense on the European continent sacrosanct.30
Fighting a threatened Soviet encroachment on West Berlin and on other
exposed areas was no longer a matter of calculation, but a basic political axiom.
After the signing of the NATO treaty, neither Britain nor the United States
engaged in a period of intensive questioning about European commitments, in
contrast to that which had occurred in the early twentieth century.31 Even chal-
lengers to existing policy assumptions, like US Senator Mike Mansfield, failed
to attract support, because their claims ran against the pledges underpinning
NATO.32 Radical domestic critics who attacked the Cold War “military–indus-
trial complex” largely avoided criticisms of NATO’s commitment to West Euro-
pean defense, because the alliance seemed to encourage cooperation, rather than
armed conflict, in this area.33 NATO firmly “Europeanized” British and US stra-
tegic calculations.
The consistent commitment of the United States and Britain to European
affairs supported the construction of new institutions – including planning coun-
cils, developmental agencies, and juridical bodies – that converted the Common
Market from a trading association into a real integrative unit in the 1960s. Wash-
ington generally encouraged the formation of these institutions. Britain’s support
was often less consistent, but it also promoted these endeavors on most
occasions.34
More significantly, the assured US and British Continental presence through
NATO meant that the political cultures of these two democratic societies
attained unprecedented standing among West Europeans. During the years after
the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, assumptions about individual rights,
public deliberation, a free press, and personal property protection became more
firmly rooted than ever before in places like Germany, Italy, and even France.
One can attribute this, in part, to non-native influences, but there is little doubt
that NATO provided a prominent channel for politicians, military officers, and
bureaucrats from the United States and Britain to carry their ideas on to the Con-
tinent. By the late 1960s, NATO not only offered a shield for the furtherance of
 The normative resilience of NATO 23
European integration, but it also helped to constitute the central assumptions
about democracy and cooperation that made unity in this formerly war-torn
region conceivable. Even a critic of NATO like Henry Kissinger recognized that
the alliance made a simultaneous Atlantic and European democratic identity
possible. This is what he meant when he advocated an “Atlantic common-
wealth” that would include a more effective European core.35

West European identity

Most often overlooked is the fact that the existence of NATO furthered the
emergence of a West European identity, as distinct from Eastern Europe. The
North Atlantic Treaty spoke explicitly of a “common heritage and civilization”
among the member states.36 By implication, this excluded non-NATO countries
from such a pedigree. George Kennan most famously opposed the creation of
NATO for this reason. He believed that any European identity that excluded the
Eastern and “neutral” parts (that is, Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland) of the
Continent was illegitimate and counterproductive. Kennan’s criticisms of NATO
went hand-in-hand with his calls in the late 1950s for US military disengage-
ment from Europe.37
Despite Kennan’s warning, by the 1960s NATO had given rise to a palpable
West European identity within the alliance. This is perhaps most evident in the
degree to which political activists on the left and the right thought of their pro-
grams in explicitly West European terms. Willy Brandt, for example, trans-
formed the West German Social Democratic Party (SPD) into a party that
looked to West European models of social democracy, rather than to more tradi-
tional models of socialism.38 Similarly, men like Franz Josef Strauss, who
sought to assert a more conservative mode of politics, also looked West to de
Gaulle in France, rather than to traditional landed elites in Central and Eastern
Europe.39 Most startlingly, the student radicals of the 1960s were most influ-
ential in the dominant Continental NATO countries – France, Italy, and West
Germany. When these students spoke of revolution, they believed that radical
change would begin under the NATO umbrella, because the alliance provided
for common institutions, channels of communication, and freedoms to protest.
NATO was rarely a direct target of public attack, and it appeared to many
activists as an enabling institution for nurturing political programs distinct from
US domination.40
This was the paradox of NATO. It assured US influence in Europe, but it also
furnished an institutional nexus for European efforts to carve out limited
independence from the United Sates. NATO provided both security and legiti-
macy for a West European identity that came to dominate politics, society, and
culture in the region. The 1960s was a period of more assertive nationalism in
France and West Germany, but it was coupled with an unprecedented belief in a
larger regional mission. De Gaulle, Strauss, and Brandt all called for a stronger
Western Europe with more independence from the United States. NATO was the
institutional and intellectual embryo for this appeal. Even de Gaulle’s claims to
24 Jeremi Suri
French grandeur after 1958 began with an appeal for more coordination
between what he perceived as the leading NATO powers.41 The alliance was,
after all, the only substantive forum for the region to operate as a recognized and
empowered entity. This observation explains, in large part, why NATO pre-
ceded West European integration and the more recent expansion of the Euro-
pean Union to include parts of Eastern Europe after the Cold War.
Like other Cold War institutions, NATO served a wide range of purposes. It
was a traditional defensive alliance in its coordination of collective security. It
was also an unprecedented alliance that promoted democracy through the assur-
ance of responsible West German participation in European politics, the mainte-
nance of an American and British commitment to Continental affairs, and the
promotion of a legitimate West European identity. These characteristics
emerged most clearly in the 1960s. During a time when key elements of the stra-
tegic impetus behind the creation of the alliance came under attack, the democ-
ratizing consensus and consultative mechanisms of NATO preserved this unique
community.
Without NATO, Western Europe would have lacked a key anchor for
defense, democracy, and regional self-awareness during the Cold War. Histori-
cally, Larry Wolff has shown, the concept of the “West” in Europe was more
imagined than real.42 For better and for worse, NATO made half of a continent
into an identifiable and powerful political entity in its time.

NATO and détente

However, the West European identity constructed by NATO extended its reach
beyond the Western half of the European continent. The period of détente in the
late 1960s and early 1970s illustrated that the alliance was not only a source of
security and common values, but also a promoter of peace and reconciliation
across Cold War blocs. As Soviet and US nuclear power reached approximate
parity, NATO became a bridge between East and West.43 It served this function
in two ways: by coordinating security policy and by legitimizing the process of
East–West “normalization.”
The scheduled beginning of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and
the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 highlighted what I will call
the “dilemma of détente.” All of the states in the Western alliance recognized a
need to forge better relations with the Soviet Union for the sake of stability on the
European continent. The time seemed propitious, as Moscow’s leadership had
made numerous overtures to the West in previous years, including a hastily
arranged Soviet-American summit meeting in Glassboro, New Jersey, on 23–25
June 1967.44 The war in Vietnam, the increasing violence on the Sino–Soviet
border, and the pervasive domestic unrest within many societies motivated many
leaders in the West, including presidents Johnson and Nixon, to search for a new
anchor of stability in their relations with Moscow. Johnson and Nixon, in particu-
lar, hoped that they could chart a new course to international and domestic quies-
cence through evidence of effective Cold War peacemaking.45
 The normative resilience of NATO 25
The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Kremlin’s subsequent threats
to Romania, as well, undermined much of the optimism in Western Europe and
the United States about Moscow’s intentions. It now appeared that the commu-
nist leadership might embark on a new wave of aggression in Europe. Henry
Kissinger, among others, called for the United States to delay the ratification of
the recently negotiated Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a warning to
Moscow that offensive actions would invoke reprisals.46 Members of Johnson’s
administration recognized that they had to cancel a proposed late 1968 summit
meeting between the president and his Soviet counterpart for fear of appearing
to condone the invasion of Czechoslovakia.47
In these difficult circumstances, NATO coordinated the security policies of
the member states to allow for both the protection against Soviet aggression and
overtures in arms control and other areas. Lawrence Kaplan has referred to the
alliance’s immediate indecision in its reaction to the Soviet invasion; but, in fact,
NATO embarked on a series of maneuvers that strengthened the common
defense of the member states. In particular, Kaplan points to the creation of a
new Maritime Air Force facility in Naples, Italy, designed to react against pos-
sible Soviet activities on the southern rim of the continent.48 Similarly, the
implementation of a new NATO doctrine of flexible response, adopted in
December 1967 with strong US urging, promised that the alliance would deploy
a wider range of conventional and limited nuclear options for effective deter-
rence, and war fighting, if necessary. This was a crucial decision for the opera-
tional strength of the alliance and its ability to serve as a regional defense force
in light of US preoccupation elsewhere.49
The same December 1967 North Atlantic Council meeting that adopted the
flexible response doctrine also approved the Harmel Report, officially entitled
“The Future Tasks of the Alliance.” This document argued that: “Military secur-
ity and a policy of détente are not contradictory but complementary.” Accord-
ingly, NATO pledged to merge its commitment to flexible response with
“realistic measures designed to further a détente in East–West relations.” The
Harmel Report explained that:

The relaxation of tensions is not the final goal but is part of a long-term
process to promote better relations and to foster a European settlement. The
ultimate political purpose of the Alliance is to achieve a just and lasting
peaceful order in Europe accompanied by appropriate security guarantees.50

This commitment to a “European settlement” and a “lasting peaceful order in

Europe” was about more than traditional military affairs. It was a statement of
political purpose that legitimized diplomatic overtures to the East. The Harmel
Report made East–West détente a central mission for an alliance initially formed
for anti-communist containment. Disarmament and arms control merited specific
mention in the Harmel Report, along with balanced force reductions and “a solu-
tion of the German question.”51
Not surprisingly, each of these issues received extensive attention during the
26 Jeremi Suri
crucial Soviet-American and Soviet-West German deliberations of the early
1970s. SALT I, concluded in 1972, was the first significant arms control treaty
of the Cold War to limit the deployment of new nuclear devices and delivery
vehicles. It drew on strong support within NATO and on the confidence that the
alliance could provide for its collective defense without unchecked arms con-
struction. The stability that the alliance provided in Europe made it possible, as
never before, for Cold War leaders to contemplate serious reductions in military
deployments on the Continent.52
Similarly, the Moscow Treaty signed by the leaders of West Germany and the
Soviet Union in August 1970 used the recognized borders of NATO and its
Soviet bloc counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, to establish peaceful East–West rela-
tions. The “present frontiers” enforced by the alliances, and the abandonment of
national (particularly West German) claims that challenged these frontiers, pro-
vided the foundation for Ostpolitik. The West German leadership negotiated the
Moscow Treaty on its own initiative, but it could only do this because NATO
provided a stable and secure territorial framework that superseded claims to
German unification. The Western alliance was essential for the “normalization”
of East–West relations that accompanied Ostpolitik.53
NATO members recognized that negotiations over specific measures would
continue to occur on a bilateral and limited multilateral basis. The Harmel
Report endorsed these activities and integrated them into an alliance-wide strat-
egy that balanced deterrence and détente. In subsequent years, Willy Brandt’s
Ostpolitik and Richard Nixon’s triangular diplomacy would operate along secret
channels that were largely independent from NATO, but they nonetheless
depended upon the alliance’s ability to integrate new arrangements. The Harmel
Report proved that, NATO was, if anything, ahead of the member governments
in envisioning a new environment that transcended the very Cold War con-
straints that had given birth to the alliance in the first place. In endorsing détente
so strongly, NATO helped to move the Western strategic and moral consensus
in this direction. Without such an endorsement, one can imagine that there
would have been far greater domestic opposition to détente within each of the
major states.

Conclusion
The second half of the 1960s witnessed a series of crucial transformations in the
structure of NATO. The alliance developed new procedures for consultation and
coordination that made the relationship between member states more multilat-
eral than it had ever been before. As Andreas Wenger has convincingly argued,
the evolution of NATO during this period allowed it to become a dynamic and
valuable contributor to the strategic deliberations of the next decade.54
That said, the reforms in NATO did not address many of the criticisms raised
by Henry Kissinger and other prominent analysts. Contrary to Kissinger’s
counsel, the United States continued to retain a monopoly over the major stra-
tegic nuclear forces deployed by the alliance. Consultative mechanisms on
 The normative resilience of NATO 27
nuclear and other issues were expanded, but they remained secondary to the
bilateral and ad hoc arrangements of independent states negotiated with adver-
saries. Most significantly, NATO never restored full European confidence in the
quality of the US commitment to the Continent. Throughout the early 1970s,
European public skepticism toward the policies of the United States continued to
grow. NATO survived, but transatlantic differences multiplied, especially with
regard to the war in Vietnam.
The survival of NATO beyond the late 1960s, and even beyond the end of the
Cold War, reflects the consensus on values that the alliance embodied. Members
may have differed in many of their political and strategic judgments, but they
remained firmly committed to democratization and détente – at least in principle,
if not always in action – after the mid-1960s. These values found expression in
the structure of NATO, in its daily activities, and, most importantly, in its lan-
guage. NATO promoted a language of democracy and détente that, ultimately,
pulled the states on both sides of the Atlantic together for a common purpose. It
gave them a shared mission during a period of domestic turmoil and inter-
national uncertainty. NATO transformed the culture of great power politics in
the West, and this proved as important as the traditional military issues that
underpinned the initial formation of the alliance.
NATO’s embracing of democratization and détente made the alliance a hub
for new transnational and transgovernmental coalitions of actors in the 1970s
and 1980s. Social democratic figures like Willy Brandt and Felipe González
Márquez of Spain worked through NATO institutions to build interest and
support for programs that offered new overtures to the Soviet bloc. They also
leveraged the Western alliance as a mechanism for carving out legitimate areas
of policy independence from the United States. In coordination with the Confer-
ence on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and the ground-breaking
Helsinki Final Act of 1975, NATO provided the foundation for an identifiable
West European approach to the Cold War, emphasizing conciliation and non-
military sources of political change.
To this day, NATO continues to play a similar role in building broad trans-
national coalitions. It has moved faster and more effectively than any other insti-
tution to integrate formerly communist countries into an enlarged democratic
and peaceful European order. It has set an agenda for cooperation across cul-
tures. Despite the policy differences that emerged over the recent war in Iraq,
NATO has also assured that the United States and Britain continue to participate
in an unprecedented era of European political stability. While serving a variety
of security interests, NATO has been remarkably successful at promoting a
community of shared values.

Notes
1 Henry Kissinger, “‘As Urgent as the Moscow Threat,’” New York Times Magazine, 8
March 1959.
2 See the following publications, all by Henry Kissinger: “The Strains on the Alliance,”
Foreign Affairs 41 (1963), pp. 261–85; “NATO’s Nuclear Dilemma,” The Reporter
28 Jeremi Suri
(28 March 1963), pp. 22–37; “The Illusionist: Why We Misread de Gaulle,” Harper’s
Magazine 230 (March 1965), pp. 69–77; The Troubled Partnership: A Re-appraisal
of the Atlantic Alliance (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965).
3 See Letter from Brodie to Kissinger, 11 May 1966, UCLA Special Collections,
Bernard Brodie Papers, Los Angeles (Brodie papers), Box 1, K Correspondence;
Letter from Kissinger to Brodie, 9 November 1966, Brodie papers, Box 6, K.
4 Henry Kissinger, “For a New Atlantic Alliance,” The Reporter (14 July 1966), p. 18.
See also Henry Kissinger, “What about the Future?” Atlantic Community Quarterly 4
(1966), pp. 317–29.
5 Kissinger believed that the small French and British nuclear arsenals were insuffi-
cient. He contended that Western Europe needed a larger nuclear force under broader
West European command.
6 See n. 4 above. Letter from Brodie to Kissinger, 26 August 1966, Brodie papers, Box
6, K.
7 John F. Kennedy, Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt,
Germany, 25 June 1963, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 1963
(Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1964), pp. 516–21. See also Geir
Lundestad, “Empire” by Integration: The United States and European Integration,
1945–1997 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 58–82.
8 See Andreas Wenger and Jeremi Suri, “At the Crossroads of Diplomatic and Social
History: The Nuclear Revolution, Dissent, and Détente,” Cold War History 1, no. 3
(April 2001), pp. 1–42; Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the
Rise of Détente (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).
9 See n. 8 above; Don Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a
Great Statesman and Diplomat (Washington: Smithsonian Books, 2003), pp. 387–91.
10 Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilat-
eralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (Winter
2004), pp. 22–74. See also Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In
the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).
11 For more on this point, see Suri, Power and Protest, pp. 213–59; Raymond L.
Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American–Soviet Relations from Nixon to
Reagan, rev. edn (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994).
12 See Karl W. Deutsch, Sidney A. Burrell, Robert A. Kann, Maurice Lee, Jr., Martin
Lichterman, Raymond E. Lindgren, Francis L. Loewenheim, and Richard W. van
Wagenen, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organi-
zation in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1957).
13 “The Future Tasks of the Alliance: (The ‘Harmel Report’),” 13–14 December 1967,
www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b671213a.htm (accessed 3 August 2004).
14 Ibid.
15 “North Atlantic Treaty,” 4 April 1949, www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm
(accessed 3 August 2004).
16 See Campbell Craig, Destroying the Village: Eisenhower and Nuclear War (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Andreas Wenger, Living with Peril: Eisen-
hower, Kennedy, and Nuclear Weapons (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997);
Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement,
1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
17 See Marilyn D. Eustace, Canada’s Participation in Political NATO (Kingston,
Ontario: Center for International Relations, Queen’s University, 1976).
18 “North Atlantic Treaty,” 4 April 1949, www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm
(accessed 3 August 2004). Emphasis added.
19 Ibid.
20 For a sample of critical comments about the Franco-German Treaty of Friendship, see
Rusk to the American Embassy, Bonn, 19 January 1963; Adenauer to McCloy, 29
 The normative resilience of NATO 29
January 1963, both in John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, MA (JFKL), National Secur-
ity Files (NSF), Box 77, Germany, general 1/63–2/63; McCloy to Adenauer, 4 Febru-
ary 1963, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst, MA, Papers
of John J. McCloy, Box GY1, 3; Acheson to Adenauer, 19 January 1963; Adenauer
an Acheson, 28 January 1963; Knappstein (Washington, DC) to Adenauer and Secret-
ary of State, 30 January 1963, all in Stiftung Bundeskanzler-Adenauer-Haus, Rhön-
dorf, Germany, Adenauer Nachlaß, Ordnung III/1.
21 See Hans-Peter Schwarz, Adenauer: Der Staatsmann, 1952–1967 (Stuttgart:
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1991), pp. 758–61, 810–26; Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur:
Politique étrangère du Général de Gaulle, 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998), pp.
162–263.
22 See Klaus Hildebrand, Von Erhard zur Großen Koalition, 1963–1969 (Stuttgart:
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1984).
23 See ibid.; William I. Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a
Divided Continent, 1945–2002 (New York: Doubleday Books, 2003); William Glenn
Gray, Germany’s Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany,
1949–1969 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
24 See John Milton Cooper Jr, Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and
the Fight for the League of Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
25 See George F. Kennan, Russia, the Atom, and the West (New York: Harper and Row,
1958), esp. pp. 32–116.
26 Niall Ferguson criticizes the British leadership for entering World War I, because
Britain’s involvement reversed the tradition of valuing empire above European
continental matters. See Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explaining World War I
(New York: Basic Books, 1999), esp. Ch. 3. On the British priority of empire over
Europe, see Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (New
York: Scribner, 1976); C.A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the
World, 1780–1830 (London: Longman, 2004).
27 See Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: The Dilemma of British Defence
Policy in the Era of the Two World Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972).
28 Letter from Eden to Eisenhower, 18 July 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library,
Abilene, KS (DDEL), Ann Whitman File, International, Box 21, Eden. I would like to
thank David Tal, of Tel Aviv University, for first bringing this document to my atten-
tion. I am also grateful for his advice and encouragement on this topic. For Eisen-
hower’s short but corroborating response to Eden’s letter, see Letter from Eisenhower
to Eden, 27 July 1956, DDEL, Ann Whitman File, International, Box 21, Eden.
29 See n. 28 above.
30 On the extensive financial challenges that the United States and Britain confronted
during the 1960s and early 1970s, see Francis J. Gavin, Gold, Dollars, and Power:
The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958–1971 (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 2004); Jeremy Richard Fielding, “The Currency of Power:
Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy and the Making of British Foreign Policy,
1964–1968” (Ph.D thesis, Yale University, 1999).
31 Lawrence Kaplan describes this firm commitment to the European continent as a
“revolution” in US thinking. Lawrence S. Kaplan, NATO and the United States: The
Enduring Alliance, updated ed. (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994), pp. 1–11.
32 See Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield, pp. 387–91
33 It is remarkable how little attention NATO’s defense commitments in Europe
received from radical critics of domestic and foreign policy in the 1960s. See Jeremi
Suri, “The Cultural Contradictions of Cold War Education: The Case of West Berlin,”
Cold War History 4 (April 2004), pp. 1–20; Suri, Power and Protest, pp. 88–130,
164–212.
34 See Lundestad, Empire by Integration; Hugo Young, This Blessed Plot: Britain and
Europe from Churchill to Blair (London: Macmillan, 1998).
30 Jeremi Suri
35 Henry Kissinger, “What kind of Atlantic partnership?” Atlantic Community Quarterly
7 (1969), pp. 18–38. Kissinger recognized that both US and European leaders often
stood in the way of the creation of a true “Atlantic commonwealth.”
36 “North Atlantic Treaty,” 4 April 1949, www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm
(accessed 3 August 2004).
37 See Wilson D. Miscamble, George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign
Policy, 1947–1950 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Kennan, Russia,
the Atom, and the West, pp. 32–116.
38 See Willy Brandt, People and Politics: The Years 1960–1975 (Boston: Little, Brown,
1976); Arnulf Baring, Machtwechsel: Die Ära Brandt–Scheel (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Verlags-Anstalt, 1982).
39 See Franz Josef Strauss, Entwurf für Europa (Stuttgart: Seewald, 1966). Strauss was a
critic of NATO, but he also relied on the state-to-state relations created by the
alliance to formulate and publicize his Gaullist position on West Germany’s political
future.
40 See Lawrence S. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disar-
mament Movement, 1954–1970 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997); Suri,
Power and Protest, pp. 164–212.
41 Letter from de Gaulle to Eisenhower, 17 September 1958, in Charles de Gaulle,
Lettres, notes et carnets, 1958–1960 (Paris: Plon, 1986), pp. 82–4; Letter from de
Gaulle to Eisenhower, 6 October 1959, in de Gaulle, Lettres, notes, pp. 262–5;
Vaïsse, La grandeur, pp. 113–25.
42 Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the
Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994).
43 Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity;” Wenger and Suri, “At the Crossroads of Diplo-
matic and Social History.”
44 See the accounts of the Glassboro Summit between Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin
and US President Lyndon Johnson, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS),
1964–68, vol. XIV, pp. 514–56. See also Jeremi Suri, “Lyndon Johnson and the
Global Disruption of 1968,” in Looking Back at LBJ: White House Politics in a New
Light, ed. Mitchell B. Lerner (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), pp.
53–77.
45 See Suri, Power and Protest, pp. 245–58.
46 As early as May 1968, Henry Kissinger called for a combination of sticks and carrots
in US policy toward the Soviet Union. Kissinger perceived a Soviet desire for
détente, coupled with a tendency toward aggression in areas of the world, including
Latin American and Africa, where Moscow estimated limited Western capabilities for
resisting communist expansion. See “U.S. Relations with the U.S.S.R.,” included in
Briefing Book for Nelson Rockefeller, 15 May 1968, Rockefeller Archive Center,
Pocantico Hills, New York, Nelson A. Rockefeller Papers, Gubernatorial, Ann C.
Whitman Files, 35, Box 5, 88.
47 Despite the counsel of his advisers, Johnson wanted to go ahead with the summit
meeting, anyway. He was, however, unable to organize the summit because of public
acrimony and his lame-duck status as a president serving his last months in the White
House. See Suri, “Lyndon Johnson and the Global Disruption of 1968.”
48 Kaplan, NATO and the United States, pp. 104–5.
49 Ibid., pp. 104–14.
50 See “The Future Tasks of the Alliance: (The ‘Harmel Report’).”
51 Ibid.
52 See John Newhouse, Cold Dawn: The Story of SALT (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston, 1973); Gerard C. Smith, Doubletalk: The Story of the First Strategic Arms
Limitations Talks (Garden City: Doubleday, 1980).
53 See Baring, Machtwechsel; Suri, Power and Protest, pp. 216–26.
54 Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity.”
3 Not a NATO responsibility?
Psychological warfare, the Berlin
crisis, and the formation of Interdoc
Giles Scott-Smith

Introduction
This chapter examines a particular episode during the early 1960s that had pro-
found implications for the non-military role of NATO and its identity as a defen-
sive alliance. In 1960, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) submitted a
proposal for the creation of a permanent civilian body within NATO to initiate
and coordinate psychological warfare operations against the Soviet Union and
the German Democratic Republic (GDR).1 The background to this proposal was
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s attempt to force an ultimatum on the status
of West Berlin. The FRG’s main concern was that it could be left out of a poten-
tial compromise solution brokered by the United States and Britain.
In the period between the Khrushchev–Eisenhower discussions at Camp
David in September 1959 and at the Paris Summit in May 1960, the FRG
responded by developing plans for an offensive political warfare capability
within the NATO apparatus. The aim was to respond to Soviet and GDR propa-
ganda in order to prevent the communist bloc from holding the initiative during
this tense period of negotiations. This hard-line approach was opposed mainly
by the British, who were unwilling to allow negotiations with Khrushchev to be
threatened by such a move. The British were also less than enthusiastic about
passing this extra responsibility to NATO, preferring to maintain national
control of this sensitive area of activity.
While the German proposal did provoke discussions within NATO on specific
aspects of psychological warfare, the main outcome was a realization that these
activities could best be dealt with outside of official NATO channels. The result was
the creation, in 1962, of the International Information and Documentation Center, or
Interdoc, in The Hague. The relationship between NATO and Interdoc was never an
official one. Neither was Interdoc solely a product of the discussions held within
NATO during 1960–61. However, it is possible to piece together both the internal
debate within NATO and the discussions elsewhere concerning Interdoc’s formation
to draw conclusions about the linkages between the two. This reveals an intriguing
episode of NATO history, involving an internal debate over the division of respons-
ibility between the civilian and military branches of the organization and the
problem of defining its defensive role in a changing international context.2
32 Giles Scott-Smith
The Berlin crisis and the formation of the working group on
psychological warfare
From its very beginnings, NATO had to face the problem of Soviet propaganda and
the threat that this would have a debilitating effect on both public opinion and
morale within NATO countries. However, there was never a consensus on develop-
ing propaganda or psychological warfare capabilities within NATO. First, there was
opposition to centralizing these tasks within NATO at the expense of independent
national initiatives. Second, there was a dislike of directly associating the organi-
zation, mainly representing democratic states, with any outright propaganda body.
The standard Western view during the Cold War was that propaganda was the occu-
pation of an aggressive communist bloc, against which the West presented only its
truthful response. Third, there was the problem of defining exactly what counter-pro-
paganda might involve. It was a matter of contention whether it should refer to
defensive intentions or to a more offensively-oriented psychological warfare strategy
that was not understood as a peacetime activity. The result of these many discussions
was merely an agreement on greater collaboration and sharing of information, with
little willingness to commit NATO to this undefined responsibility. Despite repeated
attempts to break this impasse during the 1950s, particularly by the French and the
Italians, no unanimous significant agreement was reached.3
This impasse was broken by the rising tensions over Berlin. On 10 November
1958, Khrushchev delivered a speech that demanded a final settlement between
the occupying powers, turning Berlin into a “free city” and handing all questions
of access to the GDR. If no agreement could be reached within six months, the
Soviet Union would unilaterally sign a peace treaty with the GDR and so force
the West to negotiate with the East Germans over access rights. Khrushchev had
several reasons for introducing this ultimatum, but the principal one was the aim
to force recognition of the GDR and Soviet concerns over the future military
capabilities of the Federal Republic within NATO.4
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had committed his government
to negotiating for German reunification only from a position of strength, a policy
that refused recognition of the GDR. Yet the reaction of US Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles to Khrushchev’s demands was not reassuring. In a press con-
ference on 26 November 1958, Dulles was prepared to concede that the United
States might deal with GDR officials acting as agents of the Soviet Union and
that this broadly represented Western policy.5 The implication was that the
United States was open to negotiations and would not risk a war over relatively
trivial questions concerning bureaucratic identity.6 The danger for the FRG was
that by holding on to its hard-line no-negotiation policy it would become
increasingly isolated from its NATO allies. The chancellor was deeply con-
cerned that Dulles had framed this position without consulting him, and he
wrote in response to the secretary of state in January 1959:

In constantly characterizing the reunification of Germany as the most

important problem one conjures up the danger of a movement being
 Not a NATO responsibility? 33
launched in certain countries to the effect that the world should not be
imperilled for the sake of reuniting Germany. Such a movement would be
ominous.7

Western requests for a foreign ministers’ conference to undermine Soviet

brinkmanship by stringing out the negotiations resulted in rolling but indecisive
discussions between May and August. However, the fact that the GDR had been
represented at the talks in Geneva as an equal to the FRG was difficult for Ade-
nauer to take. During 1959, German–British relations worsened, as the chancel-
lor feared that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was influencing US
President Dwight D. Eisenhower towards a weaker position on Berlin. US
Ambassador David Bruce in Bonn recognized Adenauer’s “frequent and indis-
creet references to British ‘softness’ in dealing with Soviets, his conviction that
their tactics reflected appeasement spirit, fear lest Macmillan had made secret
concessions in Moscow [in February 1959].”8 Britain was certainly more pre-
pared to develop trade relations with the GDR, and it became the chief target for
East German propaganda to further isolate the FRG.9 With no new ideas on how
to deal with the Berlin issue coming from Bonn, at Camp David in September
1959, Eisenhower agreed with Khrushchev to negotiate further on this in the
context of reaching a general disarmament agreement.10
The period between the Camp David discussions and the planned Four-Power
Summit in Paris in May 1960 was a tense time for the Adenauer Government.
Soviet propaganda was exploiting intra-alliance disagreements by portraying
Adenauer as a “frustrated and embittered supporter of continued East–West
tension and revanchist policies.”11 On their part, Adenauer and West German
Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano felt under pressure from Eisenhower’s
proposals for more normalized relations with the GDR. American diplomat Foy
M. Kohler had already noticed in late 1959 that Eisenhower’s proposals
expressed “a complete lack of self-confidence in the capacity of the West
Germans to stand up against any political or psychological blandishments from
the East.”12 During the Four-Power Working Group negotiations (the United
States, France, Britain, and the FRG), set up to finalize the Western position for
the forthcoming summit, French President Charles de Gaulle backed Adenauer’s
no-negotiation stance. The Franco-German position favored “a rigidly inflexible
position based on the principle that no change in the juridical status of Berlin
can be contemplated.” Within the FRG itself, Adenauer “engaged in a major
propaganda effort committing his government publicly to such a position.”13
This was the immediate political context when, in early March 1960, the
West German delegation circulated a proposal within the North Atlantic Council
(NAC) entitled “NATO-Wide Co-operation and Co-ordination in the Field of
Psychological Warfare.”14 The proposal began by stressing that a shift in
emphasis had occurred in Soviet strategy under Khrushchev, from “the threat of
military aggression . . . to indirect attack, in particular to political and ideological
attacks.” All forms of mass media – radio, television, cinema, the press, and
pamphlets – were being used. The goal of this strategy was broadly to
34 Giles Scott-Smith
undermine the belief in collective defense, solidarity, and mutual confidence that
NATO rested upon, and the principal means to achieve this was to create distrust
among the peoples of other NATO nations towards German ambitions. Along-
side this was the fear that the momentum for partial reconciliation with the East
would undermine the FRG’s identity and cohesion, which had been built on a
negation of the GDR (exemplified by the Hallstein doctrine). Psychological
defense was therefore needed, not just to oppose the GDR’s propaganda, but
also to strengthen West German resolve, should reconciliation actually take
place.
This transformation of Soviet strategy and its potential consequences led the
Germans to reject as inadequate the established NATO line of individual
member countries responding with their own (often uncoordinated) counter-pro-
paganda initiatives. Instead, they were in favor of a more radical solution,
expanding the threat to involve all NATO allies. The German proposal stated:

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty provides for assistance in the case of
an “armed attack.” In view of the psychological threat, which has increas-
ingly been added to the military one, mutual aid should, in the spirit of the
Treaty, also be extended to defence against these attacks, for, in this psy-
chological war, that attack against one NATO ally is also as attack against
them all and against NATO as a whole.15

The German proposal also invoked Article 4, which provides for NATO coun-
tries to consult whenever their security is threatened. To deal with this dramati-
cally altered state of affairs, a new apparatus within NATO was required. The
proposal called for “a permanent international planning team on Psywar with the
Standing Group” and “the creation of a Psywar Co-ordination Section within
SHAPE” to clarify psychological warfare initiatives within the military in times
of both peace and war. But the most innovative aspect was in the civilian sphere:
“To deal with the political dimension,” a council committee should be estab-
lished to be “responsible for analysing communist propaganda and ‘subversive
activities,’ and ‘recommending joint counter-measures.’”16
The FRG proposal used the heightened tensions surrounding Berlin and the
looming summit meeting to force the deadlock on psychological warfare opera-
tions within NATO. On 1 April 1960, German Minister of Defense Franz Joseph
Strauss formally introduced the proposal at a NATO ministerial meeting. Aware
that military matters dominated the meeting’s agenda, Strauss sought legitimacy
for his topic by stressing that Soviet psychological warfare aimed “to weaken
the Western nations’ will to defend themselves so that the military effort neces-
sary for a hot war would no longer be required.” The defense minister emphas-
ized how inconsistent it was to upgrade NATO with advanced weapons without
paying attention to “moral solidarity” and to “the spirit of those who use them
for the defence of freedom.” Anticipating criticism, Strauss stressed how essen-
tial it was that NATO adapt to the changing circumstances of Soviet strategy. By
focusing on the values of freedom and democracy in the West on which NATO
 Not a NATO responsibility? 35
rested, he also appreciated that any psychological warfare campaign would
operate as much in an offensive as in a defensive manner against the Soviet
Union, and with great potential.17
The ministers agreed to pass the matter over to the NAC, with the intention
that it should report back by December.18 But the failure of the Paris summit of
16–19 May increased the German desire for action. Khrushchev refused to nego-
tiate substantive disarmament issues and once more raised the specter of an ulti-
matum for a settlement on Berlin. In the following weeks, Soviet efforts to
undermine Western unity and Berlin’s morale were “largely in [the] area [of]
psychological cold warfare.” The danger was that this propaganda offensive
would be followed up with attempts to disrupt the economic lifeline between
West Berlin and the FRG.19 During a visit to the United States in early June
1960, Strauss stated to US Secretary of State Christian Herter that the West
“should worry somewhat more than they have” about Soviet psychological
warfare activities. According to Strauss, the threat of war with the USSR was
minimal, yet whenever the issue of psychological defense was introduced in
NATO, “Canada and the United Kingdom protested that this was not a NATO
responsibility.” There was much irritation that this matter was regarded as little
more than “a German idiosyncrasy.”20
Strauss made the point that the anti-German propaganda campaign was
having some success amongst certain trade union, media, and political groups in
Britain. Herter replied favorably to Strauss’s plea for “a special bureau” to “hit
back in defence of democracy,” commenting that a recent meeting with NATO
Secretary-General Paul Henri Spaak on long-term planning had included discus-
sions on better coordination of informational and “psychological defence
policy.”21 Encouraged by this response, the German delegation to NATO re-
submitted the proposal for the NAC’s agenda “as a matter of urgency.” Having
discovered that Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) had
already begun to examine psychological warfare matters, the Federal Republic’s
permanent representative secured NAC agreement in July that serious attention
would be given to this issue after the summer recess.22
The council duly accepted the German proposal for the establishment of a
working group under the chairmanship of the Assistant Secretary-General of
Political Affairs, R.W.J. Hooper. The US, British, Danish, French, German,
Greek, and Turkish representatives indicated their willingness to be a part of the
new group. The Canadians supported its creation but were more interested in
assessing the existing arrangements for psychological warfare within NATO and
remained dubious about forming a new permanent apparatus. The Belgian,
Dutch, and Italian representatives agreed but were unable to state whether they
would take part. The group was given the deliberately broad task to “consider
and make recommendations on the problems connected with psychological
warfare.” In the face of Canadian objections, it was decided to allow the group
to set its own agenda and not in the first place be limited by council directives,
although it was stated by the US representative that psychological strategy in
time of war should not be part of the group’s interest.23
36 Giles Scott-Smith
The first meeting of the group was held on 13–14 October 1960. The Canadi-
ans, by this stage, had decided to join, but the Belgians, Dutch, and Italians
remained absent. Each country represented put forward a member of its NATO
delegation, except for Germany, France, and Britain, who sent their experts:
Lieutenant-Colonel Mittelstaedt from the German Ministry of Defense; G.
Paques from the French Ministry of National Defense and Henri Fromont-
Meurice from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and D.C. Hopson, Head
of the British Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD).24

The working group: defining the task for NATO

In his note to the participants of the working group entitled “Problems Con-
nected with Psychological Warfare,” Hooper outlined the need to concentrate on
“psychological defence measures in time of peace, and in particular, on the
counter measures necessitated by Soviet attacks on NATO or on individual
members of the Alliance.”25 Over the next few months, the group confronted
several issues that lay at the heart of NATO’s identity. The subject of psycho-
logical warfare crossed boundaries and raised questions that inevitably caused
major disagreement. The division of responsibility between the civilian and mil-
itary establishments within NATO had to be clarified, and the very nature of the
alliance as a defensive organization was questioned. Even before the group’s
first meeting, it was clear that two opinions would dominate the debate. The
Germans wanted a permanent body, preferably staffed by outside experts, to
coordinate a NATO psychological warfare campaign with an offensive strategy.
It was this position that demanded a major adaptation of NATO’s identity and
objectives. Against this was the more status quo position of the British, who
were open to upgrading the existing NATO infrastructure in this field but
wanted to maintain national control over these types of activities.
Problems arose immediately in defining terms. Hopson insisted that psychologi-
cal warfare was an activity “in support of military operations” and was therefore the
sole responsibility of “the military planning staffs working under political direc-
tion.” While the Germans agreed with this, in a note on 13 October they introduced
the concept of psychological defense as “defence and counter-attack against aggres-
sive radicalism in all spheres of life,” involving “the immunisation of the popu-
lation against infiltration, demoralisation and propaganda of world communism and
at the same time the prevention of a ‘revolutionary situation.’” The French intro-
duced the similar concept of “psychological action,” meaning a coordinated effort
to “enlighten public opinion.”26 These positions expanded dramatically the scope of
the debate. While all parties accepted that psychological warfare was aimed at
“hostile communities” and was the concern of the military, the German and French
positions called for responses to the impact that Eastern bloc propaganda was
having on public opinion within NATO countries during peacetime. Not surpris-
ingly, other nations reacted negatively to this. The Canadian representative rejected
psychological defense as having “certain psychiatric connotations which are not
particularly desirable” and flatly opposed “an active NATO propaganda unit.”27
 Not a NATO responsibility? 37
The German document of 13 October 1960 also recommended discussions on
efforts to counter-attack against the Soviet ideological offensive, including “into
the enemy’s camp.” Despite clarifying that psychological defense had been
chosen as a term because “it corresponds best to the NATO defence concept,” it
was apparent that the German position regarded the Soviet actions as immedi-
ately threatening to German national sovereignty. They therefore justified an
offensive response in kind.28 But what was most interesting about the German
argument was the method by which they proposed to operate their counter-pro-
paganda. Despite the existence of the Inter-ministerial Working Group for Psy-
chological Defence to coordinate activities, due to the experience of national
socialism, the West German government was itself unable to undertake large-
scale campaigns to influence public opinion.

For any defence measures against these attacks it is in principle necessary to

enlist to the greatest possible extent the help of private agencies, which have
to be provided by the government agencies concerned with the material
necessary to devise counter-measures . . . There are a few private organi-
zations which take part in the work of exerting influence on the population
of the Soviet zone. The success of such efforts on a private basis have,
however, clearly revealed the vulnerability of the Soviet zonal regime with
respect to information.29

The German proposal for increased state–private cooperation allowed greater

flexibility and, where necessary, deniability on the part of the government.30
This would require the coordination of private groups operating independently,
provided with covert material support by each government, and steered accord-
ing to an overall strategy decided on in secret within NATO.
At the end of October, the working group drew up a study of all activities
within NATO already concerned in some way with the field of psychological
warfare: the Committee on Information and Cultural Relations (AC/52), the
Special Committee on Information (AC/46), the Committee of Political Advi-
sors (POLADS), and the Division of Political Affairs.31 The survey highlighted
the fact that, while well-researched advice and information was being offered
by various bodies, there remained a lack of coordination of, and particularly
application of, such material in a counter-offensive manner by a single outfit
within NATO. To fill this void, the German representatives circulated a discus-
sion document in early November 1960 that proposed the establishment of a
permanent committee on psychological action consisting of experts from
NATO member states under the leadership of an adviser for psychological
warfare. In terms of hierarchy, the adviser would operate as an assistant to the
secretary-general.32
The proposals effectively stated that changing international conditions were
requiring a wholesale re-appraisal of NATO’s raison d’être. In these circum-
stances, it was appropriate that the Greek representative called for a study of
“the known methods, means and procedures used in Soviet propaganda,” after
38 Giles Scott-Smith
which “an attempt could be made to decide which of these methods it might be
suitable to adopt and which must remain strictly barred.”33

The outcome of the working group: a failed attempt to

reposition NATO
In mid-November, the group forwarded a report to the NAC for presentation to
the NATO ministerial meeting in December. The report that emerged from the
meetings of 3–4 November in many ways represented a major step forward. The
group’s focus was defined by the French concept of psychological action:
“activities in peacetime variously known as ‘psychological defence,’ ‘counter
propaganda,’ ‘propaganda,’ and ‘information.’” The report went on to acknow-
ledge that the existing apparatus was “insufficient effectively either to counter-
act this overt and covert propaganda offensive or to encourage positive
initiatives designed to promote NATO and Free World objectives.” The group
also accepted that, whatever form of coordination might emerge within NATO,
responsibility for carrying out any strategy of psychological action would
remain with the member governments.34
During the council meeting at the end of November, the Germans received
support from the Belgians and the Turks in their effort to push through changes
to NATO’s civilian apparatus. However, the Netherlands, Italy, Canada,
Denmark, and Norway followed the lead of Britain’s Sir Paul Mason and backed
the proposal for improving the existing apparatus. Significantly, one of Mason’s
objections centered on how it would be almost impossible to maintain secrecy
concerning any new permanent body that dealt with psychological action.35
The positions taken by France and the United States at this meeting deserve
comment. Despite their previous active promotion of similar initiatives, the
French did not support the German proposal for a permanent committee. By the
end of 1960, the shift in de Gaulle’s foreign policy away from full cooperation
with NATO was becoming more apparent, and the idea of such a committee no
longer fit the developing Gaullist worldview. Compared with that of other
nations, US participation in the working group had been relatively subdued.
While the US representative reacted positively to the efforts of the working
group during the council meeting, he did not make an explicit statement on any
changes required within NATO. There were several reasons for this. In Decem-
ber 1959, President Eisenhower had commissioned Mansfield Sprague to head a
president’s commission on information activities abroad. The top-level commis-
sion did not submit its report until December 1960, making it unlikely that the
United States would commit itself to NATO initiatives in this field before the
findings became known.36 Aside from the obvious unwillingness to pass a con-
trolling role in this field to others within a multinational organization, the inabil-
ity of the Eisenhower administration to aid the Hungarian revolt of 1956 had
totally discredited the “rollback” policy exemplified by the NSC 68 in 1950. The
Americans feared that the German proposals would promote social unrest in
the East, causing unwelcome instability and upsetting the status quo.37 Any
 Not a NATO responsibility? 39
extension of NATO responsibilities in this field, especially on the terms that the
Germans were looking for, would have been unacceptable because of the fear of
provoking unnecessary consequences and uncontrolled escalation.
Despite these reservations, Secretary-General Spaak was strongly in favor of
revamping NATO machinery to accommodate an expanded psychological
warfare role. To generate momentum, Spaak drafted a memorandum for the
upcoming ministerial meeting in December that outlined the essential issues of
disagreement and ended by stating “it is essential that the Ministers should give
some guidance on these points if continuation of the studies of the Ad Hoc
Working Group is to serve any useful purpose.”38 Yet the ministers hesitated. No
specific resolutions were taken, and the group’s report was placed in the context
of long-term planning.39 Spaak overrode this procrastination by stating that
“more vigorous action should be undertaken to expose the true meaning of
peaceful co-existence as interpreted by the Soviets.” On 9 February 1961, the
council therefore sanctioned the working group to continue.40
By this stage, the Germans were showing some impatience with the slow
progress. In early March 1961, they circulated a note that attempted to both shift
the focus and move the discussion on in one go. The note emphasized that exist-
ing bodies such as the information and culture committee were inadequate
because “the members of the delegations do not possess a detailed knowledge of
these often highly technical and/or complex problems.” The Germans supported
the French proposal, already expressed in the group’s report in December, to
allow outside experts to attend the working group meetings. By raising the level
of expertise in one go, endless discussion on defining terms of reference would
be avoided. Also “the discussion on substantial problems should be started
already at the next meeting, even though it should be impossible to arrive at a
decision on institutional questions.”41 Effective counter-measures to Soviet pro-
paganda could then be discussed immediately. Setting the tone for what they
would like to see in the future, the German delegation followed this up prior to
the next group meeting with two detailed papers, one on the European March for
Disarmament and another on the World Youth Forum to be held in Moscow in
July 1961.42 Both papers demanded discussion on the most appropriate counter-
measures to be taken, either on a national or multinational basis.
The German move was unmistakably a plea for action rather than words.
Again, the context for this move was the continuing uncertainty over Berlin. Just
prior to Adenauer’s visit to US President John F. Kennedy in April 1961, Henry
Kissinger wrote a briefing paper for the president in which he explained the
“psychological exhaustion” of the Federal Republic. The chance that the United
States might still strike a deal with Khrushchev involving concessions on either
Berlin or the Polish–GDR border without consulting the FRG led the FRG to a
perennial “fear of being left alone or sold out” by its main allies.43 While the
German proposal for action received the support of the French “both as regards
procedure and as regards substance,” the report that emerged from the working
group meeting of 3–4 March 1961 indicated that the Germans were not going to
succeed with their demand.44 The British proposals for a restating of the role,
40 Giles Scott-Smith
importance, and agenda of the information committee were accepted. As a
compromise, it was recommended that, alongside the committee, “there should
be an Ad Hoc Study Group of experts which should meet as its business
requires and not less than twice a year.” This new forum should report to the
council, which would then arrange the appropriate follow-up. In April, the
NAC accepted Council Memorandum C-M(61)25 in its entirety within the
context of long-term planning.45 The working group, having achieved its
purpose, was disbanded.

NATO as hub: the ad hoc study groups

While the attempt to reform NATO’s structure to deal with psychological
defense had failed, the admittance of outside experts for discussions on this
issue was an important development for building contacts and cooperation
across this field. Ideally, NATO was meant to operate as a central “hub” for con-
sultations among otherwise disconnected agencies.
This was partly the function of the three ad hoc study groups, created during
the summer of 1961 to pursue the following specific objectives: AC/201(A)
focusing on communist radio broadcasting to sub-Saharan Africa, AC/201(B) on
youth and education matters, and AC/201(C) on Berlin.46 But the problem with
the study groups was that they rested on a compromise. Since it was highly
unlikely that a more permanent or comprehensive responsibility for any of these
areas would be taken up by NATO itself, participation in the Africa and Berlin
groups was half-hearted, and neither survived beyond the end of 1961.47 The
youth group did function more according to its intended purpose. There was
serious concern amongst the Western powers over Soviet attempts to attract the
support of elites from the decolonizing world, and for this reason the group
attracted active British, French, and US participation, alongside the Germans.
However, even this group lasted only until 29 April 1963, when its function was
taken over by the Information Committee.48
The main cause of the youth group’s demise was the fact that it could not
fulfill the German demand for arranging counter-measures to Soviet and Eastern
bloc propaganda. The British view that all discussions within NATO should
remain on an informational level and not cross over into matters of operational
significance basically prevailed. This stimulated a substantial exchange of docu-
ments on Soviet influence and activities among youth and students. NATO
Secretary-General Dirk Stikker (1961–64) himself remarked in March 1962 that
“the practice of consultation at the expert level between those who are actively
dealing with problems is one which we have found immensely useful and which
has quietly but gradually greatly extended the degree of cooperation between
member states.”49 The documents from the group’s sessions reveal that all
participants took great care to avoid associating it with NATO in order to avoid
implicating NATO as an arbiter of psychological counter-measures against the
Soviet Union. In other words, the defensive identity of NATO seems to have
held, even in this arena. As Stikker made clear:
 Not a NATO responsibility? 41
Many of the most effective forms of action in this field are carried out on an
unattributable and indeed in some cases a clandestine basis. The difficulties
of transferring this sort of work from a national to an international footing
hardly need to be emphasised; and some of our governments, while not
reluctant to see others doing this sort of thing, might not wish to get
involved in it themselves.50

Therefore while the study groups fulfilled a certain purpose, their role was
strictly limited. Another means to ensure cooperation and coordination on a
broader front was needed.

The formation of Interdoc

The FRG’s report of October 1960, with its reference to the importance of
independent private groups in the propaganda war, indicated the way forward.
Interdoc came out of an informal West European network created in the late
1950s to discuss mutual interests and the changing nature of East–West rela-
tions. There was a precedent in Paix et liberté, which had functioned during the
1950s as an independent network promoting anti-communist propaganda in
support of NATO. While Interdoc was created on the foundations of Paix et
liberté, Interdoc was a more sophisticated operation. Paix et liberté’s brand of
simplistic “negative anti-communism,” which was based wholly on an anti-
Stalinist foundation, was no longer effective in the changed political climate of
the late 1950s. A constructive, positive vision was needed that confronted com-
munist ideology with a more effective doctrine built around fundamental
Western values.51
The origins of Interdoc date back to 1957, when the first meetings (or collo-
ques, to use the French term) were organized by Frenchman Antoine Bonnemai-
son. Bonnemaison was chief of Guerre/Action psychologique within the Service
de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionage (SDECE, the French intelli-
gence service), and from this position he coordinated a network of psychological
warfare organizations known as the Cinquième bureau. He ran the colloques via
a public front of the bureau, the Centre de recherche du bien politique. The col-
loques were attended by invited representatives from the military, politics, busi-
ness, academia, the media, and the security services, and they were held once or
twice a year. Beginning in 1955, they served above all as a forum for Franco-
German intelligence cooperation. Behind them lay the general rapprochement
between the two countries, aided by European integration and the greater French
willingness to cooperate after Suez in 1956.52
Led by the then chief of Dutch intelligence (the BVD) Louis Einthoven, a
Netherlands delegation began to attend the colloques from 1957 onwards. The
discussions focused on the Soviet policy of “peaceful coexistence” and the
threat that opposing communism would cause a weakening of resolve among
Western publics. To combat this directly, the participants sought ways to
combine the interests and resources of the business, academic, media, and
42 Giles Scott-Smith
intelligence communities in a common anti-communist endeavor. In 1960, a col-
loque study group concluded that an international center should be created to act
as a central node and coordinating point for the separate activities then going on
across Western Europe. The result was Interdoc, opened officially on 7 February
1963 in The Hague.53
Interdoc was a transnational enterprise, having close links with cooperating
groups in Britain, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States. However,
its core was based on Dutch–German cooperation, and it was always meant to
remain a European enterprise, despite occasional attempts to secure more US
financial and logistical support. Much to his chagrin, Bonnemaison was forced
to withdraw when in early 1963 de Gaulle closed down the Cinquième bureaux.
The French president was less interested in psychological warfare matters, and
the bureaux had become a site of opposition to his policy for Algerian independ-
ence. Bonnemaison resigned, and although he secured corporate support for
continuing his colloques in a private capacity, they were no longer multina-
tional. French participants continued to attend Interdoc meetings, but they did
not play a role in its management.54
Interdoc’s location in The Hague was the result of several factors. The Dutch
BVD had already created its own psychological warfare institute in 1960, the
Stichting voor Onderzoek van Ecologische Vraagstukken (SOEV), funded by
the Dutch multinationals and based on the CIA’s Society for the Investigation of
Human Ecology. The Dutch, unencumbered by weighty national interests, were
also preeminent in acting as middlemen between the larger European powers
and were therefore the ideal managers for an enterprise based on transnational
cooperation. Einthoven, now retired from the BVD, became Interdoc’s presid-
ent, with the day-to-day running of the organization under the control of a direc-
tor, Cees van den Heuvel. Van den Heuvel had previously been head of the
BVD’s training section and with Einthoven’s encouragement had laid the
groundwork for the SOEV.55 The German interest was initially controlled via a
front of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND – the federal intelligence service),
namely, the Verein zur Erforschung sozialpolitischer Verhältnisse im Ausland
e.V. (society for the investigation of the socio-political situation abroad), based
in Munich and under the leadership of BND psychological warfare chief Rolf
Geyer. The Verein was represented on Interdoc’s board, and a staff member was
placed in The Hague as deputy director and chief liaison. In 1966, the Verein
was renamed the Deutsche Arbeitsgruppe für West–Ost Beziehungen (German
working group for West–East relations). Intellectual input from the German side
came from the Verein’s secretary, Nicolaus von Grote, and the specialists on the
Soviet Union and the GDR, C.D. Kernig and Hans Lades. The largest share of
the Interdoc budget was also provided by the Germans. In 1970, when cuts were
being introduced, the German contribution was 605,300 Dutch guilders (about
US$150,000), more than 90 percent of the total.56 At that time, the organization
involved around 20 people, either on a full-time basis or as contract-based
employees for specific projects.
Interdoc was formed to fulfill three main tasks. First, it was to function as a
 Not a NATO responsibility? 43
stimulus and collection point for the analysis of communist ideology and strat-
egy. Simultaneously, it attempted to clarify Western values in order to meet the
communist challenge with a clear-sighted opposing doctrine.57 Annual confer-
ences of experts were held in various locations, and the results were published.
Close links were built up with existing institutes across Western Europe that
examined East–West relations, with the goal that Interdoc would function as the
principal liaison point between them. From the Dutch side, the journal
Oost–West had been created under van den Heuvel’s patronage in 1962, and its
editorial office was situated in the same building as Interdoc.
Second, Interdoc had an activist dimension. One of Bonnemaison’s chief
contributions from the colloques was an analysis of the formation of anti-com-
munist “cadres” in key positions throughout society. Using the principles of
Leninism, Interdoc’s role was to establish training facilities for aspiring indi-
viduals who would then form a kind of anti-communist intellectual vanguard
within each nation’s body politic.58 In an article in 1961, van den Heuvel himself
referred to this cadre formation as being aimed at the three most influential areas
in society: education, the military, and the business world.59 To this end
“Ostkollegien” were run for selected Dutch students and military personnel by
the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (central federal agency for political
education) in Cologne and at Interdoc Berlin, by Geyer’s Verein. Third, there
was the development of counter-measures. This was wholly aimed at disrupting
prestigious communist-orchestrated events such as the large youth and student
festivals run by two fronts, the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY)
and the International Union of Students.
Interdoc’s origins therefore lie in the mid-1950s, but its eventual realization
in 1963 was closely connected to the discussion within NATO, as outlined
above. Once the German push in 1960–61 to secure an offensive psychological
warfare capability within NATO had failed, Interdoc was the alternative. It was
no coincidence that it opened just two months before the last surviving ad hoc
study group, on youth affairs, was disbanded. With Interdoc up and running, the
need for the study group declined. The institute in The Hague was meant to
fulfill the role of a coordinating central point for the anti-communist activities of
private agencies. No official link between NATO and Interdoc existed. No traces
of a connection exist among the papers of the psychological warfare working
group, and van den Heuvel has denied any connection.60 It is more important to
regard the NATO discussions as a stimulus for the negotiations already taking
place at the private colloques. In his article published in early 1962, van den
Heuvel made direct reference to the fact that all attempts to develop a psycho-
logical warfare capability within NATO had met with opposition, and while
research and committee work continued, no further concrete results emerged.61
A few years earlier, he had also suggested that, even if the NATO discussions
were successful, the need for an independent private agency would still exist.62
Lines of contact can be traced in some of the NATO documents. The study
group on youth affairs had met several times during 1961–62 “to consider what
counter-measures [were] likely to be most effective” against the WFDY’s
44 Giles Scott-Smith
festivals. But any possible connection with NATO had to be avoided: “The
Study Group stresses the need to ensure that action taken by national authorities
in this sensitive field, particularly in connection with the [WFDY] Helsinki Fes-
tival [in August 1962], should not appear as being a concerted NATO effort.”63
Helsinki happened to be the first counter-action organized through Interdoc.
Van den Heuvel was asked by the Germans to organize and coordinate student
teams from various European countries to attend the festival. With a Dutch team
already in training, van den Heuvel attempted to add groups from France,
Belgium, Italy, and Britain. Other groups such as the Swiss Aktionskomitee
Wahret die Freiheit (action committee “preserve freedom”) were also active. The
goal was not only “the study of this Youth Festival on the spot,” but also “to form
a certain counter-poise to the one-sided communist influence.”64 One example was
a speech by Dutch student Hans Beuker on 3 August 1962 to one of the confer-
ence sessions. In order to disrupt the conference theme of anti-colonialism,
Beuker’s speech pointed to the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe as being
equally deplorable. According to van den Heuvel’s post-festival report, “the effect
of his speech was immediately felt and clearly seen during the following days, as
both Communists and non-Communists frequently referred to his declaration.”65
Van den Heuvel and his Interdoc (and ex-BVD) colleague Herman Mennes were
present in Helsinki to run the coordination between the various groups, in the
process laying the groundwork for future cooperation. “It was,” according to
Dutch team member Pieter Koerts, “a coordinated operation.”66
Helsinki was a turning point for the WFDY festivals. Having taken an offen-
sive posture by holding large events in the non-communist world (Vienna in
1959 and Helsinki in 1962), the communist movement found that the drawbacks
ultimately outweighed the benefits. It was six years before another festival was
held, in Sofia in 1968. Interdoc was not solely responsible for this result, but the
combination of Western tactics to disrupt the smooth operation of the Helsinki
festival certainly had a debilitating impact on communist strategy.
Interdoc lasted on paper until 1986, but its operations were drastically
reduced when, in 1970, the BND decided to cut off its financial contribution.
This decision came suddenly and was wholly connected to the shift in FRG
foreign policy towards a rapprochement with the East. In 1965, Rolf Geyer was
enthusiastic about the “solid basis” that had been created for Interdoc and the
many possibilities for developing its potential in the following years.67 But the
dominant theme for the Germans was always the relationship with the GDR.68
The developments within NATO confirm this, since the initial impulse for the
German psychological warfare proposal was exactly the Berlin crisis and the
need to respond to Eastern bloc propaganda in defense of the FRG’s sover-
eignty. Following the inauguration of the CDU-SDP (Christian Democratic
Union–Social Democratic Party) Grand Coalition on 1 December 1966 and the
changing attitude towards the GDR, a major reappraisal of the BND’s role and
purpose was inevitable.69 Uncertainties over the budget for Geyer’s Arbeits-
gruppe forced a temporary halt to cash flow from Munich in early 1967, but
normal service was then resumed.70
 Not a NATO responsibility? 45
During 1968–69, Interdoc was still expanding its activities, giving special
attention to the rise of the New Left and forming Interdoc-Youth as a response.71
But the arrival of the SDP government under Willy Brandt in 1969 had far-
reaching consequences. Brandt’s Ostpolitik and the search for a full rapproche-
ment with the GDR undermined the legitimacy of Interdoc for the new
government. Rolf Geyer resigned in early 1970, ostensibly for health reasons,
but also as a consequence of this policy.72 In June 1970 Geyer’s successor
announced that there could no longer be a financial guarantee from the BND. At
the end of that year, Gerhard Wessel, Reinhard Gehlen’s successor as head of
the BND, announced his utmost appreciation for the services of Interdoc over
the previous years but stated that the connection with the BND had to be broken.
An attempt was made to shift responsibility to Claus Kernig’s new Institut für
Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft (institute for society and science) in Freiburg.
However, the failure of this transition meant that by 1972 Interdoc was no
longer receiving any German funding.73

Conclusion
The proposals from the FRG in 1960–61 to create a psychological warfare facil-
ity within NATO radically transcended the established role and identity of the
alliance. The invoking of Article 5 in response to the propaganda threat to FRG
sovereignty highlighted the fact that the FRG’s goals challenged the fundamen-
tal dichotomies that defined NATO: peace–war; defensive–offensive;
civilian–military. Yet the US and British determination to defuse the Berlin
crisis through negotiation overruled the German desire to go on the ideological
offensive. The fallout of “rollback” and the fear of security leaks were also deci-
sive factors in the stance of Britain and the United States. In terms of actual
developments, the long-running debate within NATO concerning its counter-
propaganda role was not greatly altered by the activities of 1960–63. Psycholog-
ical warfare matters remained in the hands of the military command, appropriate
for times of conflict only, and other counter-propaganda issues were dealt with
by the enhanced civilian Information and Culture Committee.
However, the formation of Interdoc as a private agency and clearinghouse for
anti-communist information, analysis, and counter-measures was an important
solution to the obstacles faced within NATO. Flexibility and deniability were
increased, and the FRG had an outlet for its immediate concerns about Eastern
bloc propaganda. The relationship between Interdoc and NATO was never made
formal, and it is highly likely that Interdoc would have been created in some
form, even if the NATO negotiations had led to a successful conclusion. But the
ideas that were being presented within NATO in 1960–61 were the same as
those that led to Interdoc’s formation. And, with Interdoc in place, the negotia-
tions for major changes within NATO were clearly no longer necessary.
46 Giles Scott-Smith
Notes
1 “Psychological warfare as defined here includes the planned use in time of war by
NATO nations and NATO commanders of authorized propaganda and related infor-
mational measures designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitude and behavi-
our of enemy, neutral or friendly groups, in such a manner as to support agreed
NATO plans, policies and objectives.” Official definitions for NATO armed forces,
n.d., 1954, National Archives, The Hague (NAH), Ministeries AOK en AZ, Kabinet
van de Minister-President (1944) 1945–79, Papers of the Bijzondere Voorlichtings
Commissie (BVC), 11778.
2 Until now, the vast majority of studies on NATO have concentrated on the military
aspects of the alliance. See Lawrence S. Kaplan, The United States and NATO: The
Formative Years (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), p. 189; Vojtech
Mastny, “The New History of Cold War Alliances,” Journal of Cold War Studies 4
(Spring 2002), pp. 55–84.
3 See, for instance, Memorandum by the French Delegation, 12 December 1953, “The
Problem of Enlightening Public Opinion,” NATO Archives, Brussels (NA),
C-M(53)171; North Atlantic Council (NAC) Meeting, Summary Record, 16 Decem-
ber 1953, NA, C-R(53)57.
4 “New Evidence on the Berlin Crisis 1958–1962. Khrushchev’s November 1958
Berlin Ultimatum: New Evidence from the Polish Archives,” introduction, transla-
tion, and annotation by Douglas Selvage, Cold War International History Bulletin 11
(Winter 1998), pp. 200–3.
5 Record of Secretary of State Dulles’ Press Conference, 26 November 1958, Foreign
Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1958–60, vol. VIII, p. 125.
6 Richard J. Barnet, The Alliance: America–Europe–Japan, Makers of the Postwar
World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 181.
7 Adenauer to Dulles, 30 January 1959, FRUS, 1958–60, vol. VIII, p. 310.
8 Bruce to State Department, 10 August 1959, FRUS, 1958–60, vol. IX, p. 2.
9 Klaus Larres, “Britain, East Germany and Détente: British Policy toward the GDR
and West Germany’s ‘Policy of Movement,’ 1955–65,” in Europe, Cold War and
Coexistence, 1953–1965, ed. Wilfried Loth (London: Frank Cass, 2004), p. 115.
10 Joint Soviet–United States Communiqué, September 1959, FRUS, 1959–60, vol. IX,
pp. 51–2.
11 Bruce to State Department, 10 August 1959, FRUS, 1959–60, vol. IX, p. 3.
12 Kohler to Secretary of State, 21 August 1959, FRUS, 1959–60, vol. IX, p. 7.
13 Kohler to Secretary of State, February 1960, FRUS, 1959–60, vol. IX, p. 83.
14 9 March 1960, NA, C-M(60)22.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 The text of Strauss’s speech can be found in 27 June 1960, NA, RDC/60/208. (RDC
refers to International Staff Executive Secretary Richard Dean Coleridge.)
18 29 April 1960, NA, C-R(60)14.
19 State Department to US Embassy Bonn, 8 July 1960, FRUS, 1958–60, vol. IX,
p. 537.
20 Memorandum of Conversation, 20 June 1960, FRUS, 1958–60, vol. IX, p. 684.
21 Ibid. Efforts to coordinate Western information and propaganda activities to oppose
the Soviet pressure on West Berlin did occur, but these were organized via ad hoc
meetings of ministers from Britain, France, the FRG, and the United States. These
meetings did not meet the German wish for a permanent bureau within NATO. See
Rusk to Department of State, 7 August 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIV, p. 308.
22 27 July 1960, NA, C-R(60)32.
23 27 September 1960, NA, C-R(60)35.
24 10 October 1960, NA, AC/186-N(60)2; 18 October 1960, NA, C-M(60)88. The IRD
 Not a NATO responsibility? 47
was created in 1948 and soon became the principal arm of the British Government for
analyzing communist tactics and developing anti-communist propaganda. See Hugh
Wilford, “The Information Research Department: Britain’s Secret Cold War Weapon
Revealed,” Review of International Studies 24 (July 1998), pp. 353–70; W. Scott
Lucas and C.J. Morris, “A Very British Crusade: The Information Research Depart-
ment and the Beginning of the Cold War,” in British Intelligence, Strategy and the
Cold War, 1945–51, ed. Richard J. Aldrich (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 85–110.
25 10 October 1960, NA, AC/186-N(60)1.
26 Note by the United Kingdom Delegation, 10 October 1960, NA, AC/186-WP(60)1;
Note by the Delegation of the Federal Republic of Germany, 2 November 1960
(originally circulated at the first Working Group meeting, 13 October 1960), NA,
AC/186-WP(60)4; Note by the French Delegation, 4 November 1960, NA, AC/186-
WP(60)7.
27 Note by the Canadian Delegation, 25 October 1960, NA, AC/186-WP(60)3.
28 NA, AC/186-WP(60)4 (Annex II).
29 Ibid.
30 On the concept of state–private networks, see Scott Lucas, “Mobilising Culture: The
State–Private Network and the CIA in the early Cold War,” in War and Cold War in
American Foreign Policy, 1942–1962, ed. D. Carter and R. Clifton (Basingstoke: Pal-
grave, 2002), pp. 83–107.
31 “NATO Machinery and Activities in the Field of Psychological Action,” 31 October
1960, NA, AC/186-WP(60)5.
32 Working Group Progress Report, NA, C-M(60)88; Council Resolution, 2 November
1960, NA, C-R(60)40 item V; Note by the German Delegation, “Proposal for Psycho-
logical Action within NATO,” 30 November 1960 (originally circulated informally
on 3 November), NA, AC/186-WP(60)10.
33 NA, AC/186-WP(60)2.
34 “Psychological Action,” 10 November 1960, NA, C-M(60)94.
35 Summary Record, 6 December 1960, NA, C-R(60)45.
36 Lois Roth, “Public Diplomacy and the Past: The Search for an American Style of Pro-
paganda, 1952–1977,” Fletcher Forum (Summer 1984), pp. 367–8.
37 See Edmond Taylor, “Political Warfare: A Sword we must Unsheath,” The Reporter,
14 September 1961, p. 31; Laszlo Borhi, “Rollback, Liberation, Containment, or
Inaction? US Policy and Eastern Europe in the 1950s,” Journal of Cold War Studies
1, no. 3 (1999), pp. 67–110.
38 “Report on Psychological Defence,” 7 December 1960, NA, C-M(60)112(revised).
39 “Verbatim Report of the Meeting of the Council,” 16 December 1960, NA,
C-VR(60)49, C-VR(60)50, C-VR(60)51.
40 NA, C-M(61)6 and Addendum; Developments since the Last Meeting, 17 March
1961, NA, AC/186-WP(61)2.
41 “Psychological Action,” 7 March 1961, NA, AC/186-WP(61)1. Emphasis added.
42 “European March for Disarmament,” 17 March 1961, NA, AC/186-WP(61)3; “Inter-
national World Youth Forum in Moscow from 20th to 30th July, 1961,” 20 March
1961, NA, AC/186-WP(61)5.
43 Henry Kissinger, “Visit of Chancellor Adenauer: Some Psychological Factors,” 6
April 1961, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, John F. Kennedy, President’s
Office Files (JFK POF), 1961–63, part 5, Countries File, microfilm collection, reel 9.
44 “Psychological Action” (French Note), 21 March 1961, NA, AC/186-WP(61)4.
Attendance at the third group meeting involved representatives from eleven NATO
states. Only Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway stayed away.
45 “Long-Term Planning, Part III: Psychological Action,” 18 April 1961, NATO,
C-M(61)30.
46 “Psychological Action” (Report by the Working Group on Psychological Action), 30
March 1961, NATO, C-M(61)25.
48 Giles Scott-Smith
47 The Berlin group met only once, on 4–5 September 1961, to consider a paper from
the British delegation entitled “Berlin: Suggested Major Publicity Themes.”
48 13 November 1961, NATO, C-R(61)57; 29 April 1963, NATO, AC/52 R(63)14.
49 Stikker to Goedhart, 21 March 1962, Archive of C.C. van den Heuvel, National
Archives, The Hague (CC). At the time of writing the papers of C.C. van den Heuvel
were still being categorised by the National Archives. Therefore the file names and
numbers used here may not correspond to the notations used once categorisation is
complete.
50 Ibid.
51 Louis Einthoven, Tegen de Stroom In (Apeldoorn: Semper Agendo, 1974), pp. 232–4.
52 Brian Crozier, Free Agent: The Unseen War, 1941–1991 (London: Harper Collins,
1993), pp. 31–3.
53 Paul Koedijk, “Van ‘Vrede en Vrijheid’ tot ‘Volk en Verdediging’: Veranderingen in
Anti-communistische Psychologische Oorlogsvoering in Nederland, 1950–1965,” in
In De Schaduw van de Muur: Maatschappij en Krijgsmacht rond 1960, ed. B.
Schoenmaker and J.A.M.M. Janssen (The Hague: Sdu, 1997), pp. 77–8. Koedijk’s
chapter is the pioneering work on Interdoc’s formation and this research is indebted
to his original contribution.
54 Crozier, Free Agent, pp. 47–49.
55 C.C. van den Heuvel et al., “Possibilities of Psychological Defense against Soviet
Influence,” April 1959, CC (not yet categorised).
56 Protokoll der Sitzung mit Herrn Wiggers am 2.6.1970, CC, Eind Interdoc, 1970–72.
57 See C.C. van den Heuvel et al., Tasks for the Free World Today (The Hague: Inter-
doc, 1964); S.W. Couwenberg, Oost en West: Op de Drempel van een Nieuw Tijdperk
(The Hague: Pax, 1966).
58 The colloque held in Mont St. Michel in 1962, organized by Bonnemaison, was
devoted to an in-depth theoretical and practical study of cadre formation. CC, Kader-
training Italië, 1962–64.
59 C.C. van den Heuvel, “Psychologische Oorlogvoering,” De Militaire Spectator 131
(1962), p. 24.
60 C.C. van den Heuvel, interviews with author, The Hague, 6 June and 18 August 2002.
61 C.C. van den Heuvel, “Psychologische Oorlogvoering,” pp. 22–3. See also Koedijk,
“Van ‘Vrede en Vrijheid,’” p. 77.
62 C.C. van den Heuvel, “Hoofdlijnen van een Internationaal Instituut ter Bestrijding
van de Psychologische Oorlogvoering van het Communisme,” 16 November 1959,
CC.
63 “The Communist Offensive in the Youth Field,” 16 October 1961, NA, C-M(61)91.
64 C.C. van den Heuvel, “Communist World Youth Festival Helsinki,” 17 February
1962, CC, Interdoc Italië, Correspondentie Algemeen 1962–63.
65 C.C. van den Heuvel, “VIIIth World Youth Festival, Helsinki, 29th July to 6th
August 1962,” CC, p. 24.
66 Pieter Koerts, interview with author, Amsterdam, 2 June 2004; Hans Beuker, inter-
view with author, Houten, 3 September 2003.
67 Geyer to van den Heuvel, 8 September 1965, CC.
68 George Embree, interview with author, The Hague, 15 March 2004. Embree was an
independent journalist who was given an office by van den Heuvel in the same build-
ing as Interdoc and the Oost–West Center.
69 The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen (New York: Popular Library,
1972), p. 278.
70 Van den Heuvel to Rijks, 11 January 1967, CC.
71 “The New Left: Interdoc Conference, Zandvoort, 27–28 September 1968” (The
Hague: Interdoc, 1968). This is a collection of papers from the conference, including
contributions from Brian Crozier and C.C. van den Heuvel.
72 Geyer to van den Heuvel, 11 May 1970, CC.
 Not a NATO responsibility? 49
73 Protokoll der Sitzung mit Herrn Wiggers am 2.6.1970; Besprechung mit dem Präsi-
denten des BND am 3.12.1970; Van den Heuvel to Interdoc Board, 5 June 1972, all
in CC, Eind Interdoc, 1970–72. For an analysis of Interdoc’s formation and operation
during 1963–72 see Giles Scott-Smith, “Interdoc and Positive Anti-Communism: A
Case of Dutch–German Cooperation in Psychological Warfare”, Cold War History
(forthcoming).
4 Beyond NATO
Transnational elite networks and the
Atlantic alliance
Thomas W. Gijswijt

Introduction
A crucial characteristic of NATO and the Atlantic alliance was the existence of
a highly integrated transatlantic elite that had come into being during and after
World War II.1 Most research on the transatlantic elite has focused on the offi-
cial sphere: the diplomats and politicians who cooperated in NATO, the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and other
institutions of the so-called Free World. Only recently have historians become
interested in the networks, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and
exchange programs that were as much part of the Atlantic alliance as NATO
itself was.2 These networks and organizations were funded in part by Washing-
ton and large US philanthropic foundations, and they led to an unprecedented
increase in contacts – political, cultural, and economic – across the Atlantic
during the first decades of the Cold War. One of the most important networks
created in this period was the Bilderberg Group.3 The Bilderberg Group was
(and still is) a transnational elite network aimed at improving transatlantic
cooperation by holding informal high-level discussions on important geopoliti-
cal and economic problems facing the Western world. Bilderberg and similar
organizations succeeded where NATO, to a certain degree, failed, that is, in
building a consultation infrastructure that went beyond purely military and stra-
tegic issues.
The first meeting of the Bilderberg Group took place in the Netherlands in
1954. It had taken the organizers two years to develop the concept of the meet-
ings and build sufficient interest and support for the initiative in Western Europe
and the United States. The idea for the Bilderberg Group originally came from
the Polish lobbyist Joseph Retinger, a former adviser to the Polish wartime
leader General Vladislav Sikorski. Retinger regarded a united Europe as the sole
hope for success in the struggle against the Soviets. He was one of the driving
forces behind the European Movement and several other European organi-
zations. By 1952, however, Retinger had become increasingly worried about the
state of transatlantic relations. A long list of misunderstandings and problems –
ranging from McCarthyism to the difficult war in Korea – seemed to threaten
the vital Western unity. Retinger enlisted the help of Prince Bernhard of the
 Beyond NATO 51
Netherlands and several European politicians and businessmen to write a general
report on European–American relations. Paul van Zeeland, the former Belgian
prime minister, contributed to the report, as did Guy Mollet, the French socialist
leader, and Hugh Gaitskell, the British Labour politician.
The report was sent to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and several high-
ranking US officials in early 1953 with the request for an American reaction.
After a delay of several months, the American response was put together by
members of the newly-founded Committee for a National Trade Policy, among
them international lawyer George Ball. Finally, in May 1954, the first meeting
of the Bilderberg Group took place in the Netherlands under the chairmanship of
Prince Bernhard. In the following years, Bilderberg established itself as one of
the most important elite networks in the Atlantic alliance, funded partly by the
American Ford Foundation and by several large corporations and private
participants.
The founding members of the group held three basic assumptions about
transatlantic relations in the Cold War era. First, they were convinced that the
Soviet threat was a threat common to the whole Western world. Second, they
believed that the United States and Western Europe shared the same cultural and
historical background and values. Finally, they thought that the lessons of Ver-
sailles had taught that the United States was needed as a stabilizing force in
Europe. Not surprisingly, therefore, the organizers were strongly in favor of
NATO. Prince Bernhard made this clear at the beginning of the first meeting in
1954: “In the face of the present challenge the Western world must act as one.
We must therefore find appropriate forms of action. One of the best ways to do
this seems to me to make multilateral agreements, such as for instance NATO.”4
Typically, at the 1955 meeting in Germany both Lord Ismay, the first secretary-
general of NATO, and General Alfred M. Gruenther, NATO’s top military com-
mander, were present to welcome the Federal Republic of Germany as a new
member of the alliance. This NATO bias did not mean, however, that only like-
minded people were invited to the meetings. On the contrary, a special effort
was made to include representatives of all political parties and trade unions,
though communists, of course, were not included. Another lesson of the inter-
bellum years had been that democracies could be dangerously divided and
vulnerable. In the face of the communist threat, all democratic forces had to
cooperate.
The Bilderberg meetings were not intended to directly influence policy
making. Rather, the organization provided a forum where Americans and West
Europeans could influence each other. As the Bilderberg organizers put it:

The sole object of these meetings is to reach a better understanding of pre-

vailing differences between the Western countries and to study those fields
in which agreement may be sought. To reach this aim men of outstanding
quality and influence are brought together in circumstances where discus-
sions can be frank and where arguments not always used in public debate
can be put forward.5
52 Thomas W. Gijswijt
Of course, given the fact that over the years the Bilderberg meetings consistently
attracted high-level participants, in many cases the discussions did have an
impact on policy making. We should be careful, however, not to focus exclus-
ively on these instances. Most of all, transatlantic networks were important for
building consensus on international issues, for emphasizing common interests
and values in the Atlantic alliance, and for expanding contacts among the
Western foreign policy elites. Since NATO consisted of democratic countries,
the organization could not function effectively without a certain measure of
basic consensus, especially in pursuing new policies. Therefore, a close collabo-
ration between West European and North American elites was vital to its
existence.
In practice, the existence of organizations like Bilderberg had several con-
sequences for the Atlantic alliance. For one, such organizations facilitated the
Westbindung of the Federal Republic at different sociopolitical and economic
levels. The participation of several high-ranking Social Democratic Party (SPD)
politicians in the Bilderberg meetings, for example, contributed to the accep-
tance of the Atlantic alliance by the German Social Democrats in the late 1950s.
But for the purposes of this chapter, the most important consequence was the
fact that America’s active engagement in these networks legitimized and
enhanced the US leadership role in the alliance. Many of the problems that
seemed to lead NATO from one crisis to another in the 1960s concerned the
question of US leadership. In particular, two issues stood out: nuclear strategy –
the question of whether Europe should continue to rely on the US deterrent –
and French President Charles de Gaulle’s challenge to America’s predominant
position in Europe. The question is how the transatlantic discourse concerning
these two issues developed in the Bilderberg Group and, consequently, what role
transnational elite networks had to play in the alliance.

The 1961 Bilderberg meeting: US leadership and the nuclear

question
The Bilderberg meeting in 1961 took place in St. Castin, Canada, from 21–23
April. Coming so soon after the inauguration of US President John F. Kennedy,
it provided European participants with the first possibility to get acquainted with
the people and policies of the new US administration. In fact, many high-level
members of Kennedy’s foreign policy team were already familiar faces at the
Bilderberg meetings. The new Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, Kennedy’s special
assistant for national security affairs, McGeorge Bundy, and the high-ranking
State Department and Pentagon officials George Ball, George McGhee, and Paul
Nitze had all been participants. Ball, Nitze, and McGhee had accepted invita-
tions to the 1961 meeting, although McGhee was unable to attend because of the
Bay of Pigs crisis earlier that week.
The main point on the agenda in St. Castin was the question how “a new
sense [of] leadership and direction in the Western Community” could be brought
about, taking into consideration “the role of N.A.T.O. in the world policy of the
 Beyond NATO 53
member countries” and “the role and control of atomic weapons inside
N.A.T.O.”6 Lester B. Pearson, the former Canadian secretary of state for exter-
nal affairs, started off the discussions at St. Castin with an introduction identify-
ing the most pressing issues confronting NATO. Pearson was a respected and
well-known diplomat and politician. He had been a member of the 1956 NATO
Committee of Three advising on the future development of NATO. Although in
favor of NATO, Pearson did not hesitate to criticize the shortcomings of the
alliance. First of all, the approaching nuclear deadlock between the West and the
Soviet Union urgently called for a rethinking of NATO strategy. Moreover, the
fact that the Cold War battlegrounds had shifted from Europe to Asia and Africa
created difficulties, aggravated by the global disruptions of the decolonization
process. As Pearson put it, certain countries “were pro-Atlantic in Paris but not
in New York.” With respect to nuclear strategy, Pearson said, “the main diffi-
culty to be overcome was the fact that N.A.T.O. depended more and more on the
nuclear deterrent at a time when the risk of non-nuclear aggression was increas-
ing.”7 NATO’s lack of conventional means to deal with limited conflicts was a
real problem in a situation where a nuclear response would probably lead to total
war. From a European point of view, moreover, the question was whether the
US nuclear guarantee could still be trusted at a time when the Soviet arsenal
directly threatened the North American continent.
Paul Nitze, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
Affairs, and Albert Wohlstetter, a RAND Corporation analyst and foreign policy
adviser to the Kennedy administration, presented American thoughts on the
nuclear issue. Both men had been involved in the drafting of the so-called
Acheson Report, which served as a blueprint for the NATO policy of the new
administration, and they could therefore be expected to speak with some author-
ity on any changes or new impulses in US policy. Assistant Secretary Nitze was
one of the strongest proponents in Washington of a new strategy of flexible
response. He set out to explain the need for stronger conventional forces and less
reliance on the Eisenhower–Dulles strategy of “massive retaliation.” He argued
that these ideas were neither new nor revolutionary:

I can well remember long discussions with Mr. Acheson in 1949 in which
we both agreed that in the long run, and probably sooner rather than later,
the NATO powers including the United States should have non-nuclear
forces available to Europe sufficient to balance the non-nuclear forces of the
U.S.S.R.8

This position was adopted for three reasons. First, it was clear that US nuclear
predominance would not last. Second, if the West wanted to be in a position to
seriously negotiate arms control and disarmament, conventional forces were
necessary as a fallback. “The third reason was the obvious one, that if at all pos-
sible, the West should get out of the position of excessive reliance upon nuclear
weapons for its defense.” Nitze emphasized that the United States would answer
any nuclear or “major non-nuclear” Soviet attack upon a NATO member with “a
54 Thomas W. Gijswijt
full nuclear reply.” Still, NATO should be capable of resisting any Soviet non-
nuclear attack long enough “for significant political consultation within NATO,
and long enough for the Soviets to reassess the effect upon themselves of our
determination to react.”9 Indeed, NATO should be capable of a flexible
response.
Wohlstetter based his presentation on his influential article “Nuclear Sharing:
N.A.T.O. and the N + 1 Country,” published earlier that April in Foreign
Affairs.10 His main conclusion was that a proliferation of independent national
nuclear forces or the creation of a NATO force would destabilize the inter-
national situation. Given the high degree of interdependence between Europe
and the United States, the US nuclear guarantee remained the best solution.
Wohlstetter thus clearly departed from the Eisenhower policy of nuclear sharing.
Predictably, especially some of the French participants took issue with
Wohlstetter’s statement. Olivier Guichard, a Gaullist member of the French
National Assembly, pointed out that France would develop a nuclear capability
with or without US cooperation. If Washington, however, was prepared to give
technical assistance, Paris would be willing to reconsider its inflexible attitude
on NATO stockpiling in France and on disarmament or test ban negotiations. In
NATO, Guichard said, a “tripartite formula on atomic strategy” was urgently
called for, echoing a recurring theme in French foreign policy since de Gaulle’s
proposal for a US–British–French NATO directorate in September 1958.11
Guichard received little support for his arguments from the other European
participants. Many may have agreed with his analysis of the major problems in
NATO: the need for a greater European voice in nuclear policy and for more
consultation on out-of-area problems. But the Gaullist idea of a
US–British–French directorate in NATO did not appeal greatly to the other
NATO members. Participants from the smaller NATO member states and the
Federal Republic, such as the former Dutch foreign minister Eelco van Kleffens
and SPD defense specialist Fritz Erler, argued that there was simply no altern-
ative to strong US leadership in NATO. According to Wohlstetter, even many of
the French participants privately expressed doubts about de Gaulle’s effort to
build an independent force de frappe.12 The American suggestion to base
Polaris-armed submarines in European waters was therefore welcomed by most
participants. A lasting solution to the nuclear question in Europe was, however,
not yet in sight. In this respect, it was telling that former US secretary of state
Christian Herter, who in December 1960 had presented a plan for a multina-
tional NATO nuclear force, and Paul Nitze, who had just counseled against
Herter’s land-based scheme, were sitting at the same table in St. Castin. Even in
Washington there was no consensus on NATO policy.13 Thus, the Bilderberg
discussions served not only as a transatlantic exchange of views, but also as a
sounding board for the internal US policy making process.
Prince Bernhard himself told President Kennedy a few days after the Bilder-
berg meeting that, based on the discussions, he had concluded “that there should
not be a tripartite control over the use of nuclear weapons nor a 15-nation
control through NAC, but rather he felt that the sole control should rest with the
 Beyond NATO 55
14
President of the United States.” The talks in Canada had revealed strong objec-
tions to the Gaullists’ ideas about tripartism, especially among the smaller
NATO countries. Kennedy replied with surprising candor that the Polaris pro-
posals had been made “with the thought in mind of discouraging the develop-
ment of an independent nuclear capability on the part of the French and
eventually the Germans.”15

De Gaulle’s challenge
At the May 1962 Bilderberg meeting in Saltsjöbaden, Sweden, the future of the
Atlantic alliance was discussed at length. Max Kohnstamm, the vice president of
Jean Monnet’s Action Committee for the United States of Europe, presented a
report on the relations between Europe and the United States. The basic
problem, Kohnstamm argued, was that:

Due to the United States’ leadership, leading to de facto hegemony, not

wished by it, an unhealthy situation developed from the fact that the Ameri-
cans felt that they had to carry too much of the weight alone, at the same
time as there was distrust in Europe of American hegemony, mixed with the
converse fear of being left in the lurch if things became really dangerous. In
order to restore the balance, the Alliance must be placed on a new basis.16

Kohnstamm and Monnet believed that the British application to the Common
Market was the key to a more balanced, “equal partnership” between Europe
and the United States. Moreover, at the St. Castin Bilderberg meeting, Kohn-
stamm had reached the conclusion that a solution to the nuclear question could
only be reached if Europe could act as one.17 They were therefore delighted to
hear President Kennedy say very much the same thing in his famous Independ-
ence Day speech on 4 July 1962, which was drafted in part by George Ball. In
this speech Kennedy said:

We believe that a united Europe will be capable of playing a greater role in

the common defense, of responding more generously to the needs of poorer
nations, of joining with the United States and others in lowering trade bar-
riers, resolving problems of commerce, commodities, and currency, and
developing coordinated policies in all economic, political, and diplomatic
areas. We see in such a Europe a partner with whom we can deal on a basis
of full equality in all the great and burdensome tasks of building and
defending a community of free nations.18

Yet Kennedy also implicitly made it clear that a Europe without Britain would
not qualify as an equal partner.19
De Gaulle’s famous press conference on 14 January 1963 and his veto of the
British application to the Common Market put a temporary end to the hopes for
an equal partnership. De Gaulle publicly pointed to the Nassau agreement
56 Thomas W. Gijswijt
between the United States and Britain as proof that London had again chosen the
special relationship over Europe.20 The fact that less than two weeks later West
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer visited Paris to sign a hastily upgraded
Franco-German Treaty of Friendship (the Elysée Treaty) was interpreted in
Washington as a direct challenge to the United States.21 The provision concern-
ing a Franco-German harmonization of defense strategy caused the most
concern, given the possible effects this could have on NATO. As George Ball
later wrote in his memoirs: “I can hardly overestimate the shock produced in
Washington by this action or the speculation that followed, particularly in the
intelligence community . . . We looked at all possibilities of a Paris–Bonn deal
with Moscow.”22
In the international response to the Franco-German treaty, members of the
transatlantic elite played a key role. Former US Secretary of State Dean
Acheson and former US High Commissioner for Germany John McCloy, who
both enjoyed great prestige in the Federal Republic, privately urged Chancellor
Adenauer to consider the long-term consequences of de Gaulle’s policies for the
Atlantic alliance. But more importantly, several Christian Democratic Union
(CDU) and SPD politicians set out to counter the anti-American impact of the
Franco-German treaty. The key figure was Kurt Birrenbach, a CDU foreign
policy expert and Bilderberg member with excellent contacts in the United
States. Birrenbach coordinated the German reaction to the Elysée Treaty with
Monnet and Kohnstamm and with American friends like McCloy. It was this
group that came up with the idea of a preamble to the Elysée Treaty, re-empha-
sizing Germany’s adherence to the Atlantic alliance and NATO. It was also this
group that made sure that the preamble was added to the treaty at the time of its
ratification in the Bundestag in April 1963.23
In the meantime, the 1963 Bilderberg meeting was held in Cannes, France,
from 29–31 March. George Ball emphasized in his subsequent report to the
National Security Council on 2 April that the meeting in Cannes had “brought
together for the first time since de Gaulle’s press conference of January 14 the
leaders of major European States.”24 The Secretary-General of the Gaullist
Party, Jacques Baumel, gave what is described as “the most forthright presenta-
tion of the Gaullist point of view ever put forth in any forum.”25 Baumel
asserted that it was necessary to “restore the balance of the very foundations of
this Alliance on both sides of the Atlantic in a more suitable manner.” The
Atlantic alliance was too much a US organization. In particular, the US pre-
dominance in the nuclear field could no longer be accepted, “for everyone
knows perfectly well that the world of tomorrow will be dominated by the atom
and that only nations having the atom at their disposal will tomorrow be
modern nations, strong nations with which it will be necessary to reckon.”
Baumel went on to accuse the United States of trying to maintain its nuclear
monopoly. He argued that:

Everything proposed [by America] on the subject of nuclear forces, and

now in a different form of multinational or even multilateral force, consists
 Beyond NATO 57
in giving their allies the impression of [possessing] a certain amount of
responsibility, but in sovereignly retaining the sole right to press a button!

Since it was the ultimate responsibility of the French government to assure the
security of the French people, continued dependence on the United States was
not acceptable. After all, who could tell if in ten or twenty years’ time the
nuclear guarantee could still be counted on?26
The Multilateral Force (MLF) was now the first line of the US defense
against the Gaullists. Drawing on his January presentation to the NATO
Council in Paris, George Ball presented the MLF as a realistic solution to the
nuclear problem in NATO. He emphasized, however, that it was up to the
Europeans to decide on the precise size and character of the MLF. Subse-
quently, it quickly became clear in the discussion that the crucial question
once again concerned control. Was the United States prepared to relinquish its
veto over the force? Prince Bernhard, in a shift from his 1961 position,
expressed the opinion of many European participants when he declared that
the ideal solution would be a truly European nuclear force within the Atlantic
framework. In a memorandum to the US president, written two weeks after de
Gaulle’s press conference, McGeorge Bundy had predicted that precisely this
would happen. He wrote:

There remains one crucial question which we are still pushing ahead of us
and on which it may be essential to make a decision, at least among our-
selves, before long. This question is whether we are prepared to accept and
support a real European requirement for a real European role, as and when
that demand is presented. Our Nassau multilateral proposals are a major
step forward, but they are presented still within the framework of a U.S.
veto. Thus we still leave to General de Gaulle the chance to pose as the one
true spokesman of real independence for Europeans.27

George Ball left the Cannes meeting, however, convinced that the majority of
Europeans did not accept de Gaulle as their true spokesman. As he reported to
the National Security Council, the Bilderberg discussions had shown that:

De Gaulle is isolating himself more and more, and . . . he does not have a
“grand design”, or even a clear European policy. All de Gaulle can really do
is to oppose the initiative of others by being negative. He cannot build the
Europe he desires because his actions are conditioned by his overriding
desire to build the predominance of France. As a result, he has nothing to
offer other European states. Mr. Ball said Ambassador Bohlen agreed with
the analysis that de Gaulle cannot organize a European nuclear force. De
Gaulle still yearns for a U.S./U.K./France directorate in which France would
speak for all of Europe. However, Europeans are not prepared to have de
Gaulle speak for them. Except for de Gaulle, most Europeans do not want
the U.S. to get out of Europe.28
58 Thomas W. Gijswijt
Ernst van der Beugel, the Dutch honorary secretary-general of Bilderberg and a
convinced Atlanticist, expressed this sentiment forcefully in a letter to his friend
Henry Kissinger:

The French were absolutely impossible; the Gaullists stated their case and
the others, amongst whom Faure, former Prime Ministers and people like
Fontaine and Baumgartner did not really dare to speak up. Since 1944 I
never had the feeling that fascism was in a room where I was; now I had. If
after the Bilderberg meeting anybody would have any illusion about their
attitude they must be nuts.29

The fact remained, however, that especially in the Federal Republic, pressures
existed for a more profound German role in the nuclear defense of Europe. If the
United States could not engage the Germans, the French option remained a dis-
tinct possibility for Bonn.

The multilateral force offensive at the 1964 Bilderberg

meeting
By early 1964, the MLF group in the US State Department, the so-called “theo-
logians,” had won over a considerable number of European politicians and
opinion makers for the multilateral force. Van der Beugel, for example, had ini-
tially doubted the feasibility of the MLF, no doubt influenced by Kissinger. But
after talks in Washington with, among others, Henry Owen and Walt Whitman
Rostow of the State Department policy planning staff, van der Beugel wrote to
Owen: “You convinced me about the multilateral force. I immediately went to
work on this point and I hope and expect that a positive attitude will be taken [at
the next Bilderberg meeting].”30 The State Department decided to stage a large
MLF offensive at the March 1964 Bilderberg meeting in Williamsburg in the
United States. It had become clear that a particularly strong European delegation
would be present in Williamsburg, including NATO Secretary-General Dirk
Stikker; Ludger Westrick (one of Chancellor Erhard’s most trusted advisors);
Jacques Baumel; Dutch Foreign Minister Joseph Luns; EEC Commissioner
Sicco Mansholt; the British EEC negotiator Edward Heath; and General Hans
Speidel, Commander of the NATO land forces in Central Europe. US Ambas-
sador McGhee in Bonn even tried to schedule a collective visit to the US presid-
ent for the German participants.31 The Office of the Special Assistant for the
MLF arranged personal briefings on the MLF for all US participants. Thus,
Senator William Fulbright, Senator Henry Jackson, Representative Chet
Holifield, Dean Acheson, Shepard Stone (Director of the International Affairs
program for the Ford Foundation), John McCloy, and other US participants were
well prepared for the discussions.
Dean Acheson led the field with a call for greater unity in the alliance. Com-
paring NATO to a Mississippi steamboat (“going upstream it can’t go forward
and blow the whistle at the same time”), Acheson argued that it was more
 Beyond NATO 59
important to “perfect the alliance” than to “pursue the Russians.” Since “we will
in our lifetime live in a divided world,” it was critically dangerous to divide the
United States and Western Europe. The French attitude in NATO was something
“we must live through.” Acheson ended by wholeheartedly endorsing the MLF.
Secretary-General Stikker was next. The main point he set out to make was that
the unanimity rule in NATO had to be changed. Saying that in better times he
used to have a list of five or six problems that could not be solved because they
were “blocked” by one country, at present the list stood at 30. He did not need to
explain to his audience which country was the main culprit. In order to move
NATO forward again, Stikker proposed to introduce the OECD rules into
NATO decision making, which would mean that one or two members could
abstain but not “stop others from going ahead.”32
In a repeat of the Cannes scenario, Baumel attacked US nuclear and NATO
policy. But he was even more isolated than the year before. Max Kohnstamm
told the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, J. Robert
Schaetzel, afterwards that this time, in contrast to Cannes, “Europeans were
speaking up against the Gaullists and did not leave the task to Americans.”33
And as Eric Roll, economic minister at the British embassy in Washington, DC,
and a first-time participant, reported to the British Foreign Office:

Apart from a short intervention by La Malene, his Gaullist colleague,

Baumel got no support from anyone in the subsequent discussion which was
only divided between those who were wholeheartedly in favour of the
M.L.F. as a means of strengthening the Alliance and those who were rather
dubious about it.34

The participants – besides the Gaullists – who voiced serious reservations about
the MLF could be counted on one hand. British Labour MP Denis Healey
doubted that the MLF was “a good starting point for wider European control”
over nuclear weapons. It was expensive, and in the end Washington would still
push the button. Henry Kissinger also voiced his well-known opposition to the
MLF: it would provide a rallying symbol for anti-Germans and disarmament
proponents. The most serious objection – in Kohnstamm’s opinion – came from
Italian politician Paolo Vittorelli, who said that the MLF had become an issue in
Italian domestic politics that was used by the communists as proof that the
government was opposed to détente. McGeorge Bundy, in particular, was
impressed by this argument.35 In general, however, the State Department could
be satisfied. Most participants at the Williamsburg meeting were in favor of the
multilateral force. Moreover, the Gaullists were even more isolated than they
had been in 1963.
In the end, the MLF did not make it. US President Lyndon B. Johnson effect-
ively killed the multilateral force in December 1964. However, as the evidence
from the Bilderberg meetings shows, the MLF fulfilled a useful role in
US–European relations in the first half of the 1960s. First and foremost, the
MLF and the Polaris proposal of 1961 deflected and absorbed pressure for
60 Thomas W. Gijswijt
national deterrents in Europe, particularly in Germany. Without the proposal for
a multilateral solution to NATO’s nuclear dilemma, US policy makers would
have had a more difficult time replying to the Gaullist charges. With it, they
were able to convince influential Europeans – in Bilderberg and elsewhere – that
there was an alternative to de Gaulle’s vision of an independent Europe. In
January 1963, when the MLF for the first time became a major element of US
policy, the risk of a Franco-German Alleingang seemed real. Furthermore, there
was considerable pressure in Germany for a national nuclear force. By the end
of 1964, however, it had become clear that de Gaulle had overplayed his hand
and had become completely isolated in Europe. The general was never able to
explain to his European partners how his, in essence, nationalistic policy of
grandeur for France could be squared with his ideas for an independent Europe.
Faced with the choice between a Europe under French hegemony and an
Atlantic alliance dominated by the United States, most Europeans preferred the
latter. In his famous devil’s advocate memorandum that led to President
Johnson’s decision in December 1964, McGeorge Bundy put it this way:

We can continue to prevent de Gaulle from dominating Europe even

without an MLF – the Europeans themselves have no desire to follow him.
His nuclear force is not a big magnet. The number of Germans who really
tie their fate to France as against the U.S. is ridiculously small. The German
politicians who favor France today would be the first to come to Washing-
ton if they ever came to power.36

Conclusion
Historians may disagree on the nature of power in international relations, but it
is clear that America’s long-lasting predominance in Europe was much easier to
maintain by consent and persuasion than by coercion. In this sense, transatlantic
networks in effect underpinned NATO and the US leadership in Europe. Bilder-
berg and other transatlantic elite networks could, of course, never be a substitute
for diplomacy. We should, therefore, be careful not to overestimate the import-
ance of these organizations.
As the Bilderberg discussions on NATO and the question of US leadership
show, however, elite networks did have several distinct consequences for the
alliance as a whole. First, and most importantly, they fostered what might be
called an Atlantic political culture – a basic consensus on transatlantic coopera-
tion and the need for Western unity. The informal Bilderberg discussions
strengthened the sense among its participants that all Western nations were part
of a community of values and interests.
Second, transatlantic networks provided Washington with an effective instru-
ment to legitimize its leadership position in NATO. In the battle for leadership
in Europe between Paris and Washington, the Americans were able to make
more effective use of the informal transatlantic consultation infrastructure than
their French counterparts. As we have seen, the French Gaullists had become
 Beyond NATO 61
largely isolated by 1964. Moreover, by consistently participating in such trans-
national organizations, the United States indicated a fundamental willingness to
consult its partners in Europe. Conversely, the European members of the transat-
lantic elite could use the off-the-record discussions to better understand and
influence the US policy making process.
A third consequence of the Bilderberg meetings was the large increase in per-
sonal contacts and friendships among the transatlantic foreign policy elite. This
meant that ad hoc coalitions could quickly be formed across the Atlantic, as in
the case of the international reactions to the Elysée Treaty. Many of the con-
sequences and effects of transatlantic networks were, of course, indirect and dif-
ficult, if not impossible, to measure. Nevertheless, if the case of the Bilderberg
Group is representative, they were indeed part of the fabric of the Atlantic
alliance.

Notes
1 On this point, see Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945:
From “Empire” by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003), p. 66; Charles S. Maier, “The Making of ‘Pax Americana’: Formative
Moments of United States Ascendancy,” in The Quest for Stability: Problems of West
European Security, 1918–1957, ed. Rolf Ahmann, Adolf M. Birke, and Michael
Howard. (London: German Historical Institute, 1993), pp. 389–434.
2 See, for example, Oliver Schmidt, “U.S. Philanthropy and Exchange of Scholars,” in
Culture and International History, ed. Jessica Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher
(New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), pp. 116–34; Volker Berghahn, America and the
Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy,
and Diplomacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
3 There exists little research on Bilderberg. For two recent efforts, see the chapter on
Retinger in Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the
Tune? (London: Frank Cass, 2003), and the article by Valérie Aubourg on the early
years of the Bilderberg Group, “Organizing Atlanticism: The Bilderberg Group and
the Atlantic Institute, 1952–1963,” in The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe,
1945–1960, ed. Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (London: Frank Cass,
2003), pp. 92–105.
4 National Archives, The Hague (NAH), Bilderberg Papers, Box 1.
5 Report Bilderberg Meetings, St. Castin Conference, 21–23 April 1961, Introduction,
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS (DDEL), Charles D. Jackson Papers,
Box 36.
6 Ibid., p. 7.
7 Ibid., pp. 9–10.
8 Remarks by Paul H. Nitze at Bilderberg Meeting, Library of Congress, Washington,
DC, Manuscript Division, Paul H. Nitze Papers, Box 61.
9 Ibid.
10 Albert Wohlstetter, “Nuclear Sharing: NATO and the N+1 Country,” Foreign Affairs
39, no. 3 (April 1961), pp. 355–87.
11 Handwritten Notes by Paul Nitze, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Manuscript
Division, Paul H. Nitze Papers, Box 61.
12 Albert Wohlstetter, “Impressions and Appraisals in Hong Kong, May 19–May
23, 1962,” www.rand.org/publications/classics/wohlstetter/DL10364/DL10364.html
(accessed 30 January 2005). In these notes Wohlstetter refers to the St. Castin Bilder-
berg meeting in 1961.
62 Thomas W. Gijswijt
13 On the internal differences in Washington and the resulting “mixed signals” on
NATO policy, see Constantine A. Pagedas, Anglo-American Strategic Relations and
the French Problem, 1960–1963: A Troubled Partnership (London: Frank Cass,
2000), p. 142.
14 Meeting between Kennedy and Bernhard, 25 April 1961, JFKL, NSC Country Files,
the Netherlands.
15 Ibid.
16 Report Bilderberg Meetings, Saltsjöbaden Conference, 1962, Ford Foundation
Archives, PA 56–341.
17 See Kohnstamm’s Notes on the St. Castin Meeting, European University Institute,
Historical Archives, Max Kohnstamm Papers, Box 19.
18 Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 4 July 1962, Public Papers of the Presi-
dents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962 (Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office, 1964), pp. 537–9.
19 For Britain’s application to the EEC, see Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy
and the United States of Europe (London: Macmillan, 1993); Jeffrey Glen Giauque,
Grand Designs and Visions of Unity: The Atlantic Powers and the Reorganization of
Western Europe, 1955–1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002);
Alan S. Milward, The Rise and Fall of a National Strategy, 1945–1963 (London:
Frank Cass: 2002).
20 The Nassau agreement has caused much confusion, because it tried to combine three
different policies:
• direct assistance to the British deterrent in the form of Polaris missiles, with the
door held open to the French for similar assistance (this meant a shift in Kennedy’s
earlier position that no aid should be given to France);
• a multinational NATO force that included the British V-bombers (IANF); and
• a multilateral NATO force with mixed-manned components (MLF).
Because of bad drafting and a lack of time, the last two were mixed up, and the
British did not feel bound to the multilateral force. McNamara and Nitze at the Penta-
gon hoped that direct help to France combined with a MLF to keep the Germans
happy would solve the nuclear problem in Europe. However, de Gaulle’s press con-
ference quickly destroyed this possibility. On Nassau, see Richard E. Neustadt,
Report to JFK: The Skybolt Crisis in Perspective (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1999). Marc Trachtenberg’s analysis in A Constructed Peace: The Making of the
European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), p.
360ff., is basically convincing, although in attempting to distance himself from the
“standard interpretation,” he misrepresents Neustadt’s version. In fact, Neustadt and
Trachtenberg share much more common ground than the latter seems to realize.
21 On the Elysée Treaty, see Matthias Schulz, “Die Politische Freundschaft Jean
Monnet–Kurt Birrenbach, die Einheit des Westens und die ‘Präambel’ zum Elysée-
Vertrag von 1963,” in Interessen verbinden: Jean Monnet und die europäische
Integration der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, ed. Andreas Wilkens (Paris: Bouvier,
1999), pp. 299–327.
22 George Ball, The Past has another Pattern (New York; London: Norton, 1973), p.
271.
23 The official reaction of the Kennedy administration left Bonn with little doubt on the
US reservations regarding the Elysée Treaty. But as Ball told McCloy in a telephone
conversation, the administration could not openly press for a preamble. Here the
transatlantic elite could step in. See Telephone Conversation between Ball and
McCloy, 11 February 1963, JFKL, George Ball Papers, Box 4.
24 Summary Record of National Security Council Meeting, 2 April 1963, John F.
Kennedy Library, Boston, MA (JFKL), National Security Files (NSF), Box 314.
25 Steering Committee Meeting Bilderberg, 1963, DDEL, Charles D. Jackson Papers,
 Beyond NATO 63
Box 36. Ball afterwards had Baumel’s speech translated and sent to Bundy, Rusk, and
McNamara.
26 Speech by Jacques Baumel, JFKL, President’s Office Files (POF), Box 116. The
speech bears the signs of a hasty translation.
27 Memorandum for the President, 30 January 1963, “The U.S. and De Gaulle: The Past
and the Future,” JFKL, NSF, Box 404.
28 Summary Record of National Security Council Meeting, 2 April 1963, JFKL, NSF,
Box 314.
29 Van der Beugel to Kissinger, 4 April 1963, NAH, Ernst van der Beugel Papers, Box
7.
30 Van der Beugel to Owen, 25 November 1963, NAH, Ernst van der Beugel Papers,
Box 7.
31 In a telegram to Rusk, McGhee wrote:
A group of influential Germans will be traveling to the United States to attend the
Bilderberg Conference in Williamsburg March 19–22. The group includes: Fritz
Erler, Fritz Berg, Kurt Birrenbach, Ernst Majonica, Max Brauer, Helmut Schmidt,
Baron Knuet von Keuhlmannstumm, Otto Wolf [sic] and General Hans Speidel.
Most of these plan to be in Washington before or after the conference. I understand
that the President’s schedule would preclude individual calls by these men.
However, this is a high-powered group, and I wonder if an appointment might be
made with the President for the group as a whole. Such a meeting would be of
great value to our operations here in Germany, and would I believe be of consider-
able interest to the President.
Telegram from McGhee to Rusk, 20 February 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson Library,
Austin, TX (LBJL), NSF Country Files, Box 183. As far as I know, such a meeting
did not take place. President Johnson did, however, see several other Bilderberg
participants.
32 All quotations in this paragraph are taken from the notes McGhee made at the
meeting; see Georgetown University, McGhee Papers, series XIII, Box 2. Stikker also
introduced his proposal to the NATO council.
33 Conversation between Kohnstamm and Schaetzel, 26 March 1964, US National
Archives and Record Administration, College Park, MD (USNA), US Department of
State, Washington, DC (DoS), Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State
for Multilateral Force, Lot 69D55, Box 14.
34 Eric Roll, Williamsburg 1964, UK National Archive, Kew, London (UKNA), Foreign
Office (FO) 371/178959. As a result of Baumel’s speech – speakers were generally
limited to five or ten minutes speaking time – a traffic light was introduced at the
Bilderberg meetings to signal when a speaker’s time was up. The chairman of Bilder-
berg, Prince Bernhard, later admitted in an interview that he especially enjoyed using
the traffic light against Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Luns.
35 Conversation between Kohnstamm and Schaetzel, 26 March 1964, USNA, DoS,
Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Multilateral Force, Lot
69D55, Box 14.
36 Memorandum for the President by McGeorge Bundy, 6 December 1964, Foreign
Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 134–7.
Part III
NATO, de Gaulle, and
détente
5 Into the 1960s
NATO’s role in East–West relations,
1958–63
Christian Nuenlist

Introduction
For US policy planner Leon Fuller, NATO’s tenth anniversary in April 1959
marked the alliance’s transformation from a “post-war experiment in crisis man-
agement” to a “long-term and apparently permanent aspect of US foreign
policy.”1 Besides the transformation of NATO into a highly integrated military
organization after the outbreak of the Korean War, NATO’s political importance
had increased considerably in the mid-1950s. In December 1956, NATO gov-
ernments deliberately strengthened the political role of NATO by approving the
report of the Committee of Three on non-military cooperation within the
alliance and by electing Paul-Henri Spaak, one of Europe’s leading statesmen,
as NATO’s second secretary-general.2
Under Spaak’s energetic leadership, NATO’s political cooperation blos-
somed considerably in 1957–58. Arguably, the importance of the secretary-
general grew, as political questions became more important than military ones
because of a relaxation of East–West relations in the mid-1950s. The NATO
Council regularly discussed key political questions, including the UN disarma-
ment negotiations in London in 1957 and Western preparations for a possible
summit meeting with the Soviet Union in 1958.3 Thus, Spaak in September 1958
proudly characterized the progress in NATO political consultations as an
“innovation and revolution” in diplomatic relations.4
Yet despite NATO’s success as a multilateral political clearinghouse in
1957–58, two major political challenges loomed large by late 1958. First, Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev’s Berlin ultimatum of November 1958 had the poten-
tial to split the alliance into supporters of a wider East–West détente and advo-
cates of an intransigent line. Second, France under President Charles de Gaulle
was increasingly displeased with central aspects of NATO, desiring support
from its allies for its policy towards Africa and criticizing Washington’s military
and political predominance within NATO.
This chapter examines how NATO governments as well as NATO ambas-
sadors under the leadership of the NATO secretary-general dealt with cycles of
détente and with de Gaulle’s criticism towards the alliance from 1958 to 1963.
In general, historians consider the state of the alliance to have been much better
68 Christian Nuenlist
in the late 1950s than in the early 1960s. While US President Dwight D. Eisen-
hower is usually portrayed as a staunch supporter of NATO due to his
experience in World War II and as NATO’s first supreme commander,5 his suc-
cessor John F. Kennedy has been criticized for “failing to consult” with NATO
and for desiring a bilateral détente with the Soviet Union at the expense of
NATO allies.6
This chapter argues that despite major efforts by NATO insiders, such as the
NATO secretary-general and the 15 NATO ambassadors, to preserve the NATO
forum as the main locus of discussing Western Cold War strategy, political
cooperation within the Western alliance deteriorated in mid-1959. Eisenhower’s
flirt with superpower détente and the return of traditional big-power policy
during preparations for the 1960 Paris Summit threatened the nascent political
cooperation within NATO as much as de Gaulle’s challenge to US leadership.
While the Kennedy administration at times was guilty of non-consultation or of
only holding consultations after the fact, it made clear its commitment to an
improved political role of NATO from the very beginning; it also made good
use of the NATO forum to debate political aspects of the Berlin crisis in mid-
1961 as well as in the follow-up of the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in
the summer of 1963.

New challenges for NATO: de Gaulle’s directorate and the

Berlin Crisis
In September 1958, Charles de Gaulle’s demand for a tripartite entente between
Washington, London, and Paris to determine the political and military strategy
of the West caused a prolonged intra-bloc crisis. In the opinion of NATO
Secretary-General Paul-Henri Spaak and of the smaller allies including West
Germany, Italy, and Canada, a three-power directorate was completely unac-
ceptable and would mean the end of NATO.7 When US President Dwight D.
Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan nevertheless gave
Paris the green light for sub-ministerial tripartite talks in Washington, the
smaller allies insisted – after pressure from Spaak and against the wishes of de
Gaulle – that the three powers inform NATO about the meeting and its results.8
Originally, Spaak and the lesser allies had intended to use the occasion of de
Gaulle’s September memorandum to strengthen NATO political consultations
through a comprehensive discussion on a NATO reform at the ministerial
meeting in December 1958.9 In the end, however, no such debate took place
within NATO,10 as even Spaak feared that the progress in political cooperation
made since 1956 could be jeopardized in an open confrontation with the French
delegation at the multilateral NATO ministerial meeting.11
In the middle of this intra-bloc crisis caused by de Gaulle, Khrushchev
caused the second Berlin crisis in November 1958 in the hope of opening up
negotiations with the West on Berlin and Germany and trying to secure Western
recognition of East Germany.12 With its Berlin offensive and the resulting
East–West talks, the Soviet Union managed to divide the Western camp in no
 Into the 1960s 69
time at all. The special responsibility for Germany and Berlin borne by the US,
Britain, and France led to complaints by the other 11 NATO member states,
which felt that they were being left out by the Three and West Germany. On the
eve of NATO’s ministerial meeting in December 1958, the Four had published a
communiqué on Berlin without waiting for input from the smaller NATO
allies.13 Thus, NATO was more or less asked to rubberstamp the decisions made
independently by the Western Four.
During the multilateral NATO debates, there were heated discussions within
the alliance between critics and supporters of a détente with the East. In general,
Britain, Canada, and the Scandinavians desired a more flexible approach than
NATO’s continental European members.14 The split in the alliance led to a com-
promise position in NATO’s “Berlin Declaration” that was mainly drafted by
Spaak. On the one hand, the NATO Council fully associated itself with the hard-
line views of the US, France, and West Germany, blaming the Soviet Union for
having created “a serious situation which must be faced with determination” and
recalling the rights of the Western powers with regard to Berlin. On the other
hand, it emphasized the readiness of the West to discuss with the Soviet Union
the problems of Germany, European security, and disarmament.15
However, neither de Gaulle’s demand for a three-power directorate nor
Khrushchev’s Berlin ultimatum managed to seriously disturb NATO’s ten-year
anniversary celebrations in April 1959.16 Already in February 1959, de Gaulle
had assured Spaak that France would not deepen the NATO crisis while the
Berlin crisis was ongoing.17 In addition, NATO governments and the NATO
secretary-general apparently preferred a false display of unity, which no longer
existed in reality, in order to be able to deal with the Soviet Union from a posi-
tion of strength.

NATO and the “spirit of Camp David”: non-consultation par

excellence
By mid-1959, the fear of a directorate as proposed by de Gaulle and the fear of a
superpower deal at the expense of Europe began to overlap. The catalyst for a
major intra-Western crisis was the unexpected détente policy of the Eisenhower
administration. In July 1959, without prior consultation with his Western allies,
Eisenhower decided to invite Khrushchev to visit the US in September 1959.18
Since the US had always considered progress at the Geneva foreign ministers’
talks a prerequisite for a summit with Khrushchev, Eisenhower’s independent
action annoyed most NATO allies. The NATO Council (NAC) thus asked the
US to consult with its allies on its intentions regarding the meeting with
Khrushchev.19
During his European trip in late August and early September 1959, Eisen-
hower was confronted with widespread concern among NATO members about
the possibility of a US–Soviet agreement. Spaak was extremely concerned about
the situation in Europe and the state of the alliance. West German Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer also worried about how the public in Italy and elsewhere
70 Christian Nuenlist
would react to Khrushchev’s visit to the US.20 To dispel European concerns,
Eisenhower reassured the NAC during a spontaneous visit that he would not
conduct substantial negotiations with Khrushchev and that US policy on
East–West relations remained unaltered.21
Despite his promises to NATO, however, Eisenhower did enter into serious
negotiations with Khrushchev on Berlin, and the two leaders reached an infor-
mal bilateral agreement at Camp David. After Khrushchev withdrew his ultima-
tum for a separate peace treaty, Eisenhower agreed to resume East–West
negotiations on Berlin. He acknowledged that the situation in Berlin was “abnor-
mal.” Even worse from the allies’ point of view, they were only selectively
informed about the summit – the informal Berlin agreement was not conveyed to
the alliance.22
Eisenhower wanted to use the “spirit of Camp David” to achieve a break-
through in détente. He was seriously tempted to favor détente with the Soviet
Union over solidarity with the Western alliance. In the aftermath of
Khrushchev’s visit, Eisenhower asked US Ambassador to Moscow Llewellyn
Thompson to inform Khrushchev that for the time being, intra-bloc problems
were preventing a common Western position for summit talks with the Soviet
Union. Eisenhower did not want Khrushchev to assume that future delays were
caused by a lack of interest on the part of the US.23 Together with the selective
consultation with NATO on Camp David, Eisenhower’s secret message to the
“enemy” saying that difficulties with NATO were preventing progress towards a
mutually desired superpower détente amounted to a remarkable act of disloyalty
to the alliance by the Eisenhower administration.
Yet, NATO still played an important role in Eisenhower’s thinking at that
time. In his meeting with Thompson, Eisenhower confessed that reaching an
agreement with the allies on East–West issues was “far from easy.” Neverthe-
less, to prepare NATO for the planned four-power summit with Khrushchev,
Eisenhower knew that in order to take the next step in his détente policy, he
needed to have his “ducks in a row.”24 Instead of moving ahead bilaterally on the
road towards détente, he decided to wait and bring NATO along. However, it
was not an easy task to achieve a harmonization of Western views on détente
and of preparations for a summit meeting with Khrushchev.

Transatlantic disputes over détente in late 1959

After Camp David, there were feelings of mistrust in NATO circles with regard to
the intentions of the Western major powers.25 In Spaak’s view, the rapid change in
East–West relations after the Eisenhower–Khrushchev summit made the NATO
meeting in December 1959 extremely important. During a visit to Washington, he
explained to US Secretary of State Christian Herter that the spirit of Camp David
had alienated many NATO countries. Herter agreed that the waning of the Soviet
threat was making it more difficult to keep the alliance together.26
The US NATO mission in Paris also felt that NATO’s political cooperation
was in for a “rough period.” 27 First, there was confusion in NATO governments
 Into the 1960s 71
about whether or not the Cold War was already over, and about whether or not
there was a détente. Second, the decline of Soviet pressure on Western Europe
exposed intra-bloc difficulties, such as the French attitude towards NATO or
fears of an “inner circle” within NATO.28
In early December, Herter complained that he was receiving no support from
the French in preparations for the NATO meeting and a summit with
Khrushchev, and that Adenauer, too, was blocking any progress in East–West
relations. Eisenhower replied that “he was getting rather weary of the frozen atti-
tudes taken by the French and the Germans.”29 Eisenhower confessed that the
US played too big a role within NATO. He was strongly committed to substan-
tially reducing US troops in Europe and believed that Europeans should feel
ashamed that the US still had troops stationed on their continent.30 The NATO
consensus that had prevailed from 1949 to 1959 increasingly gave way to a
strong frustration in Washington about West Europeans.
At the ministerial meeting in Paris in December 1959, NATO foreign minis-
ters dedicated much time to the détente that had been registered during that year.
Some NATO governments felt that, without concrete steps or agreements, the
détente of 1959 was only an atmosphere, not a reality. Other countries, including
Norway, Canada, and Britain, maintained that a relaxation of international rela-
tions had already taken place, and that they expected NATO to present new,
imaginative disarmament positions in response. In their view, the summit of
1960 was intended to demonstrate to Khrushchev that he was on the right path
with his changed strategy that favored détente instead of a cold war. Even West
German Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano viewed the international situ-
ation in relatively mild terms. He suggested that NATO, while avoiding the
danger of wishful thinking, “contribute its efforts to seek a real détente.”31
While there was only a fragile consensus within NATO on the desirability of
East–West détente, NATO’s smaller allies were united in their demand that the
Western Four consult them with regard to Western preparations for the summit
with Khrushchev. Spaak blamed the Western Four for having taken important
steps in 1959 without prior consultation with NATO. He warned that the chal-
lenge for NATO resulting from Khrushchev’s détente policy needed to be taken
seriously, and he urged for Western unity and improved consultations.32
Within the multilateral NATO forum, no confrontation took place between
the diverging concepts of the US and France for the future of Europe. Spaak had
tried in vain to encourage Eisenhower to confront de Gaulle and to take the lead
within the alliance to isolate France.33 As early as mid-August 1959, Spaak had
warned of the dangers of de Gaulle’s escalating obstructionism within NATO –
de Gaulle had withdrawn its Mediterranean fleet from NATO command in
March 1959 and rejected both French participation in NATO’s integrated air
defense and the storage of US nuclear devices on French territory in early June
1959. However, except for two cursory discussions of de Gaulle’s directorate
proposal on 16 June and 1 July 1959, there was no real debate on the French
challenge within the NATO Council.34
72 Christian Nuenlist
Preparing for the 1960 Paris Summit: what role for NATO?
After Italy, Canada, Turkey, and Belgium, in particular, had raised concerns that
the four-power preparations violated the equality principle within NATO, sub-
stantial discussions took place in the NATO Council on the most important
issues on the international agenda, including disarmament and European secur-
ity.35 In addition, Alexander Böker, a German member of NATO’s International
Staff, represented the interests of the alliance as NATO observer to the prepara-
tory meetings of the four-power working group on East–West relations from
January to May 1960.36
At this stage, Spaak was seeking to strengthen NATO’s role in East–West
relations in the long term. In February 1960, he proposed to establish a five-
power NATO committee – after the model of the UN Security Council – to har-
monize future preparations for East–West summits. However, Spaak’s
suggestion was unanimously rejected by all NATO members except Italy, which
enthusiastically endorsed the idea, undoubtedly hoping for a seat in the five-
power committee.37 It was no small irony that Spaak, who in 1958–59 had vehe-
mently fought against notions of an “inner circle” within the alliance, at this
point launched a similar “senior NATO partners” idea. Even more unconven-
tional was Spaak’s idea of inviting Khrushchev to a meeting of the NATO
Council during the Soviet leader’s visit to Paris – an idea that was also unani-
mously rejected.38
At the NATO ministerial meeting in Istanbul in early May 1960, the US
assured its allies that the value of NATO was independent of cycles of détente.
Washington promised not to make any commitments to Khrushchev that would
have negative repercussions on the alliance.39 Even though all NATO members
felt that the state of political consultations had improved since late 1959 through
the position of the NATO observer and due to NATO’s considerable involve-
ment in the summit preparations, some NATO countries, such as Canada, Italy,
and Turkey, remained skeptical with regard to the substance of the Western bar-
gaining position. In their views, the West was not yet sufficiently prepared for
an encounter with Khrushchev, particularly in the disarmament field – the Paris
Summit thus seemed premature and was thought to have been summoned too
hastily.40
At the end of their debates, the ministers agreed with Spaak’s suggestion to
mention détente in the final communiqué as a concept “inseparably linked with
alliance solidarity.” 41 By welcoming the prospect of negotiations with the Soviet
Union and desiring a true international détente, NATO’s Istanbul communiqué
anticipated NATO’s 1967 Harmel formula of defense and détente as the
alliance’s twin tasks. Yet, in 1960, the West insisted on specifically mentioning
the “indivisibility of détente.” The Soviet Union was called upon to stop admit-
ting some of NATO’s allies to the benefits of a détente policy while subjecting
others – i.e. West Germany – to pressure or violent attacks.42
 Into the 1960s 73
The de Gaulle problem revisited and Spaak’s resignation
In the aftermath of the U-2 incident, Khrushchev refused to meet with Eisen-
hower at the Paris Summit.43 The failure of the summit brought to an end the
détente of 1959–60. NATO’s primary attention in the summer of 1960 shifted
back to internal problems, in particular to de Gaulle’s challenge. When US
NATO Ambassador W. Randolph Burgess briefed the NATO Council on 8 June
1960 on a meeting of the US, British, and French foreign ministers that had
taken place a week earlier in Washington, the NATO ambassadors from
Belgium, André de Staercke, and from the Netherlands, Dirk Stikker, as well as
Spaak complained in unusually harsh words about the apparent implementation
of de Gaulle’s tripartism.44
In late August 1960, Eisenhower finally confronted de Gaulle’s challenge to
US leadership in NATO. In a letter to the French president, he regretted that de
Gaulle had taken steps against an integrated military organization within NATO
without proposing any constructive ideas himself. For Eisenhower, the French
leader’s suggestions were contradictory. On the one hand, de Gaulle rejected a
closer union as a means of better organizing the defense of the West. On the
other hand, he suggested exactly such a union between France, Britain, and
the US, which of course was unacceptable to the other NATO partners. Invoking
the smaller NATO nations, Eisenhower rejected de Gaulle’s idea of a tripartite
directorate.45
On 14 September 1960, Burgess delivered to the NATO Council the first
clear official US statement rejecting tripartism and informed the alliance about
Eisenhower’s rebuff to de Gaulle:

A tripartite organization that might have the overtones of a “directorate”

would ignore the important interests of other NATO members, would also
meet with opposition elsewhere in the world, and in some instances would
run counter to our UN obligations.

Burgess emphasized a strong US commitment to using the NATO Council as the

principal forum for political consultations in the West, namely to harmonize the
policies of NATO countries towards the Soviet Union.46 Informally, NATO
supreme commander Lauris Norstad had already informed Spaak about Eisen-
hower’s letter to de Gaulle a few days earlier during an ad hoc “NATO summit”
at Dirk Stikker’s villa by Lake Como.47
Despite this apparent success, Spaak seriously considered retiring from the
position of secretary-general in the fall of 1960. Deeply concerned about the
future of NATO, he struggled to come to terms with the fact that his intentions
of late 1956 of developing a common NATO policy in various fields had been
drastically challenged in 1959–60 – despite promising beginnings in 1957–58.
Spaak now doubted whether NATO was capable of agreeing on a common
policy. He thus regarded the future of NATO with great pessimism: “We are
now at a period where the ‘great men’ were using personal visits and diplomacy,
74 Christian Nuenlist
with each seeking to push his own policy, but with little attempt to evolve a
common approach in the common interest.” Under such circumstances, Spaak
could not see an important role for himself or for NATO. He realized that the
alliance, at variance with constant US promises to strengthen political consulta-
tion, had not been used to find solutions to the most central current problems.48
Spaak informed NATO ambassadors of his decision to leave NATO at the
end of the December ministerial meeting and officially resigned on 31 January
1961.49 Thus, NATO in 1961 and beyond would be marked by two new leaders
– a new secretary-general and a new US president. Upon leaving NATO, Spaak
sent a “personal testament”50 to the new US president in mid-February 1961 ana-
lyzing the problems confronting the Atlantic alliance and asking Kennedy for
unreserved US support for NATO and for more complete, more loyal, and more
timely consultation.51 France’s attitude since 1958, which Spaak summarized as
“silence and abstention,” was particularly difficult for the alliance. He emphas-
ized that policy consultation should take place within the organization and not
through the usual diplomatic channels. Smaller countries were “highly sensitive”
in this regard, as they regarded political consultations as a reward for the mili-
tary efforts they were asked to make. If the Kennedy administration improved
US consultations within NATO, this would set a precedent for London, Bonn,
and lesser powers – and maybe even for France, Spaak concluded.52

New NATO leaders: Kennedy, Acheson, and Stikker

The departure from the NATO arena of such personalities as Eisenhower and
Spaak in early 1961 led to uncertainty about the future of the Western alliance.
Dirk Stikker from the Netherlands was favored in the US and most of the other
countries as a possible successor for Spaak.53 France, however, blocked
Stikker’s candidacy for some weeks, supported by Italy and Greece.54 Britain at
first wanted to suggest a French secretary-general to improve relations between
France and NATO; later, London even considered a British candidate.55 A solu-
tion in favor of Stikker began to take shape only in early April, when Italy with-
drew its candidate Manlio Brosio from the race.56 The NATO Council elected
Stikker unanimously on 18 April.57
For Stikker, the relationship with de Gaulle proved to be very difficult, as he
had been appointed against French wishes. Thus, his authority to mediate between
de Gaulle and NATO was very limited from the beginning. At the May ministerial
meeting in Paris, Stikker discussed the French problem with US Secretary of State
Dean Rusk. He expressed pessimism that de Gaulle’s ideas on NATO would
change: “The problem will, therefore, be to find solutions so that other countries
can go ahead with essential steps in the integration field.”58 De Gaulle waited for
three months before receiving the new NATO secretary-general – and then only
did so after Adenauer had personally intervened. Their first (and only) meeting on
12 July 1961 lasted for mere 30 minutes. De Gaulle made clear that while he
wanted to cooperate with NATO, this had to be done in a different form. He con-
firmed that he still stood by the demands of his 1958 memorandum.59
 Into the 1960s 75
A few days after his inauguration, Kennedy appointed Dean Acheson, one of
the founding fathers of NATO, to evaluate and review US NATO policy.60
Acheson produced a first draft of his report in mid-March. In his view, not only
de Gaulle’s France, but the US too, had increasingly rated national interests
above alliance interests in recent years. Like Spaak, Acheson suggested that
Kennedy clearly signal Washington’s commitment to the Atlantic community.
Leadership in the alliance needed to be improved through consensus building
and consultation.61 Acheson urged Kennedy to “take NATO much more seri-
ously as a forum for consultation.”62 Acheson envisaged a militarily and politic-
ally better integrated alliance. In the military field, central US control should
replace Eisenhower’s more decentralized approach.63
Deputy National Security Advisor Walt Rostow praised Acheson’s thoughts
and replied that he had “never read the case for the Acheson view on the priority
of the Alliance better stated.” He agreed that the 15 NATO countries needed to
adapt “an Alliance view of the map of the world,” even if this meant “a funda-
mental reassessment of national interests in the light of contemporary facts and
relationships to replace conceptions of national interests fixated on a past which
no longer exists.” He suggested carrying the Berlin and Germany negotiations
over into NATO to demonstrate Washington’s commitment to political consulta-
tion: “To place the matter in NATO is already half the battle; because behind the
fears over such talk is the notion that Washington and Moscow might make a
deal over Europe’s body.”64
In addition to reviewing NATO policy – Acheson’s 74-page report was com-
pleted on 24 March and approved as official US NATO policy on 21 April65 –
the new US administration tried hard to reassure the NATO allies of its undi-
minished commitment and support. In a presidential message to the NATO
Council on 15 February 1961, Kennedy pledged to improve the processes of
consultation.66 At the spring ministerial meeting in Oslo, US Secretary of State
Dean Rusk promised that “NATO was the keystone of US policy” and promoted
a dual US strategy in East–West relations, assuring that Washington “stood for
firmness and strength in dealing with the Soviets, while at the same time always
being ready to engage in negotiations with the Soviets.”67 Rusk’s pragmatism,
his effort “to encourage effective consultation by talking less about how to
consult and just starting consulting,” was very well received by most of Wash-
ington’s allies. Rusk proudly cabled back to Kennedy that “NATO’s old timers”
– both US and foreign – had praised Oslo as “the most open and intimate polit-
ical discussion in NATO within their memories.”68
The Kennedy administration was well aware from the very beginning that a
revitalization of the transatlantic alliance would require more than just the
promise of improved political consultation. For NSC staffer Robert Komer, the
most important problem of Washington’s NATO policy was “how to bring de
Gaulle along,” because most of Washington’s NATO initiatives since 1958 had
been stymied by the “obduracy of an obsessed old man.”69 For Komer, “Uncle
Charlie” was the “real nut to crack in revitalizing NATO.” He regretted that this
aspect was missing in Acheson’s report. Since de Gaulle had no faith in a “horde
76 Christian Nuenlist
of lesser officials” such as US Ambassador to France James Gavin, US NATO
Ambassador Thomas Finletter, or Supreme Allied Commander Europe Lauris
Norstad, Komer pointed to the importance of Kennedy’s “personal relationship
with the man who is France.”70
In late April, Acheson prepared the ground for Kennedy’s first and only
meeting with de Gaulle. Visiting Paris, Acheson promoted the new US NATO
policy and its focus on “full consultation.” An interesting dialog arose between
the US NATO architect of the 1940s and the French NATO critic. Acheson
explained his view of consultation: the US “hoped to listen as well as talk” and
expected that its own views and those of its allies would be influenced by the
NATO discussions. At that point, de Gaulle asked whether this was possible. In
his view, that “was a mistaken use of NATO, which had been created for a
wholly different purpose, was a purely military alliance and not a proper forum
for [political] discussion.” Due to such insurmountable differences of opinion,
Acheson saw no other choice than warning de Gaulle that the US too had a
strong tradition of isolationism.71
When Kennedy finally met with de Gaulle in Paris in late May and early June
1961, the French plans for reforming NATO dominated the talks. Although de
Gaulle was highly critical of the present state of the alliance, he promised again
– as in early 1959 – that France had no intention to weaken NATO during the
ongoing Berlin crisis.72

Kennedy, Stikker, and NATO’s role in the 1961 Berlin crisis

The Berlin crisis was the first test case of how serious the Kennedy administra-
tion really was about political consultation within NATO. At the May minister-
ial meeting in Oslo, Rusk saw increased tensions in Berlin and an increased
likelihood of a separate peace treaty between Moscow and the GDR being
signed within the next few weeks and months. In view of the simmering Berlin
crisis, Rusk said, inter-allied consultations on the position to be taken in the
event of negotiations were “urgently desirable” immediately.73
The Vienna summit between Kennedy and Khrushchev in early June offered
the superpowers the first opportunity to debate unresolved East–West problems
at the highest level since September 1959. On the way home from Vienna, Rusk
returned to Paris to brief NATO on 5 June 1961 about the results of the summit.
While Khrushchev’s attitude in general had been “calm, friendly, and confi-
dent,” Rusk said, the Soviet leader had issued to Kennedy an ultimatum on
Berlin virtually identical to that given to Eisenhower in 1958 – a six month
interim for negotiation of a peace treaty between the two German states; other-
wise Moscow would conclude a separate Soviet–East German treaty and thus
end Western rights in Berlin. Kennedy had replied with great clarity that the US
had an important commitment in Berlin and that the rights of the three powers in
Berlin could not be unilaterally terminated by Moscow. East German interfer-
ence with access to the city would be regarded in the West as a belligerent act.
Summarizing the Vienna experience, Rusk thought that the West had “a formid-
 Into the 1960s 77
able issue in prospect with heightening of tension and perhaps even grimmer
problems before long.” Rusk circulated copies of a Soviet aide memoire on
Germany and Berlin. Belgium’s de Staercke emphasized the importance of
keeping the NATO Council informed about follow-up action on Berlin.74 When
Stikker visited Washington in mid-June, he charged in a public statement that
Khrushchev “was deliberately increasing world tension,” but assured that all
NATO governments would be “firm” on the question of Berlin.75 As in late
1958, the acute danger of war arising out of the Berlin crisis welded together the
alliance – the unity of NATO was considered a crucial element of deterrence.
While the NATO Council frequently discussed NATO strategy and Berlin
contingency planning in June and July 1961, NATO ambassadors were not con-
sulted about the political aspects of the Berlin crisis.76 When Stikker and smaller
NATO members such as Canada, Italy, and Turkey demanded consultations,
Rusk harshly instructed Finletter to silence Stikker: “We are deeply disturbed by
the restlessness on the part of Stikker and the NAC members about consultations
on Berlin.” The US first wanted to complete its comprehensive reviews of US
policy on Berlin and Germany before opening discussions about it with
NATO.77
After week-long debates in Washington, Kennedy presented US policy on
Berlin in a landmark speech on 25 July 1961. He coupled a firm US commit-
ment to the defense of vital Western interests in West Berlin with a readiness for
negotiations with Moscow over the issues of Germany and Berlin.78 He had not,
however, waited for the input from Rusk’s consultations with NATO in early
August. Despite his earlier efforts at reassurance and the rhetoric about improv-
ing political cooperation within NATO, Kennedy had moved ahead unilaterally.
When Stikker met privately with NATO ambassadors on 26 July to discuss
Kennedy’s speech, the Scandinavian states, Belgium, and Canada primarily
emphasized the need to negotiate and expressed relief that Kennedy had left the
door open for negotiations. After the meeting, however, French NATO Ambas-
sador Pierre de Leusse approached Finletter and said that France was opposed to
negotiations with Moscow.79 Thus, NATO was split on the desirability of negoti-
ations with the Soviet Union even before formal NATO discussions on the
subject had started.
On 8 August, Rusk presented an hour-long report on the new US policy for
Berlin to the NATO Council. He predicted that negotiations with the USSR on
Germany and Berlin “will and must occur.”80 To his own surprise, there had
been no bad feelings or dissent about Washington’s non-consultation with its
allies since early June.81 The crisis atmosphere, coupled with Stikker’s passivity,
apparently prevented the traditional complaints of NATO’s small allies. In July,
Stikker had thought “it would be a mistake to have a substantive discussion in
NATO on Berlin” before the German elections in September 1961, as Bonn
would be forced to assume a rigid position.82 He therefore recommended to
“postpone discussion at any rate.”83
After the border closure in Berlin on 13 August 1961, pressure began to build
for negotiations with Moscow on the status of Berlin and Germany. Stikker was
78 Christian Nuenlist
in a “very pessimistic mood” and, in a reversal of his earlier position, now
demanded meaningful consultations on East–West negotiations. He expressed
considerable concern about the future of NATO “unless more substance could
be breathed into it.” He feared that, as far as “the other Eleven” were concerned,
the Council would become “more or less a rubber stamp.” Stikker even threat-
ened to resign if political consultations did not improve.84 Stikker’s volte-face
can perhaps be explained with the psychological crisis in Western Europe and
West Germany resulting in particular from Washington’s de facto acceptance of
the Berlin Wall.85
At a highly restricted meeting on 1 September, NATO ambassadors agreed to
seek negotiations with Moscow. Yet, they still had to decide what forum should
be used for the negotiations, whether they wanted to talk about Germany or just
about Berlin, and what their vital interests were in Berlin. De Staercke made
clear that Belgium would not consider any military buildup until the NATO
Council had moved to the more important question of substantive negotiations
about Berlin. Spaak also thought, since everyone agreed that the West should
negotiate, that “we ought to start negotiating now.” The French representative,
however, could not see any difference between the current situation in 1961 and
the crisis of 1959, and warned of the danger of abandoning West Berlin. US
Ambassador Thomas Finletter, who “had not said much of anything,” was chal-
lenged by Staercke, who bluntly asked whether the American had “anything to
contribute to the meeting.” Embarrassingly, Finletter remained silent. Overlook-
ing French objections, Stikker summed up the NATO debates by saying that “all
agreed there should be negotiations” and that the basic interests of the West
were the continued presence of allied forces in Berlin, the viability of Berlin,
and access to West Berlin. Further discussion was needed on the link between
Berlin and the more general German problem, and on the question of whether a
new status for Berlin was negotiable.86 Stikker was satisfied with NATO’s polit-
ical discussions and felt that “the Alliance was beginning to function in this
area.”87
On 15 September, Rusk informed Kennedy that the problems regarding the
Berlin negotiations did not result from superpower tensions, but from disagree-
ment among the Western countries. France, which was still categorically
opposed to negotiations, and the Adenauer government, which did not want to
risk a defeat at the elections in September, prevented a common front, although
the other 13 NATO countries all favored narrow negotiations with Moscow on
Berlin.88 In secret talks with the Soviet Union beginning in September 1961, the
Kennedy administration explored possibilities for a settlement of the German
problem, including Berlin, but was unable to produce a consensus on an official
Western bargaining position within NATO.89
In the fall of 1961, two faultlines existed within NATO. First, the smaller
allies felt they were not being sufficiently informed and consulted by Washing-
ton, London, Paris, and Bonn – although, in their view, the Berlin and German
problems concerned NATO as a whole. Italy, Belgium, and Canada, in particu-
lar, repeatedly reminded the Four to consult the NATO Council in a timely
 Into the 1960s 79
manner. Together with Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway, they also
heavily criticized Washington’s policy during the so-called “tank crisis” at
Checkpoint Charlie in late October 1961, emphasizing that the US behavior was
unreasonable and could lead to a dangerous escalation of the crisis.90 In addition,
Canada did not want to go along with an economic embargo against the Soviet
Union in response to Khrushchev’s Berlin ultimatum.91 As a result, NATO could
not act as one bloc in this matter.
Second, France’s consistent opposition to negotiations prevented progress
towards a common Western position. In several NATO Council meetings,
however, a fragile consensus was achieved that was supported by France. On 14
November, the NATO Council unanimously approved narrow negotiations with
Moscow on Berlin.92 Nevertheless, both Paris and Bonn, despite their assur-
ances, remained rather skeptical towards the Anglo-American push for détente.93
Even after a personal intervention of Kennedy, French Foreign Minister Maurice
Couve de Murville, speaking at the December ministerial meeting, repeated the
French attitude that the West should not seek East–West negotiations under
pressure and without a common negotiating basis.94
After spirited debates, Stikker had to acknowledge that NATO was still split
into various camps on the question of East–West negotiations. France strictly
opposed negotiations. Washington supported talks with Moscow, despite skepti-
cism about their prospects. The other NATO countries – Belgium, Norway, and
Canada in particular – were in favor of limited negotiations on Berlin, while
Bonn preferred a broader mandate focusing on German reunification.95 Stikker
was shocked about the near “public breakdown” within NATO over a major
issue, and was very pessimistic about the future of the alliance.96 For Stikker, the
December 1961 meeting had revealed that “too many members of NATO
attached greater value to certain political principles than to the overriding idea of
the Alliance, which implied a give and take.”97
In the end, Kennedy faced the same dilemma during 1961 as Eisenhower had
in the fall of 1959. He desired a superpower détente with the Soviet Union, but
did not want to risk a serious breach with France or West Germany within the
NATO forum. In 1961, even more than in late 1959, NATO failed to agree to
speak with one voice. However, substantial debates on the political aspects of
the Berlin Wall crisis had taken place from September to December 1961,
shaping a NATO consensus that all allies except France could support. This was
no small success for the new NATO secretary-general and the new US adminis-
tration. Political consultations had improved in 1961 – despite continuing and
deepened French obstructionism and temporary non-consultation on the part of
the Kennedy administration.

NATO and the summer of détente in 1963

In the spring of 1962 and in early summer 1963, Kennedy decided on a unilat-
eral approach towards the Soviet Union without NATO consultations in order to
draw the US and Soviet positions closer. However, the Kennedy administration
80 Christian Nuenlist
again took alliance management seriously after the so-called “leak crisis” in
April 1962 – when Adenauer sabotaged a new US modus vivendi approach –
and after concluding a Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) with the Soviet Union
and Britain in July 1963. The international context in 1963 was remarkably dif-
ferent from 1961. After the East–West confrontations over Berlin and Cuba, a
superpower détente had evolved in 1963 that stabilized the territorial and
nuclear status quo. For the US, the question arose whether this superpower
détente could be multilateralized.98
After Bonn signed the LTBT on 19 August 1963, Kennedy reassured NATO
that there would be “a NATO view” on the next steps towards détente and that
the alliance would be consulted on a European inspection zone and a non-
aggression pact.99 In the immediate aftermath of the LTBT negotiations, US
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs William Tyler had briefed
NATO on the outcome of the Moscow talks on 29 July 1963. France, West
Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Turkey, and Portugal vehemently opposed
the idea of a non-aggression pact as the next East–West agreement, whereas
Belgium, Canada, Italy, Norway, and Denmark urged NATO to take advantage
of the new opportunities for wide-ranging détente.100
When NATO discussed the desirability of ground observation posts at a
meeting on 21 August, Canada, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, and Norway argued
that an inspection zone agreement would be a positive step towards peace and
would reduce the danger of a Soviet surprise attack on Western Europe.
However, the political ramifications of the suggested measures led German
Ambassador to NATO Wilhelm Grewe to join his French colleague François
Seydoux in opposing the idea of observation posts.101 NATO was essentially
split on the question of how to follow up on the “little détente” of 1963. On 28
August, Grewe buried any hopes for a non-aggression pact when he stated that
such a treaty would give a certain degree of recognition to East Germany and
imply permanent legal recognition of the status quo in Central Europe.102
The NATO debates on a non-aggression pact and ground observation posts
concluded on 18 September. Canada once again regretted that “silence on the
part of NATO was not a strong position.” Stikker agreed that exploratory talks
with the USSR must continue, but also warned that Washington had to proceed
carefully. Finletter thanked his colleagues for their frank discussions, which he
judged to be more important than a superficial closing of ranks. The Norwegian
Ambassador Jens M. Boyesen agreed that NATO’s strength was its diversity, in
stark contrast to the Warsaw Pact.103 Another positive aspect of the détente con-
sultations in the fall of 1963 was that Stikker actively assumed the role of medi-
ator between advocates and critics of a broader détente and thus enhanced the
importance of the NATO secretary-general in the political debates of the
alliance.104 However, in the end, NATO lacked a united position on détente, and
French silence and German opposition blocked further East–West agreements.
At NATO’s ministerial meeting in December 1963, several foreign ministers
deplored that the West had missed an opportunity to multilateralize détente after
the LTBT. Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak and Canadian Secretary
 Into the 1960s 81
of State for External Affairs Paul Martin were disappointed that NATO’s negat-
ive stance against a European inspection zone had prevented progressing one
step closer to peace.105 West German Foreign Minister Gerhard Schröder
departed from the rigid Adenauer line and reviewed Bonn’s tentative efforts at
normalization of relations with Eastern Europe by establishing trade missions in
Poland, Romania, and Hungary. He expected a spillover effect, first to the cul-
tural and later to the political sphere.106 Schröder’s “policy of movement” was
meant to improve the situation in Central Europe instead of hardening the status
quo.107
This early effort to coordinate West German Ostpolitik within NATO was the
most interesting and promising approach in NATO’s search for a new meaning
in the era of détente. In the summer of 1963, the US State Department had
begun to draft a new policy towards Eastern Europe. Walt Rostow, director of
the Policy Planning Council, suggested carrying discussions about détente over
into NATO: “I think we should move promptly to engage the Alliance in serious
and basic discussion of a common policy on Central Europe . . . The East–West
dialogue should be kept going.”108 For Rostow, the key to a broader European
settlement was the integration of Germany into Western détente policy. Playing
the “Eastern game” should be a “planned Atlantic effort . . . with the Europeans
out front,” particularly West Germany.109 In the fall of 1961, the Kennedy
administration welcomed and strongly encouraged Schröder’s overtures towards
Eastern Europe.110
At the ministerial meeting in December 1963, NATO foreign ministers suc-
ceeded in building a consensus to continue a policy of détente with Moscow. As
Rusk summed it up in his report about the meeting:

All speakers except French Foreign Minister Couve de Murville agreed that
significant changes had taken place in the Communist World and that
NATO, while maintaining the military strength of the Alliance, should
explore avenues for possible future discussions with the Soviets on out-
standing East–West issues.111

This trend towards multilateralization in Western détente policy, as written

down in the final communiqué, was not lost on “the other side.” The Soviet
Union found the communiqué that resulted from the December NATO meeting
“very interesting,” as it seemed to “encourage and promote the exploration
towards détente.”112 Drew Middleton of the New York Times, too, wrote that the
prevailing impression on the NATO meeting was that “the Atlantic Alliance, for
the first time in its 14-year history, was being led to think in terms of continued
discussion with the Soviet Union, the enemy that NATO was formed to
repel.”113
In terms of concrete results, however, détente did not gain much weight in the
first years of the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson. The new policy towards
Central and Eastern Europe was barely noticeable before October 1966, and no
decisive steps were registered in the field of arms control.114 NATO’s role in
82 Christian Nuenlist
East–West relations was diminished under Johnson until NATO, with the
“Harmel exercise,” resumed the debate on alliance and détente and finally over-
came the French challenge in 1966–67.115

Conclusion
Between 1958 and 1963, Charles de Gaulle’s nationalism and cycles of super-
power détente led to great uncertainty about the role of NATO in East–West
relations. The main responsibility for responding to Nikita Khrushchev’s détente
policy lay with the US as the Western hegemon. Yet, for both the Eisenhower
and the Kennedy administration, alliance politics constituted a complex ingredi-
ent in the formulation of its détente policy. The US needed the support of its
NATO allies in order to expand the growing understanding between the super-
powers of common problems into a multilateral, bloc-to-bloc détente that would
include Eastern and Western Europe. In addition, de Gaulle’s challenge threat-
ened the unity of NATO, which was regarded as essential for dealing with the
Soviet Union from a position of strength.
In retrospect, NATO’s role in East–West relations already began to decline in
the last two years of the Eisenhower era. Recently declassified documents of
1959 and 1960 indicate that the US president was very frustrated over the
refusal of West European states to share the burden of NATO’s defense, and
growing tired of de Gaulle’s and Konrad Adenauer’s rigid policies. At that
stage, Dwight D. Eisenhower was eager to reach a breakthrough on détente with
Khrushchev, even at the expense of security interests of NATO allies and of
West Germany in particular. In the end, however, he did not risk a serious
breach in the alliance, and consultative patterns improved in early 1960. Eisen-
hower also avoided an open clash with de Gaulle, until he clearly rejected the
French idea of a global three-power directorate in late August 1960.
John F. Kennedy’s record in dealing with de Gaulle and détente in the NATO
forum is ambivalent as well. In a concerted effort in early 1961, Kennedy
assured the allies of Washington’s commitment to political consultation within
NATO. The improvement of political consultation was the core political task
postulated in Dean Acheson’s NATO report of March 1961. Kennedy presented
the allies with his vision of an alliance that was both militarily and politically
integrated. He was prepared in principle to debate East–West problems within
NATO. When de Gaulle and Adenauer blocked progress on East–West negotia-
tions, however, Kennedy was increasingly ready to move towards bilateralism
with the Soviet Union. After the Cuban missile crisis and de Gaulle’s double
non, Kennedy returned to his original goal of enhanced political consultation
within NATO.
In the final analysis, Kennedy was more willing than his predecessor Eisen-
hower to multilateralize the management of détente. Yet, both US presidents
were stopped by French (and West German) intransigence. Kennedy’s strength-
ening of political consultations within NATO led to substantial debates within
the Western alliance, both on the Berlin problem in the fall of 1961 and on
 Into the 1960s 83
easing tensions during the “summer of détente” in 1963. In both instances,
however, multilateral NATO debates only started after the Kennedy administra-
tion had announced its Berlin policy in July 1961 and after it had concluded the
LTBT in July 1963 without properly consulting its allies in advance.
Paul-Henri Spaak grew tired of the twin challenge to the alliance presented
by de Gaulle’s nationalism and by superpower détente. He protested against the
growing irrelevance of the political role of the NATO secretary-general in
East–West relations and against de Gaulle’s boycott of NATO’s political role by
retiring in late 1960. During his time in office, however, he played an important
role as the “voice of NATO” and fought for the importance of NATO in
East–West relations. His efforts to strengthen political consultations remained
tireless, even if they were not always successful.
Dirk Stikker was even less able to mediate between de Gaulle and NATO
than his predecessor, because the French had tried to prevent his appointment to
the secretary-general post and simply refused to cooperate with him. While
Stikker accepted a reduced role of NATO in June and July 1961 to preserve
NATO unity during an acute US–Soviet crisis, he played a constructive role in
the NATO “tea party” discussions of the Berlin problem in the fall of 1961. Two
years later, he handled NATO’s debates on the desirability of détente with great
skill and thus contributed to early attempts to multilateralize détente and to find
a new mission for NATO beyond deterrence.
NATO’s severe crisis of confidence, caused by superpower détente and the
French challenge to US leadership in Europe between 1958 and 1963, would
only be overcome after the French withdrawal from NATO’s military integra-
tion in the spring of 1966 and the reinvigoration of the alliance in 1966–67. The
drive of the alliance’s first ten years could not be sustained into the 1960s. At
NATO’s 15th anniversary in April 1964, there was widespread pessimism as to
whether NATO would still be there to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 1969.

Notes
1 Memorandum by Fuller, 24 July 1959, “NATO by the End of 1959,” US National
Archives, College Park, MD (USNA), RG 59, Records of the Policy Planning Staff
1957–61, Box 151.
2 Winfried Heinemann, Vom Zusammenwachsen des Bündnisses: Die Funktionsweise
der NATO in ausgewählten Krisenfällen 1951–56 (München: Oldenbourg, 1998),
pp. 239–60.
3 Christian Nuenlist, “Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Political Cooperation in NATO:
Western Reactions to Khrushchev’s Foreign Policy, 1955–63” (Ph.D. thesis, Uni-
versity of Zurich, 2005), pp. 130–238.
4 Speech by Spaak, 27 September 1958, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS
(DDEL), Ann Whitman File (AWF), Dulles-Herter Series, Box 10.
5 Anthony O. Edmonds and E. Bruce Geelhoed, Eisenhower, Macmillan and Allied
Unity, 1957–1961 (Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Saki Dockrill, Eisen-
hower’s New-Look National Security Policy, 1953–1961 (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1996); Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, 2 vols. (London: Allen &
Unwin, 1983–84).
6 Frank Costigliola, “Kennedy, the European Allies, and the Failure to Consult,”
84 Christian Nuenlist
Presidential Studies Quarterly 110, no. 1 (1995), pp. 105–23. See also Christof
Münger, Die Berliner Mauer, Kennedy und die Kubakrise: Die westliche Allianz in
der Zerreissprobe, 1961–63 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2003); Lawrence Freedman,
Kennedy’s Crisis Years: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2000); Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of a
European Settlement 1945–63 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999);
Andreas Wenger, “Der lange Weg zur Stabilität: Kennedy, Chruschtschow und das
gemeinsame Interesse der Supermächte am Status quo in Europa,” Vierteljahrshefte
für Zeitgeschichte 46, no. 1 (January 1998), pp. 69–99.
7 See Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist, “Containing the French Malaise: The
NATO Secretary-General and de Gaulle’s Challenge, 1958–69,” in Intra-bloc Con-
flicts during the Cold War, ed. S. Victor Papacosma and Ann Heiss (Kent: Kent
University Press, forthcoming). On Spaak, see also Paul-Henri Spaak, Combats
inachevés, 2 vols (Paris: Fayard, 1969); Michel Dumoulin, Spaak (Brussels: Edi-
tions Racine, 1999).
8 Dulles to Houghton, 26 November 1958, USNA, RG 59, Central Decimal Files
(CDF), 740.5/11–2658.
9 Diary Entry by Blankenhorn, 24 October 1958, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BA), NL
Blankenhorn, vol. 91.
10 Summary Record, 16 December 1958, NATO Archives, Brussels (NA),
C-R(58)61–62.
11 Roberts (Paris) to Foreign Office (FO), 28 October 1958, British National Archives,
Kew/London (UKNA), PREM 11, 3002.
12 See Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, pp. 251–82; Rolf Steininger, Der Mauer-
bau: Die Westmächte und Adenauer in der Berlinkrise 1958–63 (München: Olzog,
2001), pp. 21–54.
13 Dulles (Paris) to Department of State (DoS), 15 December 1958, Foreign Relations
of the United States (FRUS), 1958–60, vol. VIII, pp. 200–7.
14 See, for example, Klaus Larres, “Die Politik der Nachgiebigkeit: Harold Macmil-
lan und die britische Strategie in der Berlinkrise, 1958–1961,” in 1961: Mauerbau
und Aussenpolitik, ed. Heiner Timmermann (Münster: Lit, 2002), pp. 163–88; Roy
Rempel, Counterweights: The Failure of Canada’s German and European Policy
(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996); Paul Villaume,
Allieret med forbehold: Danmark, NATO og den kolde krig: En sutide i dansk
sikkerhedspolitik 1949–1961 (Copenhagen: Eirene, 1995).
15 NATO Declaration on Berlin, 16 December 1958, www.nato.int/docu/
comm/49–95/c581216b.htm. For the debate, see Léger, 17 December 1958,
“NATO’s Berlin Communiqué,” Documents on Canadian External Relations
(DCER) 24 (1958), no. 313.
16 Annual Political Appraisal by Spaak, 17 March 1959, NA, C-M(59)27; Herter
(Paris) to US Diplomatic Posts, 4 April 1959, USNA, RG 59, Conference Files
(CF), Box 169, CF 1237.
17 Memorandum of Conversation (MemCon) between Gaulle and Spaak, 28 February
1959, Documents Diplomatiques Français (DDF) 1959, vol. 1, pp. 248–9.
18 MemCon between Eisenhower and Herter, 10 July 1959, DDEL, AWF, DDE Diary
Series, Box 43. See Gary J. Tocchet, “September Thaw: Khrushchev’s Visit to
America, 1959” (Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University, 1995).
19 DoS to Herter (Santiago), 12 August 1959, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5/8–1259.
20 MemCon between Eisenhower and Adenauer, 27 August 1959, DDEL, AWF, Inter-
national Meetings Series, Box 3.
21 Herter (Paris) to DoS, 3 September 1959, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5/9–259. A day
later, US Secretary of State Christian Herter repeated Eisenhower’s assurances. See
Record of NAC Meeting, 4 September 1959, UKNA, FO 371/146302.
22 Herter to Eisenhower, 29 September 1959, DDEL, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series, Box
 Into the 1960s 85
12. On the 1959 Camp David talks, see Michael Jochum, Eisenhower und
Chruschtschow: Gipfeldiplomatie im Kalten Krieg, 1955–1960 (Paderborn: Schön-
ingh, 1996), pp. 118–27; William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), pp. 425–44.
23 Thompson to Herter, 16 October 1959, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 396.1/10–1659;
MemCon between Eisenhower and Thompson, 21 October 1959, DDEL, AWF,
DDE Diary Series, Box 45.
24 MemCon between Eisenhower and Thompson, 21 October 1959.
25 “Grundlagen der politischen Information und Konsultation in der NATO,” 18
October 1959, Political Archive of the German Foreign Office, Berlin (PAAA),
Referat 301, vol. 104; “Synopsis of State and Intelligence Material Reported to the
President,” 29 October 1959, DDE, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 45.
26 MemCon between Spaak, Herter et al., 17 November 1959, USNA, RG 59, CDF,
396.1–PA/11–1759.
27 Nolting (Paris) to DoS, 18 November 1959, USNA, RG 59, Records of the Office
of European Regional Affairs (EUR/RA), Records of the Director, 1955–60, Box 2.
28 Nolting (Paris) to DoS, 27 November 1959, USNA, RG 59, CDF,
396.1–PA/11–2759. See also Spaak’s Questionnaire on the 1959 Détente, 4 Decem-
ber 1959, NA, PO(59)1615.
29 MemCon between Eisenhower and Herter, 3 December 1959, DDEL, AWF, DDE
Diary Series, Box 47.
30 Draft MemCon between Eisenhower, Spaak, Herter, and Burgess, 24 November
1959, USNA, RG 59, DF, 740.5/11–2459.
31 Summary Record, 15 December 1959, NA, C-R(59)44.
32 Ibid.
33 Draft MemCon between Eisenhower, Spaak, Herter, and Burgess, 24 November
1959.
34 “Synopsis of State and Intelligence Material Reported to the President,” 16 June
1959, DDEL, AWF, DDE Diary, Box 42, Briefings June 1959; Burgess (Paris) to
DoS, 1 July 1959, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5/7–159.
35 Roberts (Paris) to FO, 10 March 1960, UKNA, FO 371/149364; Roberts (Paris) to
FO, 12 March 1960, ibid.; Burgess (Paris) to DoS, 27 April 1960, USNA,
396.1–PA/4–2760.
36 Merchant to Burgess (Paris), 13 January 1960, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5/1–1360.
37 Spaak to NATO Delegations, 5 February 1960, “The Preparation of Future Summit
Meetings,” NA, PO(60)139.
38 Roberts (Paris) to Millar, 17 February 1960, UKNA, FO 371/154552.
39 Scope and Objectives, 29 April 1960, USNA, Bohlen Papers, Box 47, Preparations
for Summit, Paris 1960.
40 Herter (Istanbul) to DoS, 1 May 1960, USNA, RG 59, CF, Box 218; Summary
Record, 2 May 1960, NA, C-R(60)18.
41 Summary Record, 3 May 1960, NA, C-R(60)20.
42 Final Communiqué, 4 May 1960, www.nato.int/docu/comm/49–95/c600502a.htm.
43 For Khrushchev’s reasons, see Taubman, Khrushchev, pp. 460–8.
44 Roberts (Paris) to FO, 8 June 1960, UKNA, FO 371/152099.
45 Eisenhower to de Gaulle, 30 August 1960, FRUS, 1958–60, vol. VII, part 2, pp.
413–17.
46 Burgess (Paris) to DoS, 15 September 1960, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5/9–1560.
47 Houghton (Paris) to Herter, 10 September 1960, DDEL, AWF, Administration
Series, Box 28, Norstad. Other participants were Adenauer, Herbert Blankenhorn,
and de Staercke.
48 Burgess (Paris) to Herter, 17 August 1960, DDEL, Norstad Papers, Box 90, NATO
General (4).
49 Mason (Paris) to Home, 19 December 1960, UKNA, FO 371/154553.
86 Christian Nuenlist
50 Paul-Henri Spaak, Memoiren eines Europäers (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe,
1969), p. 427.
51 Spaak to Kennedy, 13 February 1961, USNA, RG 59, DF, 740.5/2–1861.
52 MemCon between Kennedy, Spaak et al., 21 February 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, vol.
XIII, pp. 260–6.
53 The discussions on Spaak’s successor can be traced in detail in USNA, RG 59,
CDF, 740.5.
54 See also Dirk U. Stikker, Bausteine für eine neue Welt: Gedanken und Erinnerun-
gen an schicksalshafte Nachkriegsjahre (Wien/Düsseldorf: Econ, 1966), pp.
418–32; Robert S. Jordan and Michael W. Bloome, Political Leadership in NATO:
A Study in Multilateral Diplomacy (Boulder: Westview, 1979), pp. 103–17.
55 Shuckburgh to Mason, 27 January 1961, UKNA, FO 371/161278; FO Minute by
Shuckburgh, 7 March 1961, UKNA, FO 371/161281.
56 Mason to FO, 12 April 1961, UKNA, FO 371/161281.
57 Finletter to Rusk, 18 April 1961, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5/4–1861.
58 MemCon between Stikker and Rusk, Paris, 7 May 1961, USNA, RG 59, CF, Box
248.
59 MemCon between Stikker and de Gaulle, Paris, 12 July 1961, Dutch National
Archives, The Hague, Stikker Papers (NLNA), Box 56. Cf. Stikker, Bausteine, pp.
429, 444–5.
60 “Suggested Terms of Reference for Review of Atlantic Community Policies,” n.d.
[January 1961], JFKL, NSF, Box 221, NATO: General. See also Douglas Brinkley,
Dean Acheson and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1993), pp. 117–24.
61 Draft Acheson Report, 16 March 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 220.
62 Komer to Kennedy, 14 March 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 439.
63 For a discussion of Acheson’s military vision of NATO, see Andreas Wenger, “The
Politics of Military Planning: The Evolution of NATO’s Strategy,” in War Plans
and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East and West, ed.
Vojtech Mastny, Sven G. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger (London: Routledge,
2006), pp. 165–92, 173.
64 Rostow to Acheson, 20 March 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 220.
65 “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future,” 24 March 1961, JFKL,
NSF, Box 220; Policy Directive, 20 April 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp.
285–91.
66 Text in Department of State Bulletin (6 March 1961), pp. 333–4.
67 Scope and Objectives, 20 April 1961, USNA, RG 59, CF, Box 241, CF 1865.
68 Rusk (Paris) to DoS, 10 May 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp. 301–2.
69 Komer to Acheson, 20 February 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 439.
70 Komer to Bundy, 12 April 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 220.
71 Acheson to Kennedy and Rusk, 20 April 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp.
291–5.
72 MemCon between Kennedy and de Gaulle, 1 June 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, XIII, pp.
309–16.
73 Summary Record, 8 May 1961, NA, C-R(61)16.
74 Finletter to DoS, 5 June 1961, USNA, RG 59, DF, 740.5/6–561. For a different
view, charging the US with manipulative information of its allies, see Münger,
Kennedy, pp. 81–5.
75 New York Times (17 June 1961), p. 1.
76 See, for example, Finletter’s reports on NATO’s Berlin discussions both in USNA,
RG 59, CDF, 740.5 and USNA, RG 84, Records of the Foreign Service Posts,
France, Paris Embassy, Classified General Records of the USRO, 1959–61
(USRO), Box 68, Berlin, NAC Reporting.
77 Rusk to Finletter (Paris), 9 July 1961, in Digital National Security Archive, The
 Into the 1960s 87
Berlin Crisis, 1958–1962, ed. William Burr (Alexandria: Chadwyck-Healey, 1992),
no. 2150.
78 Kennedy, Radio/TV Address, 25 July 1961, Public Papers of the President of the
United States: Kennedy, 1961, pp. 533–40.
79 Finletter (Paris) to DoS, 27 July 1961, USNA, RG 84, USRO, Box 68, Berlin: NAC
Reporting.
80 Rusk (Paris) to DoS, 9 August 1961, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 762.00/8–961.
81 MemCon between Rusk and Adenauer 10 August 1961, USNA, RG 59, CDF,
396.1–PA/8–1061.
82 MemCon between Stikker and Macmillan, London, 14 July 1961, NLNA, Box 58.
83 MemCon between Stikker and Home, London, 13 July 1961, NLNA, Box 58.
84 Durbrow to Kohler, n.d. [filed on 25 August 1961]; MemCon between Durbrow
and Stikker, 19 August 1961, both in DDEL, Norstad Papers, Box 90.
85 On the US reaction to the Berlin Wall, see Christian Nuenlist, Kennedys rechte
Hand: McGeorge Bundys Einfluss als Nationaler Sicherheitsberater auf die
amerikanische Aussenpolitik, 1961–63 (Zurich: Center for Security Studies, 1999),
pp. 100–3.
86 Finletter to DoS, 4 September 1961, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5/9–461.
87 MemCon between Stikker and Green, 11 September 1961, NLNA, Box 55.
88 Rusk to Kennedy, 15 September 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 220.
89 For the talks of Rusk and Kennedy with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko
in late September and early October 1961, see Dean Rusk, As I Saw It (New York:
W. W. Norton, 1990), pp. 224–8; Nuenlist, Kennedys rechte Hand, pp. 103–12.
90 Finletter to DoS, 27 October, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5/10–2761.
91 See, for example, Finletter (Paris) to DoS, 20 December 1961, USNA, RG 59,
CDF, 740.5/12–2061.
92 Finletter (Paris) to DoS, 4, 6, 10, and 14 November 1961, USNA, RG 59, CDF,
740.5.
93 See Münger, Kennedy, pp. 132–40.
94 Summary Record, 13 December 1961, NA, C-R(61)64.
95 Summary Record, 15 December 1961, NA, C-R(61)71.
96 Stikker to Rusk, 18 December 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp. 340–1.
97 MemCon between Stikker and Adenauer, 11 January 1962, NLNA, Box 56.
98 See Wenger, “Der lange Weg zur Stabilität,” pp. 83–7; Trachtenberg, A Con-
structed Peace, pp. 344–451.
99 New York Times (20 August 1963), pp. 1, 3; New York Times (21 August 1963), p.
10. The section on NATO’s détente debates in the fall of 1963 is based on Anna
Locher and Christian Nuenlist, “What Role for NATO? Conflicting Western Per-
ceptions of Détente, 1963–65,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 2, no. 2 (2004), pp.
185–208, pp. 189–93.
100 Summary Record, 29 July 1963, NA, C-R(63)41.
101 Summary Record, 21 August 1963, NA, C-R(63)46.
102 Summary Record, 28 August 1963, NA, C-R(63)47.
103 Finletter to DoS, 18 September 1963, Declassified Documents, 1998, no. 489240;
Tyler to Rusk, 20 September 1963, USNA, RG 59, EUR/RPM: RPA 1957–66, Box
12.
104 Van Hollen, 1 October 1963, “Stikker’s 4th Visit to Washington,” USNA, RG 59,
EUR/RPM: Records relating to NATO, Box 4.
105 Summary Record, 16 December 1963, NA, C-R(63)74.
106 Van Hollen, “East West issues,” 20 January 1964, USNA, RG 59, EUR/RPM: RPA
1957–66, Box 4.
107 MemCon between Rusk and Schröder, 20 September 1963, Akten zur auswärtigen
Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (AAPD), 1963 (2), p. 349.
108 Rostow to Harriman, 30 July 1963, JFKL, NSF, Box 376.
88 Christian Nuenlist
109 Rostow to Rusk, 8 August 1963, USNA, RG 59, Records of S/PC 1963–64, Box
256.
110 Memorandum, 1 November 1963, “The President’s Meeting with Erhard,” USNA,
RG 59, Records of the Policy Planning Council, 1963–64, Box 252.
111 Rusk to DoS, 16 December 1963, RG 59, CDF 1963, Box 4230, NATO 3: Meet-
ings FR (PA).
112 MemCon between Zinchuk and Manning, 20 December 1963, USNA, RG 59, CDF
1963, Box 3696. Final Communiqué, 17 December 1963, www.nato.int/docu/
commu/49–95/c631216a.htm.
113 New York Times (17 December 1963), p. 3.
114 Pascal Morf, “Building Bridges: Die amerikanische Deutschlandpolitik unter
Lyndon B. Johnson zwischen Allianzpolitik und Détente, 1964–66,” (M.A. thesis,
University of Zurich, 2001). A more positive view on Johnson’s early efforts to
continue Kennedy’s détente policy is presented in Thomas A. Schwartz, Lyndon
Johnson and Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 17–26.
According to Taubman, however, Khrushchev was not willing to take risks with
Johnson. Taubman, Khrushchev, pp. 604–5.
115 See Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the
Multilateralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1
(2004), pp. 22–74; Frédéric Bozo, “Détente versus Alliance: France, the United
States, and the Politics of the Harmel Report (1964–68),” Contemporary European
History 7, no. 3 (1998), pp. 343–60.
6 Through the looking glass
The Berlin crisis and Franco-American
perceptions of NATO, 1961–63
Erin Mahan1

Introduction
The administration of US President John F. Kennedy often felt like it was in
the Lewis Caroll novel Alice in Wonderland when it dealt with challenges
posed by French President Charles de Gaulle. The Kennedy administration
viewed Gaullism as an irrational cult of national vanity based on the charisma
of the French general. In one colorful assessment, the president’s special assis-
tant, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, passed along a characterization provided by Pierre
Mendès-France, a former French prime minister, that suggested there was “a
strain of madness in de Gaulle. He once said to me ‘I have two brothers. One
is crazy, and we had him put away. The other is normal. I am in between.’”2
The Berlin crisis of the early 1960s, in particular, was the issue that thwarted
US policies toward Western Europe and the looking glass that distorted
Franco-American perceptions about NATO policy and challenges beyond
deterrence.3
During the early 1960s, Franco-American relations were riddled with contro-
versies. Should Great Britain enter the Common Market? How should the
Western powers deal with balance-of-payments problems? What was the most
effective NATO strategy for countering the Soviet threat to Berlin before and
after the building of the Wall? What mechanism would satisfy West European
insistence on independent nuclear capabilities? Alliance issues during the early
1960s cannot be studied in isolation from one another. Three primary problems
– Berlin, European integration, and international finance – were linked in the
minds of the Western leaders. The relationships between the issues accentuated
Franco-American differences and foreclosed cooperation.
Most previous analyses of Kennedy and de Gaulle’s disagreement over West
European policies have relied almost solely on US documents, which has left
out a key dynamic.4 After all, many diplomatic historians have long recognized
that understanding the superpower crises and other international developments
during the Cold War requires an examination of the policies of their allies. Mon-
etary issues became entangled with NATO strategy; Britain’s European Eco-
nomic Community (EEC) candidacy became enmeshed with nuclear sharing;
and the ongoing Berlin crisis served as a backdrop to all of those policies. In
90 Erin Mahan
short, Franco-American differences during this period resulted from related
questions of international economics, defense strategy, and power politics.

NATO military strategy and nuclear weapons

Beginning in November 1958, NATO faced an acute crisis from the East, when
the Soviets used the threat of signing a separate peace treaty with the German
Democratic Republic (GDR) to force the Western powers out of West Berlin.
Initially, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev set a six-month ultimatum to reach
an agreement with the West and then let his ultimatum pass in 1959, when the
administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to give up the US
position in Hitler’s former capital. On 13 August 1961, in the stealth of the
early morning hours, East German engineer battalions, under Soviet supervi-
sion, erected barriers that eventually became the Berlin Wall. Kennedy, who
likely anticipated some Soviet move to seal the Eastern border, felt a mixture of
shock and relief. Many administration officials expected Soviet initiatives to
come after the signing of a peace treaty with East Germany, not before.5
Kennedy was eager to cement the status quo in Central Europe and insisted pri-
vately to his aides, “Why would Khrushchev put up a wall if he really intended
to seize West Berlin? This is his way out of his predicament. It’s not a very
nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than war.”6 The Kennedy
administration had no strategy to destroy the raw and ugly barrier in Berlin.
The president vaguely hoped that over time world opinion might force the
Soviets to tear down the barrier.7
For his part, de Gaulle did not advocate destroying the Wall. He publicly sup-
ported Washington but privately scorned Kennedy’s symbolic dispatch of 1,200
troops down the autobahn under the command of Brigadier General Lucius D.
Clay, hero of the Berlin Blockade of 1947–48. De Gaulle believed it was an
unnecessary provocation, even though Kennedy sent the troops to test whether
Khrushchev would cut off Western access to Berlin. “The Americans think dif-
ferently,” de Gaulle exclaimed bitterly, “because their interests are not those of
Europe.”8
For the Kennedy administration, the ensuing Berlin crisis catapulted NATO
strategy ahead of other European concerns, including plans for expanding the
Common Market through Great Britain’s admission. The US president believed
that the immediate threat to Berlin required defining NATO’s nuclear posture
and preparing NATO for armed combat short of a full-scale nuclear attack. In
the event that the Soviets tried to block Western access to Berlin, NATO needed
sufficient conventional ground forces and arms with air and sea lift to counter a
Soviet conventional arms threat.9
The ongoing crisis also led to increased US demands on France and the other
major West European allies for conventional military capabilities on the Conti-
nent. President Kennedy, who had campaigned on a platform of personal sacri-
fice, extended his clarion call for burden-sharing beyond the nation’s borders to
ask not what the United States could do for Western Europe but what Western
 Through the looking glass 91
Europe could do for the United States in its common fight against international
communism.10
De Gaulle resented US calls for a conventional weapons buildup. In a private
memorandum circulated among his advisers, he fumed that a war over Berlin
would rapidly turn French territory into a bloody battlefield: “America can lose
the battle of Europe,” he noted with bitterness, “without disappearing.”11 French
generals and civilian officials at the ministry of defense shared their president’s
sentiments. They believed that conventional weapons lacked both political and
strategic credibility as a deterrent. They reasoned that the Kremlin knew that the
United States would never escalate a conventional war to a nuclear one unless
the Soviets struck first.12
The Berlin crisis had decisive effects on French military policy. Unbeknown
to Washington, de Gaulle began formulating plans that culminated in the with-
drawal of French forces from NATO in 1966. As long as a direct threat loomed
over Berlin, the French government would allow US forces to remain and use
French territory for logistical purposes. Beyond that point, de Gaulle insisted
that French territory would not be at US disposal unless the Atlantic alliance
was revised along several lines. For example, he wanted all US forces and logis-
tical support units within France to be under the authority and control of his
government. As it stood in the early 1960s, NATO’s supreme commanders were
a US general and a US admiral. In the future, de Gaulle envisioned that strategic
agreements currently falling under NATO purview would have to be worked out
between Washington and Paris. In effect, he planned to reject the NATO frame-
work and revert to bilateral arrangements. He also left open for further
consideration whether he would allow the storage of atomic weapons in France
for use by US squadrons in the event of a flare-up in Central Europe.13
Perceived American unilateralism concerning Berlin also strengthened de
Gaulle’s determination to develop an independent nuclear capability. He
declared unequivocally that under no circumstances would France put its nuclear
weapons at the disposal of NATO. Although the French president recognized
that Washington, London, and Paris needed to coordinate nuclear strategy, he
continued to insist on a tripartite body independent of NATO to coordinate
Western strategy.14
De Gaulle conceived of foreign policy in terms of réalités and “trucs,” the
latter term a pejorative for amorphous “things.” For Gaullists, NATO was also a
partial réalité and a partial truc. It was a temporary annoyance, necessary only
while de Gaulle maneuvered to implement his grand dessein of placing France
at the helm of an independent Europe. He scorned the other Continental nations
that accepted a permanent US military protectorate. For de Gaulle, NATO was
simply a means for the United States to maintain dominance. He continued to
call for a “tripartite directory” between Great Britain, the United States, and
France to handle NATO as well as global issues. Yet he never sufficiently clari-
fied whether tripartism would eliminate his dissatisfaction with NATO.15
Attempts by the United States to accommodate and circumvent French national-
ist aspirations were difficult because the French president frequently conflated
92 Erin Mahan
his aims and tactics. At times, de Gaulle posited demands for tripartism as a
means of reorganizing NATO in order to achieve French participation in nuclear
targeting and strategy. On other occasions, tripartism was an end in itself
because it conferred great-power status.16
Similarly, French possession of a nuclear arsenal constituted both a role and a
capability. De Gaulle strove to ensure France’s security and influence in world
affairs primarily through the development of an independent nuclear capability.
Yet in the same way that he insisted upon tripartism, de Gaulle often framed his
pursuit of a force de frappe in symbolic terms as the keystone to his foreign
policy. His detractors felt that he simply believed the syllogism that “great
nations have nuclear weapons; France is a great nation. Therefore, France must
have nuclear weapons.”17
In other respects, de Gaulle valued a nuclear arsenal as a means to an end. It
would provide political and diplomatic leverage as a force de persuasion. At the
same time, he considered a nuclear arsenal strategically indispensable as a force de
dissuasion. He believed that command of a nuclear arsenal would permit France to
defend itself without the humiliation of stationing US troops on French soil. In
short, it would allow strategic independence between the superpowers. 18
The value of a French nuclear arsenal for de Gaulle’s European policy also
conflated means and ends. A force de frappe would ensure French supremacy on
the Continent. In solidifying the Franco-German rapprochement, it would mark
France as the dominant partner while supposedly satisfying West German
nuclear ambitions by offering it protection.19
The Berlin Wall was not built overnight or even over several months. As con-
struction went on and East Germans attempted to escape, Berlin continued to be
a dangerous place throughout the early 1960s. The tactical differences that arose
between France and the United States over how best to shape a credible deter-
rent to the Soviets had a divisive impact on relations between the two allies and
far-reaching implications for the Western alliance as a whole. First, it height-
ened West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s fear of US abandonment,
which facilitated de Gaulle’s strategy of tying West Germany firmly to France.20
This growing entente thwarted the formulation of a NATO strategic doctrine
based on graduated responses ranging from conventional to tactical nuclear and
strategic levels. As Kennedy exclaimed in exasperation to French Ambassador
Hervé Alphand:

This great Franco-German [entente]. We are always subject to very sharp

criticism by the Germans for not doing one thing or another . . . but we are
doing everything we committed to under NATO and in addition carrying
SAC [Strategic Air Command], and in addition the navy, and in addition
Southeast Asia . . . Now France isn’t even fulfilling its NATO commit-
ment.21

Under NATO policy directives MC 70 and MC 26/4, France was committed to

contributing four divisions but produced only two-and-one-third divisions. The
 Through the looking glass 93
Kennedy administration also remained frustrated that the West Germans would
not pressure de Gaulle to meet the French commitment under the 1962 NATO
policy proposals. Even worse, West German Defense Minister Franz Joseph
Strauss informed US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that West
Germany could not meet the requirements of an armed force of 750,000 needed
to fulfill a commitment of 12 divisions under MC 26/4, and it might need to
reduce the size of its divisions.22
The Berlin crisis created an insurmountable obstacle to moving declarations
of a shift in NATO strategy to flexible response to the implementation of such a
doctrine. Kennedy articulated his rationale for flexible response to his predeces-
sor, Eisenhower:

When we have this problem of maintaining our position in Berlin, where

you may be using sort of gradually escalating force to maintain yourself in
Berlin, you can’t suddenly begin to drop nuclear weapons the first time you
have a difficulty . . . and it’s a very valid reason for our emphasizing the
necessity of their [the West Europeans] building up conventional forces.
You can’t go up the autobahn waving an atom bomb. And say, the first time
a bridge is blown out in front of you, you can’t begin a nuclear exchange
with the Soviet Union over getting to Berlin.23

Due in part to French and West German opposition, however, the so-called flex-
ible response remained in the theoretical realm, rather than becoming actual
adopted NATO strategy.24

Britain’s EEC bid, burden-sharing, and foreign economic

policies
From the summer of 1961 until the end of 1962, the Kennedy administration and
de Gaulle’s government dealt almost daily with the ongoing crisis over Berlin,
but the turmoil in Central Europe was not the only image in a rapidly shifting
West European kaleidoscope. The NATO alliance faced challenges beyond
deterrence. On 31 July 1961, two weeks before the building of the Berlin Wall
began, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announced that his nation
sought membership in the European Economic Community. Although most
accounts of the Kennedy administration’s attitude toward West European unity
interpret US policies in terms of the double containment of Germany and the
Soviet Union, relatively few studies examine in any detail the critical linkage
between Britain’s Common Market bid and the ongoing Berlin crisis. Similarly,
despite the importance of solidifying the Franco-German rapprochement to de
Gaulle’s European policies, few non-French historians have noted the effects of
the Berlin crisis on de Gaulle’s attitude toward the EEC.25
Yet during the second half of 1961 and throughout 1962, the economic dis-
agreements between the United States and the major West European nations
unfolded against the backdrop of the crisis in Central Europe. The Berlin crisis
94 Erin Mahan
influenced the major Western leaders’ position toward Britain’s Common
Market bid in conflicting ways. For example, angered by what he regarded as
Macmillan’s timidity and Kennedy’s sloppy diplomacy during the building of
the Wall, de Gaulle was determined to minimize Britain’s opportunities for
politically influencing West Germany.26
At a time when de Gaulle was exerting pressure on Adenauer to oppose nego-
tiations with the Soviets over Berlin, Macmillan hoped Britain’s entrance into
the EEC could offset French influence on West Germany. Macmillan was not
seeking to neutralize West Germany through negotiations with the Soviets, as
Adenauer feared, but the prime minister insisted that diplomacy was the only
possible way to resolve the Berlin question peacefully.27
Adenauer held a Bismarckian view of alliances as constructive entities and
had long supported a unified Western Europe. Yet he was greatly disturbed by
Macmillan’s apparent willingness to “sell out” West Germany for peace with the
Soviet Union in Central Europe. He was also increasingly disturbed by
Kennedy’s calls to revise nuclear strategy for NATO by an increased reliance on
conventional military capabilities. The chancellor was willing to entertain de
Gaulle’s conception of a “little Europe,” which excluded Britain, if the general
were to maintain a hard-line stance against negotiating with the Soviets over
Berlin.28
The Kennedy administration deemed a unified Atlantic alliance, which
Britain’s accession to the EEC would signal, as necessary to avoid war with the
Soviet Union in Central Europe. Many Department of State officials, however,
held oversimplified assumptions about the virtues and importance of Western
unity amid the Berlin crisis. The Department of State Policy Planning Staff
(PPS) and the European desk argued that the United States should show that it
was not merely reacting to a series of Soviet-incited crises, especially over
Berlin, but that it had a vision for the “Free World.” They particularly wanted to
convince Adenauer that the Kennedy administration shared his conception of
what the Department of State’s Bureau of European Affairs described as a
“grand design” – a unified Western Europe tightly bound economically and mili-
tarily to the United States to form an increasingly cohesive Atlantic community.
They believed that the West German chancellor would then “have more confi-
dence in [the US] Berlin strategy, since he would appreciate that it was being
formulated in the same broad framework as his own.”29
Given his personal preoccupation with the Berlin crisis, Kennedy left long-
term foreign economic planning to the Department of State. The Policy Planning
Staff and European Bureau revised a cooperative framework, called the Atlantic
Community, which rested on the imperative of the West’s surpassing the com-
munist bloc in economic efficiency. They decided that the United States should
concentrate on exposing the deceptive aspects of communism by comparing
them to the “practicality of [Western] policies and programs.”30 What emerged
to guide the Kennedy administration’s policies toward Western Europe was a
“pragmatic” ideology – a rhetorical banner of community supported by the
president’s faith in the efficacy of economic growth and propelled by a commit-
 Through the looking glass 95
ment to an open system of multilateral world trade and the democratic-capitalist
system.31
By the time the Soviets began building the Berlin Wall, mistrust had infected
the Atlantic alliance, and the major Western powers ascribed the darkest motives
to each other. French officials suspected that US calls for “burden sharing” were
a way to coerce the West European allies into financing US policies and offset
the growing US balance-of-payments deficit. De Gaulle returned to power to
extract France from the Algerian war, which had been draining French coffers
since 1954. The effects of the Algerian war – one of the bloodiest wars of post-
World War II decolonization – on the French national psyche have been
described as analogous to the Vietnam syndrome on the United States. The
effects of the war on the French political economy were more measurable. De
Gaulle’s insistence on a common agricultural policy for the Common Market,
for example, stemmed from domestic economic problems exacerbated by the
necessity of decolonization. As the Algerian war came to a close, de Gaulle
expected an influx of French Algerians, who would establish large commercial
farms and require export markets for their commodities. Farmers were an
important Gaullist constituency that could not be ignored, especially as riots
created political turbulence. For de Gaulle to implement continued subsidies
would have created a hemorrhaging French balance-of-payments deficit. As he
explained on one occasion during a cabinet meeting, “if agriculture is not
resolved, we will have another Algeria on our own soil.”32 In other words,
French national economic interests were grounded in both structural macro-
economics and in the political economy of France.
Despite the costly Algerian war, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, when
the United States began experiencing balance-of-payment difficulties, France
was enjoying an economic miracle of financial stability, industrial progress, and
an annual growth rate of 4.5 percent. The Fourth Republic had already laid the
groundwork for the upward surge in the economy when de Gaulle came to
power, but prosperity had often been marred by monetary crisis.33
De Gaulle realized that military power required economic strength. He sought
a monetary force de frappe in the form of increased gold reserves. His trusted
economic adviser, Jacques Rueff, urged the conversion of France’s dollar
reserves into gold as an indication of displeasure with US abuses of the reserve-
currency system, which accelerated French inflation. Under the Bretton Woods
agreement, foreign central banks were permitted to convert inflows of dollars
into gold. The practice of “hoarding” gold aggravated the US payments deficit
by draining reserves from its economy. Yet French officials legitimately worried
that the United States would devalue the dollar and make those surplus dollars
worth much less, unless they were converted to gold.34
Rueff had little patience for US complaints about bearing the burden of Cold
War security commitments. Before the Rueff plan in December 1958, many
French politicians blamed the weakness of the French franc on the draining wars
in Algeria and Indochina. Even though the fardeau algérien continued, the
French franc became one of the world’s strongest currencies, after the Bank of
96 Erin Mahan
France stopped increasing its domestic money supply. Rueff argued that US
foreign economic and military aid programs were a small proportion of the gross
national product, hardly an intolerable burden. A practitioner of strict fiscal and
monetary orthodoxy, he believed that a sharp increase in the discount rate would
eliminate the US deficit overnight, as the French Government did in 1958.35
De Gaulle realized that France needed to diminish its dependence on agricul-
ture and develop its industries, for social as well as economic reasons. He
insisted that the EEC must include a common agricultural policy, which would
establish prices for trading key commodities throughout the EEC, prevent
cheaper imports from entering the Common Market, and regulate prices among
the EEC members. Until a common agricultural policy was adopted, de Gaulle
understood that France needed to export its agricultural surplus to other Euro-
pean nations, particularly to West Germany. He sought bilateral accords that
would ensure a preference for French agricultural products. He was reluctant to
agree to multilateral trade liberalization agreements under the General Agree-
ment Trade and Tariffs (GATT), which the United States favored. In short,
Franco-American economic disagreements during this period cannot be sepa-
rated from a quadrilateral saga that also included West Germany and Great
Britain. 36

The Cuba and Berlin crises

During the early 1960s, intermittent Cold War crises forced the Atlantic alliance
to focus on challenges of deterrence. Although the details of the Cuban missile
crisis of October 1962 have been told countless times, relations between the
United States and France figure minimally in most accounts. Most scholars view
de Gaulle’s reaction as a derivative of a classic balance-of-power axiom about
alliances, where during times of crisis between the United States and the Soviet
Union, France was a firm ally, while in times of decreased superpower tension,
France sought independence from US dominance. Other historians regard de
Gaulle’s irritation over a lack of tripartite consultation as a standard reflex. The
problem with both conclusions is that scholars mistakenly dismiss de Gaulle’s
foreign policy demands as “sound and fury” about being informed rather than
consulted. By dwelling on France’s exclusion from the process of Western
nuclear decision making, scholars have perpetuated the myth of tripartism and
neglected de Gaulle’s substantive concerns.37
While US interaction with France is not central to the unfolding of the 13-day
missile drama, cursory depictions of de Gaulle and the other Western allies first
as anxious bystanders, and then as resentful obstructionists, overlook important
elements of the crisis and its aftermath. The United States never viewed the
Cuban missile ordeal as a conflict between the United States and the Soviet
Union or as exclusively restricted to a showdown in the Caribbean. For the
United States, the Cuban missile crisis was more accurately viewed as a twin
Cuba–Berlin crisis. Many in the West believed that Khrushchev’s motives for
installing nuclear missiles in Cuba were set against the backdrop of the perennial
 Through the looking glass 97
Berlin question. As Marc Trachtenberg describes it, a “mutual hostage situation”
had developed between Cuba and Berlin.38
Recently published transcripts of Kennedy’s presidential recordings from this
period reveal the extent to which a linkage between the Cuban missile crisis and
a renewed crisis over Berlin was certainly the expectation created in Washing-
ton. Whether the Soviets intended a linkage is unclear. An authoritative account
of Khrushchev’s motives and actions prior to and during the Cuban missile
crisis, which draws on documents from the former Soviet Union, refutes any
direct connection between Khrushchev’s attempt to place missiles in Cuba and
his attempt to cut off Western access to Berlin, but Soviet materials related to
Berlin are limited. Nevertheless, the constant consideration of how events in the
Caribbean could affect Berlin, as well as the reverse, figured prominently in
Washington’s evaluation of its response options.39
Influenced by US reports and actions, the French Government and other
major West European allies were forced to view the tense days of October 1962
as a parallel crisis, when in fact they were not. If the building of the Berlin Wall
had de Gaulle worried about Kennedy’s reckless crisis management and had
highlighted Franco-American strategic differences, the Cuban missile crisis rein-
forced those differences. The 13 days in October 1962 catalyzed a series of
French calculations that culminated in de Gaulle’s double non of participation in
the NATO nuclear multilateral force (MLF) and Britain’s EEC candidacy, as
well as his signing of the Franco-German Treaty of Friendship in January 1963.
According to the standard interpretation, the French president shocked
Kennedy with an unexpected veto, which ended the Anglo-Saxon “grand
design” for an economically and militarily integrated Western Europe.40 This
standard account of de Gaulle’s actions and Kennedy’s reaction, however, is too
simple and is not supported by documentary evidence. The French president’s
veto of Britain’s EEC candidacy and his rejection of the US offer of Polaris mis-
siles was not the abrupt shock that Kennedy advisers later maintained that it had
been. At least two days before the double non, the Kennedy administration
received reports that “de Gaulle, at a press conference on Monday, will reject the
Nassau offer.”41 Moreover, de Gaulle’s double non, by itself, did not overly
disturb the US president. Kennedy’s national security adviser, McGeorge
Bundy, reminded him that “the British entry into the Common Market, while
important and desirable, has never been the first object of our policy in Europe,
nor even a matter in which we could expect to have decisive influence.” Bundy
pointed out that “the specific defense of Berlin and the general defense of
NATO” had been, and remained, the primary US objectives.42
The conventional view of de Gaulle’s double non as the climax of a “grand
design” drama also misrepresents US priorities with regard to Europe. Although
Kennedy’s advisers agreed that the Soviet threat to Berlin had subsided, they
worried about the effects of de Gaulle’s decisions on NATO and on wider Cold
War European settlement. Historically, the United States regarded European
integration as a vehicle for the double containment of Germany and the Soviet
Union. The Franco-German Treaty of Friendship potentially disrupted that
98 Erin Mahan
strategy. US policy makers questioned whether Adenauer intended to follow de
Gaulle’s lead in altering the integrated command structure of NATO. They also
worried about possible policies that a Franco-German bloc might pursue toward
the Soviet Union. Although Adenauer never planned or spoke of the substitution
of a Franco-German entente for US protection under NATO, the Kennedy
administration misread the treaty as a Faustian bargain. Many of Kennedy’s
advisers spent the president’s last year in office grappling with the tension
between securing West German allegiance to the US conception of NATO strat-
egy and pursuing a settlement with the Soviet Union that stabilized Central
Europe. Those goals were not inherently incompatible. Yet during 1963,
Kennedy increasingly articulated either/or dichotomies by declaring, for
example, that “unless we make clear our opposition to the Franco-German
treaty, we would not be able to make clear to the Germans that they faced a
choice between working with the French or working with us.”43 As the goals of
double containment became enmeshed in the multilateral relationships of the
Atlantic alliance, US strategies for containing Germany and the Soviet Union no
longer worked in tandem.

Détente
Despite de Gaulle’s rhetoric of a Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the
Urals, the French president opposed a Continental and global détente during
Kennedy’s presidency. At a cabinet meeting in February 1963, de Gaulle
exclaimed in exasperation that Americans accused him of seeking a separate
European settlement when “ce sont les Américains qui sont neutralistes!”44 The
de Gaulle of the early 1960s was quite different from the one of 1966, remem-
bered as the first Western head of state to visit Moscow during the Cold War.
The contrast deserves note, because it demonstrates divergent Franco-American
views about the Cold War strategy of double containment. For de Gaulle during
the early 1960s, curbing and co-opting German power was a prerequisite to con-
taining the Soviet Union and was only possible by meeting Bonn’s demands vis-
à-vis Moscow. Because Adenauer opposed any form of Ostpolitik, whether
normalizing Soviet-German trade, recognizing East Germany and the post-
World War II borders, or accepting the status quo in Central Europe, a European
settlement was out of the question from de Gaulle’s perspective. After all, the
general’s strategy for French dominance in Europe was predicated on a “partner-
ship,” albeit unequal, with West Germany in a subordinate role. De Gaulle’s
leverage with Adenauer depended on opposition to any form of Ostpolitik, and
as Adenauer lamented on more than one occasion, “we are the victims of Amer-
ican détente policy.”45
Whereas de Gaulle viewed the containment of Germany and the Soviet Union
as separate but reinforcing goals, Kennedy fused the strategies into a genuinely
“double” policy. In other words, for the Kennedy administration it was less a
matter of first tying the Federal Republic of Germany to the West and then con-
taining the Soviet Union. Instead, the Kennedy administration’s twin strategy of
 Through the looking glass 99
containment required a fine calibration, so that the United States could avoid
having to assign priority to one or the other. Kennedy failed to provide that deft
management. Because the German question was the principal Cold War issue in
Europe, the US president regarded West Germany less as an actor and more as
the object upon which to act. Kennedy and many of his key advisers regarded a
lessening of tensions with the Soviet Union as a way to settle the problem of
Berlin and to “normalize” the German question. As a consequence of Franco-
American differences during 1963, however, the limits of a détente in Europe,
like US policies toward the Continent in general, reflected the role played by
Gaullist officials, who aptly described themselves using the analogy of the Lil-
liputians who thwarted the fictitious giant Gulliver.46
The question of détente in Europe within the broader context of relaxing Cold
War tensions illustrates the importance of middle powers in determining East–West
relations during the early 1960s. Kennedy faced continual pressures from France
and West Germany that shaped his responses to the Soviet Union, drove a wedge in
détente initiatives, and ultimately precluded a European settlement.
Throughout 1963, détente remained a nebulous phenomenon infused with
superpower mistrust and complicated by allied resistance. East–West dialogue
did not alleviate mutual suspicions. The test ban treaty, which was partial, not
comprehensive, reflected that mutual mistrust. An expanded Vietnam War
loomed, and East–West proxy wars in the Third World – Laos, Yemen, the
Congo – obstructed the already dubious progress toward a détente in Europe.
Talk of a non-aggression pact gradually faded. European relations stabilized, but
no resolution to either the Berlin problem or the more general question of a
divided Germany was on the horizon. Although Khrushchev dropped his threat
of a separate peace treaty with the GDR, confrontations in Berlin continued.
During the late fall of 1963, the Western occupying powers faced a problem
with the Soviets and East Germans over access for military convoys. One of
Kennedy’s advisers remarked that the “Berlin flare-up illustrates the way in
which spats between us continue to rise” and disproved the belief that the
Kennedy administration was “speeding down the road toward détente.”47
The octogenarian Adenauer stepped down a month before Kennedy was
assassinated. Former West German minister of economics Ludwig Erhard’s
accession to the chancellorship placed US–West German relations on a better
footing, while simultaneously eliminating de Gaulle’s ability to cast West
German policies as a choice between France and the United States. Not until the
early 1970s would the former mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt, become
chancellor and pursue Ostpolitik, which normalized Soviet-German trade, recog-
nized the East German regime and post-World War II borders, and generally sta-
bilized Central Europe. During the last months of 1963, Adenauer remained the
leader of the ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union, and West German
foreign policy adhered to the firm policy of non-recognition of East Germany
that had prevailed during Adenauer’s long tenure.48
On 21 November 1963, the day before Kennedy’s assassination, in his first
meeting with the new West German Chancellor Erhard, de Gaulle denounced
100 Erin Mahan
the possibility of a détente with Soviets, principally over concern about Berlin
and future German reunification. In his view, the US “strategy of peace,” as the
French president derisively called détente, jeopardized both issues.49 De Gaulle,
of course, was in no hurry to see Germany reunified. Only a few months before,
when British officials had asked him whether his initiatives toward West
Germany suggested that he favored reunification, he scoffed, “the Germans will
always be Germans,” meaning that they could never be trusted.50 Yet reassuring
the West German leaders of French commitment to West Germany’s protection
was critical to his larger strategy of institutionalizing a rapprochement, which
would provide him with levers of influence through bilateral consultation and
the coordination of policies. The French president’s efforts to sign a treaty with
West Germany and his resistance to Ostpolitik reflected his fears of a post-Ade-
nauer government.51
During the early 1960s, the limits of détente underscored French and Amer-
ican distinctions between appropriate means and ends for Western policies
toward the Soviet Union. Invoked cautiously by Kennedy and disapprovingly by
de Gaulle, détente reflected divergent containment aims and differing tactics.
For the French president, détente was an objective, not a tactic. The ongoing
Berlin crisis, which ebbed and flowed, compelled him to see initiatives, such as
a non-aggression pact, as merely a change in Soviet tactics to force the Western
nations from Berlin or as a fraudulent means to an unacceptable end. Once the
Soviets stopped trying to end Western rights in Berlin and in other regions, de
Gaulle was willing to accept a détente with the Soviets. Relaxed international
tensions, in his view, could then create an atmosphere conducive to resolving
East–West conflicts.52
The general’s position, however, revealed a measure of inconsistency that
inhered in the French security dilemma over Europe. How did de Gaulle expect
a French-led European third force to mediate between the superpowers when he
did not want any negotiations with the Kremlin? How did he expect to bring
about détente before solving the German question? De Gaulle never resolved
these questions during the early 1960s. In essence, the French government
accepted a de facto détente over Central Europe but rejected the global nuclear
status quo. Determined to develop an independent nuclear capability, de Gaulle
was unwilling to accept purportedly peaceful measures such as the Limited Test
Ban Treaty (LTBT), which preserved the US–Soviet nuclear condominium. Pre-
ferring to perpetuate a divided Germany, de Gaulle was unwilling to negotiate
with the Soviets. The Kremlin’s threat to Berlin provided him with a justifica-
tion for siding with Adenauer and rejecting Ostpolitik.
Kennedy’s conception of détente was equally confusing. Viewing relaxed
Cold War tensions as a form of double containment of the Soviet Union and
Germany, the president postulated a strategy that could not be sustained, given
the shift in the alliance toward a stronger Franco-German voice. A British confi-
dant, Ambassador W. David Ormsby-Gore, described President Kennedy’s
general philosophy toward détente: “It would be easier to find areas of agree-
ment when you first of all improved the atmosphere. It was very hard to reach
 Through the looking glass 101
agreements when the atmosphere of distrust was so intense.”53 Distrust,
however, permeated both the Atlantic alliance and East–West relations.
Kennedy believed that if the West probed the Soviets for arrangements over
Berlin and the security of Central Europe, then the allies could create an atmo-
sphere for resolving Cold War disputes. Yet it was those very contentious issues,
Berlin and the overall German question, which polarized the Western alliance
and generated perpetual East–West enmity.

Conclusion
In sum, Franco-American disagreements over the timing and nature of a détente
in Europe accentuated the allies’ competing strategies for ensuring Western
dominance. In questions of détente, as with most alliance issues, Kennedy and
de Gaulle worked at cross-purposes.
Although Kennedy’s youthful arrogance and de Gaulle’s established hubris
came to stereotype Franco-American relations, both presidents were mindful of
the structural economic and strategic constraints defining their policies for
Western Europe. They clung to the logic inherent in their contrasting strategies
for Western Europe, but more often spoke of the burdens of the alliance. While
the United States strove to mold the Western alliance to its vision of global pre-
eminence, France pursued dominance within Europe as a prelude to expanded
international aspirations. Yet these competing geostrategies were constrained by
East–West crises. The Berlin and Cuba crises made the perils of the nuclear era
a frightening reality. The exigencies of the nuclear age trapped Kennedy in a
crisis mentality and encouraged France and West Germany to aspire to atomic
capability. US uncertainty about the implications of the strengthening Franco-
German rapprochement fed Kennedy’s ambivalence about many policies toward
Western Europe, especially in defense matters. His administration sought to rec-
oncile the tension between German security anxieties, exacerbated by the Berlin
and Cuba crises, and de Gaulle’s resistance to overt US influence in Western
Europe. Rather than confronting a simple choice between the two allies, the
Kennedy administration worried that alienating either France or West Germany
would cause one vexed power to conspire with the other against the United
States.
Kennedy and de Gaulle so linked economic and security policies that they
became difficult to separate. The French president flirted with swapping nuclear
assistance to Britain with consent to the latter’s entrance into the Common
Market. Kennedy contemplated providing nuclear aid to France in return for de
Gaulle’s vote to allow Britain into the EEC and for his compliance with the
present NATO command structure. De Gaulle fed Adenauer’s suspicions that
Macmillan’s desire for détente with the Soviets was reason to keep Britain out
of the Common Market. Kennedy continued to see the burgeoning US payments
deficit that was carrying the bulk of Western Europe’s defense as an unfair
burden. And despite economic disadvantages posed by Britain’s entrance,
Kennedy supported West European integration primarily for the geopolitical
102 Erin Mahan
reason of creating an EEC that served as a bulwark of Western unity against
Soviet penetration.
At times, the Western leaders established false linkages among policies that
should have been treated independently. Kennedy’s personal attention was
devoted more to security issues concerning Western Europe. As a result, his
interest in economic problems related to the Continent was greatest when these
impacted on security issues. Kennedy, for example, worried incessantly that the
US payments deficit was leverage that France and West Germany could use to
force changes in US defense policies in Europe. In fact, Kennedy’s advisers
would have been wise to discern where de Gaulle was exploiting US vulnerabili-
ties and where French economic complaints were legitimate. Instead, quarrels
over balance-of-payments arrangements evolved into opposing views about
responsibilities for Cold War security commitments in Europe and globally.
Similarly, both Kennedy and de Gaulle would have been prudent to separate the
issue of nuclear sharing from Britain’s entrance into the Common Market.
Instead, Kennedy provoked de Gaulle by using a carrot-and-stick approach with
the offer of nuclear aid, and de Gaulle politicized already contentious economic
issues. In short, the tendency to establish linkages between economic and secur-
ity policies transformed many Franco-American disputes over individual issues
into more severe multilateral disagreements.
The ongoing Berlin crisis of the 1960s brought into stark relief the challenges
of deterrence for the Atlantic alliance. At the same time, the turmoil in Central
Europe distorted Franco-American perceptions about the most effective NATO
strategies for the Continent, as well as about Western policies for challenges
beyond deterrence. To understand the real nature of Franco-American relations
during the period 1961–63, one must understand the inability of the Kennedy
administration to forge a coherent policy on the basis of the president’s blurred
ideas about security and European integration, his tendency toward economic
simplicity, and his overriding Cold War fears. De Gaulle, on the other hand, did
not suffer from these inconsistencies. With less power, but more skill, de Gaulle
battled Kennedy to a standstill.

Notes
1 The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the US Department of State.
2 Memorandum from Schlesinger to Kennedy, 8 May 1961, John F. Kennedy Library,
Boston, (JFKL), National Security Files (NSF), Countries, Box 70, France.
3 There are numerous works that touch on Franco-American differences during the
Berlin crisis, but these typically examine the Berlin crisis only briefly on the contin-
uum of post-World War II Berlin crises. See, for example, Ann Tusa, The Last Divi-
sion: A History of Berlin (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1997), pp. 225–353. See, also,
Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement,
1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Other studies either depict
the Berlin crisis of the early 1960s as a brief interruption to Kennedy’s and de
Gaulle’s conflicting grand designs without examining the adverse effects of the crisis
on overall US policy toward Europe, or they analyze allied handling of Berlin as a
 Through the looking glass 103
case study of Kennedy’s crisis diplomacy. See Frank Costigliola, “The Pursuit of
Atlantic Community: Nuclear Arms, Dollars, and Berlin,” in Kennedy’s Quest for
Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961–1963, ed. Thomas Paterson (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 24–56; Thomas Schwartz, “Victories and Defeats
in the Long Twilight Struggle: The United States and Western Europe in the 1960s,”
in The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade, ed. Diane Kunz (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1994), pp. 115–33. A few French historians assert the general import-
ance of the Berlin crisis to different aspects of de Gaulle’s European design but do
not provide a comprehensive description or analysis. See Pierre Maillard, De Gaulle
et les allemands (Paris: Guibert, 1990), pp. 200–1; Cyril Buffet, “La politique
nucléaire de la France et la seconde crise de Berlin, 1958–1962,” Relations interna-
tionales 59 (Fall 1989), pp. 350–8; Frédéric Bozo, Deux stratégies pour l’Europe: De
Gaulle, les États-Unis et l’alliance atlantique, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1996), pp.
77–82. The best account is in Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du
Général de Gaulle, 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998).
4 For significant exceptions, all by French historians, see Bozo, Deux stratégies. See
also Vaïsse, La grandeur.
5 See, for example, Memorandum by Walter Heller, 2 August 1961, “A Non-economic
Report from Germany,” President’s Office Files (POF), part V, reel 8: 899; Martin
Hillenbrand, Director of Berlin Task Force, telephone interview with the author, 19
September 1997.
6 Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–63 (New
York: Edward Burlingame Books, 1991), p. 278.
7 Theodore Sorenson, Kennedy (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 289.
8 Hervé Alphand, L’Étonnement d’être: Journal, 1939–1973 (Paris: Fayard, 1977),
p. 364.
9 Oral History Interview with Martin Hillenbrand, JFKL, p. 37; John S. Duffield,
Power Rules: The Evolution of NATO’s Conventional Forces Posture (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 154, 158.
10 Kennedy proclaimed in his inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can do for
you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Kennedy’s address was a declaration
that the United States would “bear any burden” to protect liberty from communist
challenges around the globe. Inaugural Address, Public Papers of the Presidents of
the United States, John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1962), pp. 1–3.
11 Note by de Gaulle, 17 July 1961, “L’Europe,” in Charles de Gaulle, Lettres, notes et
carnets, 1958–1960 (Paris: Plon, 1986), pp. 107–8.
12 Inspection général de l’Armée de terre, July 1961, “Les formes de la guerre et de
l’armée future,” French Ministry of Defense, Cabinet du ministre de la défense,
Service historique de l’Armee de terre, Paris (SHAT), Politique de défense, Box
1R58, 2, no. 412.
13 Notes by de Gaulle, 18 September 1961; 4 October 1961; 26 October 1961, all in
Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, Paris (FNSP), Archives de Couve de
Murville, vol. II, CM7; Oral History Interview with General George Buis, Institut
Charles de Gaulle, Paris (ICG), Archives orales. The scholarly literature on de
Gaulle’s management of the Berlin crisis and its effects on his overall European strat-
egy is limited. For exceptions that were published before the opening of French docu-
ments on the crisis, see Buffet, “La politique nucléaire de la France,” pp. 347–58;
Bernard Ledwidge, “La crise de Berlin 1958–1961: Stratégie et tactique du Général
de Gaulle,” in ICG, De Gaulle en son siècle, vol. 4, La securité et l’indépendance de
la France (Paris: Plon, 1992), pp. 366–80. For one example published after French
documentation opened but which speaks in generalities, see Bozo, Deux stratégies.
14 Note by de Gaulle, 14 August 1961; de Gaulle, “L’annotation manuscrite sur le télé-
gramme-circulaire no. 218,” 30 November 1961, both in FNSP, Papiers de Couve de
104 Erin Mahan
Murville, vol. II, CM7. Most of the literature on the force de frappe neglects the deci-
sive effects of the Berlin crisis. For the best studies of the French nuclear program,
see Raymond Tourrain, De la défense de la France à la défense de l’Europe
(Besançon: CRIPES, 1987); Marcel Duval et Yves le Baut, L’arme nucléaire
française: Pourquoi et comment? (Paris: S.P.M., 1992); ICG, L’aventure de la
bombe: De Gaulle et la dissuasion nucléaire, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1985).
15 For de Gaulle’s evolving views on NATO, see, for example, Vaïsse, La grandeur, pp.
111–61.
16 Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces
for Europe, 1949–2000 (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 95–110.
17 Memorandum of Conversation between Spaak and Kennedy, 28 May 1963, Foreign
Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961–63, vol. XIII, p. 582.
18 Oral History Interview with General George Buis, ICG, Archives orales.
19 François Seydoux, Mémoires d’outre-rhin (Paris: B. Grasset, 1975), p. 224.
20 See, generally, Christoph Bluth, “Reconciling the Irreconcilable: Alliance Politics and
the Paradox of Extended Deterrence in the 1960s,” Cold War History (January 2001),
pp. 77–84; Hans-Peter Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and States-
man in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction (Providence: Berghahn,
1997), pp. 605–6.
21 Kennedy talked about his discussion with Alphand of 10 September 1962 in Meeting
with Dwight Eisenhower, The Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville (MCPA), The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy; The Great
Crises, ed. Philip Zelikow and Ernest May, vol. 2 (New York: Norton, 2002), p. 129,
transcribed by the author.
22 Strauss’s visit of 7–8 June 1962 was discussed in a meeting about the Soviet Union
on 21 September 1962; see MCPA, The Presidential Recordings: JFK, vol. 2, pp.
216–17, transcribed by the author.
23 Conversation between Kennedy and Eisenhower, 10 September 1962, MCPA, The
Presidential Recordings: JFK, vol. 2, p. 129.
24 This analysis is shared by Francis Gavin, “The Myth of ‘Flexible Response,’” The
International History Review (December 2001), p. 859. Gavin points out that “Senior
U.S. officials did not necessarily believe in the strategic, as opposed to the political,
logic behind their call for increased conventional capabilities, nor that the United
States should enlarge its own conventional forces in Europe.”
25 Representative studies include Miriam Camps, Britain and the European Community,
1955–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964); Ernst van der Beugel,
From Marshall Aid to Atlantic Partnership (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966); Costigliola,
“The Pursuit of Atlantic Community;” Thomas Alan Schwartz, “Victories and
Defeats in the Long Twilight Struggle: The United States and Western Europe in the
1960s,” in The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade, ed. Diane B. Kunz (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 115–48; Geir Lundestad, “Empire” by
Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 26–7, 58–82; Alfred Grosser, The Western
Alliance: European–American Relations since 1945 (London: Macmillan, 1980), pp.
199–200; Pierre Maillard, De Gaulle et l’Europe: Entre la nation et Maastricht
(Paris: Tallandier, 1995), p. 205.
26 Some scholars mention Berlin as a backdrop to the EEC question but offer no details.
See, for example, Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, p. 521.
27 The scholarship dealing with the relationship between Britain’s bid and the Berlin
question is sparse. For two recent works that focus exclusively on the two issues as
discrete phenomena, see, for example, John P. S. Gearson, Harold Macmillan and the
Berlin Wall Crisis, 1958–62 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998); Jacqueline Tratt,
The Macmillan Government and Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).
28 Adenauer’s veiled threats are conveyed most vividly in the memoir literature. See, for
 Through the looking glass 105
example, Paul H. Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision
(New York: G. Weidenfeld, 1989), p. 207; Seydoux, Mémoires d’outre-rhin, pp.
211–12, 222.
29 Memorandum from McGhee to Rusk, 26 October 1961, RG 59, Policy Planning
Staff, 1957–1961, Box 139, Germany, August–December 1961. See also “Talking
Paper: Discussion of General Issues with Chancellor,” unsigned, 8 November 1961,
Bureau of European Affairs, Records of the US Department of State (DoS), RG 59,
Records Relating to Berlin, 1957–1963, Box 3, Chancellor Adenauer’s Visit, 20–22
November 1961.
30 “Highlights of Discussion at the Secretary’s Policy Planning Meeting,” 3 November
1961, RG 59, Box 132, Secretary’s Policy Planning Meetings.
31 Kennedy’s faith in a politics of plenty as a way to prevent the rise of socialism or
communism was prevalent among post-World War II policy makers. See, generally,
Charles Maier, “The Politics of Productivity: Foundations of American International
Economic Policy after World War II,” in Between Power and Plenty: The Foreign
Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), pp. 23–49.
32 Quoted in Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State
Power from Messina to Maastricht (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 180.
33 William Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for
Leadership in Europe, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1998), pp. 12–71. See also Richard Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern
France: Renovation and Economic Management in the Twentieth Century (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
34 There have been few detailed studies of de Gaulle’s economic concerns and policies
of the early 1960s. Most articles and books detail the French economic miracle of the
late 1950s and the Bretton Woods system crisis of the late 1960s. Representative
works that offer a good starting point include Alain Prate, Les Batailles économiques
du Général de Gaulle (Paris: Plon, 1978); Michael Loriaux, France after Hegemony:
International Change and Financial Reform (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
35 Rueff to Wilfrid Baumgartner, 26 June 1961, FNSP, Papers of Wilfred Baumgartner,
Box 3BA34, DR 7.
36 See, generally, “Les problèmes du marché commun,” L’année politique, économique,
sociale et diplomatique en France, 1961 (1962), pp. 193–6; Moravcsik, The Choice
for Europe, pp. 159–237; ICG, De Gaulle en son siècle, vol. 5, L’Europe.
37 See, for example, Frank Costigliola, “Kennedy, the European Allies, and the Failure
to Consult,” Political Science Quarterly (Summer 1996), pp. 105–23; Josephine
Brain, “Dealing with de Gaulle,” in Kennedy: The New Frontier Revisited, ed. Mark
J. White (New York: New York University Press, 1998), pp. 173–4; Maurice Vaïsse,
“Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps: La France et la crise de Cuba,” in L’Europe
et la crise de Cuba, ed. Maurice Vaïsse (Paris: Armand Colin, 1993), pp. 89–105.
38 Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, p. 399.
39 See, generally, MCPA, The Presidential Recordings: JFK, vol. 3 (New York: Norton,
2001). For an authoritative account of Soviet motives and actions during the Cuban
missile crisis, see Alexander Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble:
Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964 (New York: Norton, 1997). For a per-
suasive analysis, though based on circumstantial evidence about Soviet aims, see
Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban
Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999), pp. 99–109.
40 See, for example, Grosser, The Western Alliance, pp. 206–8; Pascaline Winand,
Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the United States of Europe (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1993), pp. 315–29.
41 Memorandum for the Record, 15 January 1963, “Meetings with President Kennedy of
12 January 1963,” JFKL, NSF, Meeting with President, Box 317, 1/63–2/17/63.
106 Erin Mahan
42 Memorandum from Bundy to Kennedy, 30 January 1963, US Army Institute,
Carlisle, PA, James M. Gavin papers, Box 21, Letters to President about de Gaulle.
Emphasis in the original.
43 Although the present analysis draws different conclusions about the effects of the
Atlantic alliance politics on a European settlement in 1963, the framework of inter-
pretive questions was influenced by Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace (see pp.
379–98). For the quotation by Kennedy, see Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, p.
375. For Adenauer’s commitment to NATO, see Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, p. 597.
44 Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. 1 (Paris: Fayard, 1994), p. 379.
45 The present analysis expands upon the phases and linkages between de Gaulle’s pol-
icies toward Germany and French attitudes on Ostpolitik and détente offered in
Michael Stürmer, “De Gaulle, l’Allemagne et l’Ostpolitik,” in ICG, De Gaulle en son
siècle, vol. 5, pp. 480–9. For the statement by Adenauer, see Schwarz, Adenauer,
p. 687.
46 Stanley Hoffman, Gulliver’s Troubles, or the Setting of American Foreign Policy
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 171–2, 451–2.
47 The scholarly literature is unclear and somewhat misleading on the establishment of a
European settlement in 1963. Trachtenberg, for example, argues that there was a
European settlement; see Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, pp. 352–402. For the
quotation about the Berlin flare-up, see Memorandum from Komer to Bundy, 16
October 1963, JFKL, NSF, Staff memos, Box 322, Komer. On the question of con-
tinued East–West tensions in Berlin, see, generally, John C. Ausland, Kennedy,
Khrushchev, and the Berlin–Cuba Crisis, 1961–1964 (Oslo: Scandinavian University
Press, 1996), pp. 79–90. For Kennedy’s personal preoccupation, see Meeting about
Berlin, JFK POF, Presidential Recordings, tape 118/A55/Cassette 1 of 2, transcript by
the author.
48 See, for example, Horst Osterheld, Außenpolitik unter Bundeskanzler Ludwig Erhard,
1961–1963: Ein dokumentarischer Bericht aus dem Kanzleramt (Düsseldorf: Droste,
1992), p. 30.
49 Memorandum of Conversation between de Gaulle and Erhard, Afternoon Session, 21
November 1963, République Fédéral Allemande, Europe 1961–1965, 1575, Entre-
tiens entre de Gaulle et Erhard.
50 Record of Lord Avon’s Conversation with de Gaulle, 11 June 1963, UK National
Archives, Kew, Foreign Office 371/169124.
51 See Michael J. Sodaro, Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev to Gor-
bachev (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 43.
52 Charles De Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1971), p.
259; Maurice Couve de Murville, Une politique étrangère, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon,
1971), pp. 179–81.
53 Oral History Interview with W. David Orsmby-Gore, JFKL, pp. 24–5.
7 A crisis foretold
NATO and France, 1963–66
Anna Locher

Introduction
Strains and tensions have loomed large throughout the entire history of the
Western alliance. One major West–West problématique was the role of France
in the alliance, and in particular its gradual dissociation from NATO under
President Charles de Gaulle between 1958/59 and 1966. The French “challenge”
triggered a continuous debate on the importance of the Western alliance and its
prospects. An important dimension of the debate – amounting to a bargaining
process on the future of NATO – was a “crisis talk” both within NATO and
outside the alliance. In many ways, it anticipated the “real” crisis of 1966 that
was triggered by the French withdrawal from the integrated NATO command.
Since crises are subject to conflicting perceptions, it is essential to consider “by
whom, how, and why an event is perceived as a crisis.”1 Communication also
played a vital role in NATO’s mid-1960s debate as different interpretations of a
situation found their expressions in a continuous negotiation about dominant
definitions of a situation.2 NATO as a consultation forum thus provided an arena
for comparing and aligning perceptions and policies vis-à-vis the French chal-
lenge.
This chapter explores how Western policy makers, government officials, and
NATO staff assessed French intentions and actions, and what countermeasures
they devised. Special attention is given to the dynamics at the NATO Council
meetings in ministerial and ambassadorial sessions, which decisively formed the
debate on the state of the alliance, and to the position of the NATO secretary-
general. While the literature devotes much attention to France’s withdrawal
from the integrated command structure in 1966, 3 far less attention has been paid
to the creeping onset of the crisis in the early 1960s. In fact, an acute transat-
lantic crisis had been felt in NATO and remedies had been attempted since
1963, and throughout the mid-1960s. France’s NATO policies rooted in de
Gaulle’s thinking since World War II, gained practical importance with his
return to power in 1958, and radicalized since the 1959 decision to withdraw the
French Mediterranean fleet from the NATO command. This chapter focuses on
the widespread perception within NATO that from January 1963 on, de Gaulle’s
alliance policies revealed a French strategy that would eventually accept or even
108 Anna Locher
promote the dismantling of NATO. The crisis at issue was not confined to the
French problem, yet by focusing on the impact of French policies on the other
14 members’ understanding of NATO, we may determine how intra-bloc dissent
was tackled within the NATO forum in view of the option offered by Article 13
of the North Atlantic Treaty, allowing any member to withdraw from the
alliance with a year’s notice after 1969.
The first two sections of this chapter detail the turning point of January 1963
and its immediate aftermath as seen in NATO. The third and fourth examine
allied exposure to French Atlantic policies and the collective search for an
answer to de Gaulle in 1963 and 1964. The final section analyzes the strategies
devised for coping with the French threat to leave the alliance as of late 1964
and 1965.

The January 1963 caesura

In an essay in Foreign Affairs of July 1963, Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-
Henri Spaak referred to what he thought was a conspicuous caesura:

It becomes clearer and clearer that January 14, 1963, is fated to go down in
history as the “black Monday” of both European policy and Atlantic policy.
What occurred that day was something much more significant than the mere
dooming of negotiations between Great Britain and the European Commun-
ity. It was, in plain fact, an attack on the Atlantic Alliance and the European
Community.4

Indeed, on 14 January 1963, de Gaulle had vetoed British membership in the

European Economic Community (EEC), rejected the offer to buy US Polaris
missiles, and expressed disinterest in the renewed discussion on a NATO Multi-
lateral Force (MLF). Furthermore, on 21 January, he signed the exclusive
French-German Elysée Treaty, providing for consultation on external matters
and the development of common military doctrines.5 Much more than a reflec-
tion of an amazing European recovery and reconciliation, these moves for many
implied a dangerous potential, particularly because of their French-German
angle. The announced policies were of European as well as NATO-wide rele-
vance and added up to an acute crisis – and an important rift – in transatlantic
relations. According to Robert J. Schaetzel, Washington’s deputy assistant
secretary of state for Atlantic affairs, de Gaulle had “for the first time publicly
confirmed his vision of an autarchic Europe.”6 This perceived French notion
necessarily collided with dominant US policies on Europe. Washington regis-
tered de Gaulle’s moves with great concern, and Kennedy held stocktaking ses-
sions with chief officials to discuss measures to tackle the setbacks to the notion
of “Atlantic partnership” caused by de Gaulle.7
On 6 February 1963, US Ambassador to NATO Thomas K. Finletter con-
veyed his concerns about French “pro forma membership” in the alliance to US
Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. He complained that the French government had
 A crisis foretold 109
in recent years withdrawn its Mediterranean Fleet; refused to meet NATO force
goals; rejected US nuclear weapons on French soil; and obstructed coordination
of allied air defense in France. Also, France had not really taken part in NATO
Council deliberations. But most importantly, Finletter recognized in de Gaulle’s
January moves a radical step-up of French opposition in the alliance, which
could only develop in two ways: it could either amount to an “abrupt and brutal
withdrawal of France from NATO and the request that NATO members leave
French soil” or in an “increased tempo of sabotaging” which, at a certain
moment, would likewise reach “the unbearable point.” Therefore, Finletter
urged the US, as the alliance leader, to prepare for such a situation and “to block
[de Gaulle] in any effort he will make to break up the NATO Alliance.”8 Indeed,
anticipating that de Gaulle “may begin shortly trying to lock us out,” US Presid-
ent John F. Kennedy ordered contingency planning for the case that de Gaulle
should seek “a deal with the Russians, break up NATO, and push the U.S. out of
Europe.”9 When Bonn’s ambassador to Washington, Heinrich von Knappstein,
met Kennedy to deliver Adenauer’s explanatory letter on the Elysée Treaty, he
found the US president “in a noticeably bad mood” and concerned about “the
inner state of the alliance.” Rusk, although “in a more composed frame of
mind,” deplored the French attitude of abstinence towards NATO.10
Besides Washington and its representative to NATO, other alliance insiders
also feared the worst. For London, the prospect was somber, even if the
Common Market issue was left out of the equation. British Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan “was very worried about the prospects in NATO – things
were very bad. . . . If [de Gaulle] got his way in the Common Market, he would
be tempted to move on with further power moves affecting the Alliance.”11
British Lord Privy Seal Edward Heath stated the matter in similarly drastic terms
in a telegram to the British EEC negotiation delegation: “General de Gaulle’s
fundamental challenge is to the Alliance as a whole.”12
The Dutch, Belgian, Italian, and Luxemburg governments – representing the
other four EEC members – showed themselves appalled by de Gaulle’s course
of action. Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Foreign Minister and former NATO
secretary-general (1957–61), criticized de Gaulle in a most outspoken manner.
As he explained in talks with NATO Secretary-General Dirk Stikker, “the
current crisis is the most severe since the end of the war.”13 In particular, the
small NATO powers opposed the attempt by the French government to impose
its will on the others. Neither Belgium, nor the Netherlands, nor Italy had a
desire for French leadership, let alone French domination.14 For obvious reasons,
this view was not shared in Bonn. The German government was shaken by
Washington’s reaction to the friendship treaty and emphasized its conciliatory
and European character.15
The NATO Council meeting of 30 January 1963 revealed fears that the Euro-
pean developments might affect NATO. The day before, the Brussels negotia-
tions on British entry in the Common Market had been adjourned sine die after
ministers had carried them on in a desperate effort following de Gaulle’s press
conference.16 The Belgian doyen of the permanent representatives, Ambassador
110 Anna Locher
André de Staercke, urged that close attention be paid to the recent events. Com-
paring the current situation to the serious crisis of 1954, when the project for a
European Defense Community had collapsed, he advocated that an in-depth dis-
cussion be held in NATO on the implications of the French decision on the
Atlantic alliance, a position that other ambassadors shared.17
Interestingly, NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Robin
Hooper counseled low-key treatment of the matter.18 Likewise, on 30 January
Stikker referred to the crisis in European affairs, but, denying the existence of a
crisis in NATO, refused to be drawn into a discussion of implications of the
French veto at Brussels. Rather, he asked NATO ambassadors to concentrate on
urgent alliance business that demanded their full attention.19 While Stikker
deplored French nationalism, he rejected “the rather vindictive position taken by
Spaak,” whose reaction “tended to . . . dramatize the situation caused by de
Gaulle.” However, when Stikker tried to get in touch with the French govern-
ment, he did not get a response. “For France, NATO almost does not exist,” he
told Spaak. Given his lack of contacts with de Gaulle, Stikker asked the West
German government to help in persuading France to do more for NATO.20
Nevertheless, and despite his recent illness, Stikker thought it opportune to
visit various NATO capitals in early 1963 to help calm things down.21 Since his
major fear was that Bonn and Paris were aiming at strategic and tactical doc-
trines that were opposed to those of SACEUR, he also favored nuclear coopera-
tion in NATO. 22 Indeed, Stikker was determined to portray the provisions for a
NATO nuclear force, outlined at the US-British Nassau summit in December
1962, as “not bad” and “realistic.”23 At a meeting with Adenauer, Stikker
defended, albeit with little success, the Anglo-American idea of a NATO
nuclear force as protecting European interests – although he admitted in talks
with policy adviser Henry A. Kissinger that he had not yet really understood the
implications of the Nassau agreements.24

Damage control à la NATO Council

On 20 March 1963, against the background of the intensified NATO crisis, NATO
ambassadors and the foreign ministers of Britain, Belgium, Luxemburg, the Nether-
lands, and Italy addressed the “current problems facing the Alliance.” The main
speaker, British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home, stressed that he had not
come to Paris to “conduct a post mortem on Brussels,” but to make sure the veto on
British EEC membership would not have “averse effects” on NATO. According to
London, “the future of the Alliance” could only be secured through equal risks,
comparable contributions, and harmonized policies. Mainly addressing the French,
Home maintained that by doubting US readiness to protect Europe, NATO –
meaning France – risked provoking an aggressive act by the Soviet Union.25
Indeed, the ambassadors and foreign ministers welcomed Home’s presenta-
tion, which revealed the acute British need for allied encouragement, as a timely
initiative. Regardless of “the endless discussions in the international press on
crises and disagreement within the Alliance,” Joseph Luns of the Netherlands
 A crisis foretold 111
saw “no reason for undue pessimism.” His statement seemed to capture the
mood of the others present: satisfaction at the consultation in the NATO Council
prevailed, and the need to redress NATO’s communal bond took the edge off
ministerial statements. Only Spaak observed that the gathering was “a sign of
the confusion of ideas now reigning in Europe, and as a result in the Alliance”
and demanded that the Council unequivocally reiterate its firm belief in the fun-
damental principle of NATO, namely the close cooperation between Europe and
North America. The German, Norwegian, Danish, Greek, Turkish, and US rep-
resentatives agreed that alliance unity was of utmost concern.26
Stikker stressed as “highlights of the discussion” that allies should not look
backwards, but forwards in the interest of improving the essential unity and
interdependence; that NATO defense was indivisible; and that confidence
among NATO states should prevail over unfounded doubts about the US pre-
paredness to defend Europe.27 Yet the exercise had a bizarre character – the
French position remained inarticulate. France’s allies in the NATO Council
were annoyed with the “total silence” and “total non-participation” of French
Ambassador to NATO François Seydoux, and with the “French refusal . . . to
participate meaningfully in the work of NATO.” When Spaak asked Seydoux
after the meeting to explain the French unwillingness to cooperate, the French
ambassador “shrugged his shoulders and gave no reply.” This accorded with the
view of Jean de la Grandville of the French foreign office’s NATO section, who
described the situation thus: “The position of France is to take no steps –
forward, backward, or sideways.”28
On a symbolic level, then, the visit of the British foreign secretary helped to
redress Atlantic relations and restore them to a more normal condition. How
important this level of discourse was also became apparent in the NATO
Council meeting of 10 April 1963, when US Secretary of State Dean Rusk spoke
to NATO ambassadors. Also present were the foreign ministers of France,
Germany, the UK, and Italy. The participation of French Foreign Minister
Maurice Couve de Murville’s was seen as the most encouraging feature of the
council meeting. Rusk warned the NATO ambassadors of the historical “ghosts
haunting the corridors of the Alliance.” He suggested that the following ghosts
“be recognized, named and then banished once and for all:”29

Doubts that the United States would meet its commitment to defend Europe
in the event of an attack; the assertion that the United States wished to dom-
inate NATO; the accusation that the United States was seeking a settlement
with the Soviet Union at the expense of Europe; the idea of Europe becom-
ing a third force capable of defending itself by its own means and adopting
a neutralist attitude; the doubt that Europe would fight for its own defence;
suspicion in Germany that France would make an agreement with the Soviet
Union at Germany’s expense; etc.30

Rusk asserted that the US was not seeking to dominate NATO, but wanted a
“partnership based on interdependence” and on the mutual commitment of
112 Anna Locher
forces. Rejecting the “ghosts” metaphor, Couve de Murville advocated turning
to the facts. His German colleague Gerhard Schröder also asserted that Rusk’s
ghosts were “no more than that.” Home said he would gladly help to make them
vanish at the upcoming Ottawa ministerial meeting.31
Together with the drive in MLF discussions, the movement in trade affairs
(GATT), and the plans to amend the Elysée Treaty with a preamble confirming
Bonn’s Atlantic orientation,32 the visits of Home and Rusk to the Council con-
tributed to NATO reassurance. This positive turn quickly generated optimism
among policy makers. Schröder announced that he was looking forward to the
Ottawa meeting, US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs William
Tyler spotted a conciliatory attitude in the most recent French statements, and
Home, too, thought de Gaulle was willing to reestablish normal relations.33 Not
least, French Ambassador to Washington Hervé Alphand said he could “no more
feel the irritation that had emerged three months ago.”34 Rusk’s appearance before
the NATO ambassadors and his meeting with de Gaulle on 8 April35 were also
acknowledged in the media. “After three months of posturing, bickering and
name-calling,” the New York Times recognized “signs of an Atlantic thaw.”36
Yet, despite this short-term feeling of relief among the alliance members, the
alarm bells with regard to the prospects for NATO did not stop ringing. While at
the surface, Atlantic relations had improved in March and April 1963, and
although the worst-case scenario that the January announcements had evoked
appeared to have been warded off, France’s possible intentions retained allies’
attention. In the run-up to the NATO’s May 1963 meeting in Ottawa, the minis-
ters gave utmost attention to the “state of the alliance;” Washington thought that
the “crisis provoked by the French” continued to exert a “depressing influence
on the Alliance.” The basic US goal for the meeting therefore was to “maintain
Alliance solidarity and morale in the face of the French onslaught,” while direct
confrontation with the French was to be avoided to prevent a divisive conflict in
NATO.37 George Ignatieff, Ottawa’s ambassador to NATO, recommended
trying to restore “some unity of purpose” at the May meeting, and to launch an
“appraisal of where we should be going in the Alliance.”38
The two implicit antipodes of the meeting, Rusk and Couve de Murville, each
addressed the difficult internal condition of the alliance in a characteristic
manner. The French foreign minister dissociated himself from the crisis in
NATO by “intentionally” referring to the challenges to NATO as “problems”
rather than a crisis. Beyond admitting that the nuclear problem and the European
problem were “essential and inevitably essential,” Couve de Murville did not
address any concrete issues. His statement was an “intricate piece of phraseol-
ogy,” the foreign minister of Luxembourg, Eugène Schaus, told Rusk at a one-
on-one meeting.39 Rusk for his part dwelled on the relevance of NATO
sensitivities: in December 1962, the ministers had felt that NATO was “vital and
healthy.” Less than two months later, “NATO’s future role” was a matter of
concern, and the public was left with the impression that the alliance was
“afflicted with a serious malaise.” While some of this distress had recently been
dispelled, Rusk called for a return to NATO’s fundamental objectives.40
 A crisis foretold 113
Since there was still an elementary consensus on NATO’s essential purpose
and ends, Rusk’s argument went, the Soviet Union could be crucially tempted to
misinterpret West–West disagreements as “major cracks” that could be
exploited by aggressive action or selective blandishments. Yet by expressing the
readiness to investigate “any differences or rumors of differences” in transat-
lantic relations, Rusk indirectly confirmed that the intra-bloc problems were
more than just a minor test. The US secretary of state therefore asked his col-
leagues “to be more introspective about the ‘State of the Alliance.’”41 This call
was not only addressed to Gaullist France, but also other European governments
which, Washington suspected, could adopt Gaullist criticisms of the US.42 Con-
cluding NATO’s May gathering, Stikker observed that “while problems existed
there were no crises.”43 Yet a number of NATO insiders increasingly worried
about de Gaulle’s plans for NATO and his next moves.

What does de Gaulle want?

Indeed, NATO allies remained preoccupied with French intentions. Would de
Gaulle really apply his policy of blocking European developments to NATO as
well? According to a CIA memorandum, the struggle over the future of Europe
and the Western alliance that had begun in January 1963 “was only the opening
battle of what may be a long drawn out campaign.”44 It soon became apparent
how superficial the new-found Western consensus was when the French presid-
ent reclaimed the NATO stage with a next move. On 15 June, he announced to
NATO allies his decision to withdraw the French Atlantic Fleet from NATO
command. As the French explained, this step was a “change of status” rather
than a withdrawal, a move that was necessary to enable the navy’s functioning.45
Yet NATO governments were not pleased with this news.
Bonn emphasized that even if the move did not necessarily imply French
neutrality in case of an attack, the German public could only regard the measure
as “a further detachment of France from NATO” and “a weakening of NATO.”46
Also, Germany reproached France for non-consultation in this matter; this
objection was not accepted in Paris. Claiming that Washington and Bonn had
both been informed about the French intentions well in advance, French Ambas-
sador to Bonn Roland de Margerie recalled the “story by Kipling, [where] the
crocodile knew that the heron knew that the crocodile knew.”47
Kennedy deemed the French withdrawal “a test for France’s views on
NATO” and planned to discuss in the NATO Council its “severe psychological
and political disadvantages.”48 Like Bonn, Washington assessed the political and
psychological implications of the withdrawal as being worse than its military
implications, which could be made up for via bilateral agreements: the French
action would necessarily “affect adversely the solidarity and well-being of the
Alliance.” Therefore, the US and France were intent on minimizing publicity.49
Overall, France’s allies were keen to publicly downplay both the military and
psychological consequences of the fleet withdrawal. Yet when the difficulties of
coordinating NATO policies with Paris increased in summer 1963, they had
114 Anna Locher
further ground for concern. The French government, which had practically
ignored Stikker from the onset, opposed talking to the NATO secretary-general
regarding his integrated defense planning exercise.50 At the NATO Council
meeting of 25 July 1963, French Ambassador François Seydoux officially buried
any hopes that Paris might agree on the project. When Stikker suggested
exploratory talks between French authorities and French members of NATO’s
International Staff, the Quai d’Orsay rejected such contacts. An upset Stikker
recalled a basic NATO document from 1952 stipulating that the secretary-
general “should have direct access to all NATO agencies and to Governments,”
but had to realize he could not win the French over.51 Due to France’s radical
opposition, discussion of NATO strategy was basically frozen until after the
French withdrawal from NATO’s integrated command in 1966.
To NATO allies, both France’s fleet withdrawal and its refusal to cooperate
in the strategy debate opened room for speculation about de Gaulle’s plans for
the alliance. In fact, the French government was reticent as to the changes it felt
were necessary in NATO. While de Gaulle kept criticizing the ‘O’ in NATO, as
he considered the organizational structure to be inadequate and secondary to the
treaty, he did not voice specific reform plans. Since his famous memorandum to
Eisenhower and Macmillan of June 1958, in which he proposed a US-British-
French directorate to coordinate global policies and strategies and a French say
in the targeting and control of nuclear weapons,52 de Gaulle had produced no
more concrete proposals regarding NATO. In talks with Kennedy in May 1963,
Couve de Murville made clear he had no interest in talking about reorganizing
NATO – “if there was less talk, the situation would be more normal.”53
Among Western allies, this caused helplessness and discussions about what
the specific demands and intentions of the French government might be. Stikker
put it most clearly in a conversation with Bonn’s Defense Minister Kai-Uwe von
Hassel in October 1963:

The great difficulty . . . was precisely that the French were saying what they
did not want but never said what they did want. For instance, would they
still like to have the three power directorate as embodied in the famous
communication by General de Gaulle of 1958?54

On a personal level, many felt frustrated at de Gaulle and hoped for his early
departure. The person most at the mercy of de Gaulle was NATO Secretary-
General Stikker. Communication between NATO Headquarters and the Elysée
or the Quai d’Orsay, all in Paris, was close to zero. Stikker increasingly felt the
wish to retire to Italy and leave all these problems behind him. On a technical
level, Stikker proposed as the “only answer” to de Gaulle’s unalterable policies
“a position of ‘mutual forbearance’ with the French.” This meant that other
allies should no longer be prevented in their efforts toward integration.55 Wash-
ington objected that such a strategy would reduce France’s role in NATO to
observer status, which was “only playing de Gaulle’s game.”56 In February
1964, Stikker explained to new US President Lyndon Johnson his severe dif-
 A crisis foretold 115
ficulties originating with de Gaulle’s attitude: de Gaulle was blocking the way to
agreement and refused coordinated action. The only way to make progress in
NATO defense planning efforts or the integrated air defense project was to work
“around him,” Stikker asserted.57
Other NATO members were less ready to give up on de Gaulle and began to
look for ways to cope with what Stikker called French “obstruction”58 and the
implicit demand for NATO reform. Ignatieff called for “some fairly fundamen-
tal soul-searching” if NATO was to carry on beyond 1969 as an institution pro-
viding more than a minimum of military cooperation.59 Referring to the French
practice of dealing with defense issues bilaterally rather than multilaterally, von
Hassel proposed that NATO, with its 15 years of experience, systematically
determine what it was striving to achieve.60 In London in early November 1963,
Stikker reported that the Kennedy administration was perplexed about the future
of NATO.61 For Rusk, much depended on French solidarity in a crisis. He
expressed doubts about the usefulness of a debate with the French on their role,
maintaining that these questions could only be dealt with in private.62 To his
eyes, “it was hopeless to try to get the French to ‘provide the missing sentence,’
to explain why they think that NATO is not now a useful instrument, and to
clarify exactly what they do wish.”63

In search of an answer to de Gaulle

Not all allies shared this view. For Canada and other middle and minor NATO
powers, the vital reinvigoration of the alliance was to be sought via the multilat-
eral framework of NATO. In view of French NATO policies, Canada and
Belgium requested that a restricted session, dedicated to the role of NATO in the
mid-1960s and beyond, be held at the May 1964 ministerial convention.64
Stikker supported the idea of a “real discussion” to establish within a small
circle “where NATO is going” and suggested that a fully-fledged abstention
doctrine following the OECD pattern be considered there.65 Rusk was skeptical
of the idea, but expressed a willingness to participate in such a discussion.
Against the background of the GATT Kennedy Round, military questions, and
the situation in South East Asia and Europe, he advocated restraint and argued
against setting an ultimatum for the French. Rusk believed that too much
anxiety, which he attributed mainly to Spaak, could play into de Gaulle’s
hands.66
Indeed, Spaak’s statement at the May 1964 convention in The Hague gave
voice to, and was determined by, his worries about the “destiny” of NATO in
view of the “very clear regress compared to the situation of the years 1958/60.”67
He labeled Stikker’s concerns voiced in the Annual Political Appraisal of April
as typical Dutch “understatement.”68 There, a disheartened Stikker had reflected
on the prospects of NATO; in view of the numerous intra-bloc tensions and
organizational difficulties, he considered the state of alliance “no longer . . . as
completely healthy.”69 Spaak was particularly enraged about a speech by
Maurice Schuman, president of the French Foreign Affairs Commission, which
116 Anna Locher
called for reforming NATO now rather than in 1969. One by one, Spaak rejected
five reasons Couve de Murville had put forth the day before to prove that NATO
needed to undergo radical changes (without specifying what changes) – namely
the doubtful US promise to defend Europe; decolonization; the new European
strength; improving East–West relations; and the shift of threat away from
Europe.70
Others saw no need for alliance reform either. In spite of the palpable intra-
bloc disagreements and uneasiness in the public opinion, Halvard Lange, the
Norwegian foreign minister, thought any necessary changes could be accom-
plished in the existing Atlantic framework, and Joseph Luns of the Netherlands,
while agreeing that NATO was “not perfectly healthy” expressed the Dutch
government’s satisfaction at the structure of the alliance. Taking the French to
task, he urged that they speak up and clearly explain the direction of the
attempted modifications.71 Paul Martin, the Canadian foreign minister, praised
the ongoing fundamental discussion on NATO. Recalling that NATO as a free
community had inevitably encountered certain problems of coordination at
times, he went out of his way not to blame France.72 Addressing not only Paris,
but also Washington, he called for more willingness to propose concrete changes
on the one hand, and for real efforts towards practical partnership on the other.
Mutual mistrust would lead to an obsession with differences – already now,
there was “much too much loose talk on both sides about good allies and bad
allies; about the imminent break-up of this organization; about the difficulties of
cooperating with this, or with that, country.” Nevertheless, with a view to the
global and domestic public, he asked his colleagues to publicly acknowledge
that they had begun discussing the alliance’s future.73
While Schröder saw no reason for fundamental reform,74 Rusk admitted that
NATO might need to be changed “to reflect new situations.” For his part, he
expressed his readiness to consider creating a standing body of ministers in
permanent session, awarding the functions of a foreign and defense minister to the
NATO secretary-general, and improved (crisis) communication.75 These sugges-
tions, however, did not appease the French – on the contrary. Couve de Murville
took the floor as the last and long-awaited speaker, “in a mood of controlled, even
patient, irritation.”76 To clear up a fundamental misunderstanding, as he said, he
stressed that French criticism only regarded NATO’s military dimension and the
idea of military integration in particular.77 Yet when they talked about reform in
the framework of the treaty, the other NATO governments asked for more, rather
than less, (military) integration. Therefore, France thought it was pointless to seek
an open debate on the future of the alliance, since every French proposition would
immediately meet with opposition by its partners.78 As before, Couve advocated
an end to the talk about a “NATO crisis.” He considered it “absurd” to say that
NATO was in disarray and maintained that the West had “never been as prosper-
ous and strong.” In spite of intra-Western differences, the alliance would continue
as long as it corresponded to members’ interests.79
Still, the lengthy debate mirrored the ability of small allies and of the
secretary-general to set on the multilateral agenda a multilateral review of
 A crisis foretold 117
alliance affairs that was desired by neither the US nor France. Moreover, it
showed that NATO as an institution had started to grapple with the French chal-
lenge. In Washington, the State Department gladly registered that Spaak’s inter-
vention had not resulted in a difficult situation. Some even saw a French
“relaxation of its previous assault on the Organization.” While prior to the min-
isterial in The Hague, French criticism had been “vague and almost in the nature
of a smoke-screen,” Couve de Murville had “dispelled some of the ambiguity”
at the convention. Stikker agreed that the old idea of the three-power directorate
had disappeared, and Tyler concurred that now “at least there was some defini-
tion of what the French desired.”80
Nevertheless, these positive assessments clouded the fact that France’s allies
still had rather few clues as to de Gaulle’s specific intentions. In June 1964, Ball
traveled to Paris to see de Gaulle and find out “what de Gaulle wants of
NATO.”81 What Adenauer’s successor, West German Chancellor Ludwig
Erhard, reported in late June about a recent conversation with de Gaulle did not
improve things. The French president had repeated that NATO’s conception was
“wrong and inefficient,” but had not proposed any changes. It may be indicative
of the prevailing uncertainty that Erhard called it “significant” that de Gaulle had
not destroyed the entire structure of NATO, as he easily could have done if he
wanted.82

Coping with the French threat to leave the alliance

After the preliminary answers of May, French intentions became more explicit
when Stikker’s successor, the Francophile Manlio Brosio, entered office as
NATO secretary-general on 1 August 1964.83 As Italian ambassador to France in
1961–64, Brosio was “very much persona grata in Paris” – and thus met Wash-
ington’s call for a candidate “who will not be anathema to the French.”84 In a
first substantial discussion with de Gaulle in early September, he inquired
bluntly about French plans to revise the alliance. De Gaulle replied that the
charge of “denouncing the treaty” was “quite a big word,” but things could not
remain the way they were. France rejected “categorically” the notion of military
integration, which implied nuclear and thus political dependence.85 Brosio came
away with the impression that France was likely to leave the alliance in 1969.
US Ambassador to France Charles Bohlen considered de Gaulle’s exposition
“more brutal and specific” than his previous statements. Moreover, Bohlen, who
regularly called for restraint in dealing with France, deemed it significant that de
Gaulle had turned to the NATO secretary-general in this matter; the French
president was obviously using Brosio as a channel to NATO governments.86 In
the US and Canada, Brosio reported his impression with quite some impact.87
Against this background, the Canadian government launched a multilateral
initiative to counteract the decreasing sense of purpose within the alliance in fall
1964.88 Triggered mainly by France’s dissociation policy, the central idea was to
support “the process of re-thinking the role of the Alliance in the 1970s and
1980s” under conditions of détente.89 Ottawa was convinced that systematic
118 Anna Locher
discussion of transatlantic differences would benefit the community and counter-
act the talk of NATO being “in imminent danger of breaking up.”90 Against
Brosio’s objections, Martin introduced a proposal at NATO’s 1964 December
convention to study the future prospects of the alliance. While in Brosio’s view,
the future of the alliance could not be meaningfully discussed until after the
French and German elections at the end of 1965, ministers approved of the idea
of having NATO examine its foundations and prospects.91 In March 1965, the
Canadian delegation to NATO circulated for discussion among allied govern-
ments a paper entitled “The Future of the Alliance.” Its goal was to establish a
common ground agreeable to all, which should allow for a discussion of the con-
troversial issues of how NATO could adapt to the changed international order.92
In spring 1965, the pace of French (verbal) disengagement accelerated.93
Talking to Brosio on 27 February, de Gaulle insisted that by 1969, the West
needed an “alliance of the classical type,” free of the current political and mili-
tary organization. Brosio concluded from the discussion that France would not
break up the structure of NATO before 1969, unless the organization was
strengthened by a multilateral or an inter-allied nuclear force.94 In early May,
however de Gaulle announced in discussions with Bohlen that the integrated
structure of NATO in France would be eliminated, and that all foreign military
installations would have to leave French soil.95 Statements by the French presid-
ent and the administration in Paris suggested that France would consider its par-
ticipation in NATO terminated within five to six months after the French
presidential elections.96
In the first instance, this information boosted attempts at alliance reassurance
via multilateral debate. Ottawa expected to find support for its “Future of the
Alliance” paper at the May 1965 ministerial in London, which the US administra-
tion regarded as an occasion more appropriate for stocktaking than for action.
With the French decision looming like a sword of Damocles, Washington depicted
NATO’s inner strength as being “sapped.” Among the most critical problems were
the relationship between the US and Europe, the assessment of possibilities for
détente, the sharing of NATO’s defense burden, out-of-area activities, and unfin-
ished business on the military side of NATO.97 The US Department of State
intended to call for a restatement of alliance objectives and to offer “a clear signal
that the US for its part means to grapple with the new problems of the Alliance.”98
Thus, the broadly phrased Canadian project was complemented by a US attempt to
reassure its allies at NATO’s spring 1965 meeting. Acting Secretary of State
George Ball tabled five fundamental questions that the US administration pro-
posed for discussion within NATO in December.99 The US campaign was indica-
tive of a renewed awareness in Washington that France’s intra-bloc course of
action and de Gaulle’s autonomous détente policies called for action.100 Indeed, the
NATO foreign ministers agreed on the necessity of discussing the future of NATO
in the coming months. According to Brosio, this was the “most significant theme
raised by Ministers.”101
Yet at the same time, the expectation of a complete and imminent French dis-
engagement from the organization was hampering debates on NATO’s perspec-
 A crisis foretold 119
tives. When NATO ambassadors got together for a first exchange of views on
the state and future of NATO in early June, French Ambassador Pierre de
Leusse made a “short, but very important declaration,” as Belgian Ambassador
André de Staercke reported to Spaak. De Leusse explained that since his col-
leagues were no doubt primarily referring to France in their discussions on
NATO’s adaptation to the new situation, he wanted to clarify that he would not
be able to make “the slightest suggestion” on the French ideas before the next
year, or at least not before the presidential elections.102 This announcement ter-
minated the inchoate “future of the alliance” exercise. In late June, Brosio sent
NATO ambassadors the promised draft list of international factors impacting the
alliance. Cautious in its wording and very basic in its reasoning, the list incorpo-
rated elements of Spaak’s list of May 1964, Ottawa’s March 1965 paper, and the
question on a shift in the Warsaw Pact’s military pressure that George Ball had
brought up in May 1965.103 While it seemed to represent the essence of what
was at stake in NATO’s debate on the alliance’s future, the increasingly palpa-
ble French problem was obstructing a proper multilateral continuation of the
process. NATO ambassadors feared the risk of provoking disagreements, which
they saw as inevitable in such a discussion, and preferred to postpone the exer-
cise in alliance introspection until after the summer of 1965. Since the worst
thing would be to “approach France on a ‘put up or shut up’ basis,” Canada also
favored postponing the discussion on the state of the alliance. Ottawa did not
want to see its initiative used as a pretext for something it was meant to prevent,
namely the dissolution of the alliance.104
Allied efforts now concentrated on concrete measures towards reinstalling
alliance unity. In a large consultation effort, the US pursued contingency plan-
ning for a NATO without France. In July 1965, Ball traveled to European capi-
tals to secure allied support for the alliance in bilateral talks. The uncertainty
about France’s time schedule strengthened the determination of the 14 other
member states not to let any confrontation with France emerge.105 The imminent
French action favored classical channels of diplomacy rather than multilateral
discussions that were designed to include deviant positions as well. In fall 1965,
the debates on how to pursue alliance policies in view of a possible French with-
drawal shifted further and further away from the NATO forum. Schröder’s
advice to concentrate more on informal bilateral talks to find means to reinvigo-
rate NATO was shared by the US, where “the need for intimate discourse” with
selected allies was gaining new weight.106
Renewed US efforts within NATO endorsed a shift away from the debate
about the nature of NATO towards substantial steps at “getting the Alliance
moving again.”107 The fresh US activism was partly triggered by France’s
obstructionist stance, partly by the disquieting German demand for nuclear partic-
ipation. It became evident in the proposal for a “Select Committee” as put
forward by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in May 1965. The commit-
tee, later renamed the “Special Committee,” was intended to give alliance
members a greater degree of nuclear participation108 and was an expression of
“specific projects” that the US wanted to carry out “as evidence of the continuing
120 Anna Locher
vitality of the alliance.”109 Alliance reassurance was now sought with prepared-
ness to act: “We have done our homework.”110 The new beginning initiated by
the US led to a situation that has been described in the literature as putting
NATO “back on track” by December 1965.111
In the run-up to the December ministerial meeting, there was thus a general
agreement not to bring up the state and the future of the alliance. In the eyes of
West German and US officials, only the untiring Spaak was unwilling to stop his
endeavors.112 The Belgian foreign minister’s tentatively scheduled idea of a
small committee as a means of buying time met with little enthusiasm in Wash-
ington, London, Paris, and Bonn. It seemed untimely, as the problems of the day
were seen as being “tougher.” Looking back to 1956 and to the work of the
Group of Three in reporting on political consultation in NATO, Ottawa con-
sidered the situation in NATO to be “now very different:” in contrast to the
unity of purpose prevailing in 1956, such a committee in the present situation
would be likely to intensify, rather than reconcile, the differences between
France and the other NATO members.113
It thus hardly came as any surprise, when, after contradictory signals to
Brosio and NATO governments, de Gaulle announced in February/March 1966
that France would withdraw its remaining forces from NATO’s integrated
command, and that allied troops and facilities would have to leave French soil.114
According to the literature, this put NATO in “a situation in which the survival
and future course of the Alliance were in jeopardy.”115 While this may indeed
have been the case, the feeling of criticality had already been prevalent during
the three preceding years in terms of allied perceptions, dialog, and countermea-
sures.

Conclusion
An analysis of the years 1963 to 1966 in the history of NATO shows that the
perception of a severe Atlantic crisis took hold among NATO’s advocates
shortly after January 1963. Alliance insiders, in turn, carried this interpretation
of the situation into the NATO forum. The ensuing extensive bargaining process
on the future of NATO revealed the importance of atmospheric and psychologi-
cal work in NATO and produced ideas on how the alliance could regain momen-
tum. NATO ambassadors and officials reacted flexibly and rather early, and
NATO tackled the difficulties before they became an open conflict.
In this process of adjustment, two phases can be discerned: a period of multi-
lateral reassurance of alliance solidarity, and a later period of classical bilateral
diplomacy focusing on devising specific policies to advance alliance business
despite French obstruction. While the first stage produced a collective consensus
that NATO was still necessary and temporarily marginalized French alternative
visions for Europe and Atlantic cooperation, the second stage allowed the allies
to make practical preparations for France’s withdrawal, as a result of a deliberate
shift away from the multilateral arena toward traditional diplomacy.
In this process, NATO as a multilateral forum offered small member states
 A crisis foretold 121
the opportunity to make their influence felt in a significant way that put to test
the alliance’s major powers. The genuine contribution by certain minor powers
to this effort of alliance reassurance was outstanding. Canada and Belgium,
through their unwavering preoccupation with NATO’s condition, were particu-
larly responsible for multilaterally advancing the debate on NATO’s health in
view of French policies. To a remarkable extent, they held their own against per-
sistent French and, initially, US assertions that nothing unusual was going on.
As an institution, NATO offered additional paths to all parties. In several
instances, the NATO secretary-generals, Manlio Brosio in particular, served as a
reliable channel from and to NATO governments.
Therefore, the 1966 crisis was largely foretold – much more so, in fact, than
the January 1963 shock. The debates on the future of the alliance, co-triggered
by the French January 1963 moves, had paved the way by the end of 1965 for
the understanding that NATO was necessary and would continue, even if France
were to translate its withdrawal announcements into action in 1966. If there was,
in Stikker’s words of May 1963, a “perennial talk of crisis in NATO,”116 it had
positive aspects in that it was useful in finding ways to cope with the French
challenge and planning for a NATO beyond the mid-1960s long before de
Gaulle’s actual withdrawal.

Notes
1 Paul t’Hart, “Symbolism, Rituals and Power: The Lost Dimensions of Crisis Man-
agement,” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 1, no. 1 (1993), pp.
36–50, 46.
2 See the contributions by Harald Müller and Lars G. Lose in Karin M. Fierke and
Knud Erik Jorgensen (eds), Constructing International Relations: The Next Gener-
ation (Armonk: M. E. Sharp, 2001); Francis A. Beer and Robert Hariman (eds),
Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations (East Lansing:
Michigan State University Press, 1996).
3 See Frédéric Bozo, Deux stratégies pour l’Europe: de Gaulle, les Etats-Unis et l’al-
liance atlantique, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1996); Maurice Vaïsse, Pierre Mélandri,
and Frédéric Bozo (eds), La France et l’OTAN 1949–96 (Bruxelles: Editions Com-
plexe, 1996); Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de
Gaulle, 1958–69 (Paris: Fayard, 1998); Georges-Henri Soutou, “La décision
française de quitter le commandement intègre de l’OTAN,” in Von Truman bis
Harmel: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Spannungsfeld von NATO und
europäischer Integration, ed. Hans-Joachim Harder (München: Oldenbourg, 2000),
pp. 185–208; Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1996); Thomas A. Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the
Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).
4 Paul-Henri Spaak, “Hold Fast,” Foreign Affairs 41, no. 4 (July 1963), pp. 611–20,
here at 611.
5 See for example Erin Mahan, Kennedy, de Gaulle, and Western Europe
(Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 128–42; Christof Münger, Kennedy, die Berliner
Mauer und die Kubakrise: Die westliche Allianz in der Zerreissprobe, 1961–63
(Paderborn: Schöningh, 2003), pp. 214–63; Jeffrey Glen Giauque, Grand Designs
and Visions of Unity: The Atlantic Powers and the Reorganization of Western
Europe, 1955–1963 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press,
2002), pp. 196–223.
122 Anna Locher
6 Schaetzel to Kennedy, 22 January 1963, quoted in Josephine Brain, “Dealing with
de Gaulle,” in Kennedy: The New Frontier Revisited, ed. Mark J. White (New
York: New York University Press, 1998), pp. 160–92, 180.
7 See for example Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the United States of
Europe (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 265–94; Giauque, Grand Designs, pp.
98–125.
8 Finletter to Rusk, 6 February 1963, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston (JFKL),
National Security File (NSF), Box 220A.
9 Summary record of NSC Executive Committee meeting, 25 January 1963, Foreign
Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp. 487–91. In retro-
spect, Ball labeled the worries about a Paris–Bonn deal with Moscow and the end
of NATO “wild rumors.” George Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern (New York:
Norton, 1982), p. 271. See also Oral History Interview Sorensen, JFKL, pp.
101–10, particularly 106.
10 Knappstein to Schröder, 23 January 1963, Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bun-
desrepublik Deutschland (AAPD), 1963, vol. 1, pp. 163–7.
11 Memorandum of Conversation (MemCon) between Stikker and Macmillan, 25
January 1963, Dutch National Archives, The Hague (NLNA), Stikker papers, Box
58.
12 Heath to Brussels, 7 February 1963, quoted in Münger, Kennedy, 270.
13 MemCon between Stikker and Spaak, 1 February 1963, NLNA, Stikker papers,
Box 54.
14 Spaak, “Hold Fast,” 612–15; Spaak letter to von Brentano, 7 June 1963, Fondation
Paul-Henri Spaak, Brussels (FPHS), 32/300/5621; Rusk to The Hague, 11 Septem-
ber 1963, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp. 610–11. On Italy, see Chapter 12, this
volume. In a similar if inversed manner, this rule also applies to Canada, where
Europe was the welcome distant partner that counterbalanced US influence.
15 See e.g. MemCon between Adenauer and Kissinger, 17 May 1963, JFKL, NSF,
Box 321.
16 See Oliver Bange, The EEC Crisis of 1963: Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and
Adenauer in Conflict (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 112–16, 207–33.
17 Summary record of NAC meeting, 30 January 1963, NATO Archives, Brussels
(NA), c-r(63)4-e. See also Summary record of NSC Executive Committee meeting,
31 January 1963, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp. 156–63; MemCon between
Kennedy and Spaak, 4 October 1963, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp. 219–23.
18 Hooper Memorandum for Stikker, “France–German Treaty,” 4 February 1963,
NLNA, Stikker papers, Box 56.
19 Summary record of NAC meeting, 30 January 1963, NA, c-r(63)4-e, 3; Howe (the
Hague) to Rusk, 7 February 1963, US National Archives, College Park MD
(USNA), Record Group (RG) 59, Alpha-Numeric File (ANF) 1963, Box 3697,
DEF 4: Collective Defense Pacts, NATO.
20 MemCon between Stikker, Lefevre, and Spaak, 1 February 1963, NLNA, Stikker
papers, Box 54; MemCon between Stikker and Adenauer, 22 August 1963, ibid.,
Box 56; MemCon between Stikker and von Hassel, 5 January 1963, ibid.
21 MemCon between Kennedy and Stikker, 6 March 1963, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII,
pp. 518–23; MemCon between Stikker and Bundy, 6 March 1963, NLNA, Stikker
papers, Box 58; MemCon between Stikker and Rusk, 8 March 1963, ibid.
22 MemCon between Stikker, Home, and Thorneycroft, 24 January 1963, ibid., Box
54; MemCon between Stikker, Lefevre, and Spaak, 1 February 1963; MemCon
between Stikker and Kennedy, 6 March 1963.
23 MemCon between Stikker, Lefevre, and Spaak, 1 February 1963.
24 MemCon between Stikker and Adenauer, 4 January 1963, NLNA, Stikker papers,
Box 56; MemCon between Stikker and Kissinger, 12 January 1963, JFKL, NSF,
Box 321. See also MemCon between Kennedy and Stikker, 6 March 1963, p. 520.
 A crisis foretold 123
25 Summary record of NAC meeting, 20 March 1963, NA, c-r(63)14-e, pp. 5–13.
26 Ibid., pp. 15–26.
27 Ibid., p. 27.
28 MacArthur (Brussels) to Rusk, 21 March 1963 and Finn (Paris) to Rusk, 17 March
1963, both USNA, RG 59, ANF 1963, Box 3697, DEF 4: Collective Defense Pacts,
NATO.
29 NATO Paris to Ottawa, 10 April 1963, Canadian National Archives, Ottawa
(CNA), RG 25, vol. 4803, 50102-AG-40, pt.1.
30 Summary record of NAC meeting, 10 April 1963, NA, c-r(63)19-e.
31 NATO Paris to Ottawa, 10 April 1963; Summary record of NAC meeting, 10 April
1963.
32 In general, see Münger, Kennedy, pp. 272–83, 287–91.
33 NATO Paris to Ottawa, 10 April 1963; Tyler Memorandum to Ball, “Progress in
the Atlantic Area,” 23 April 1963, USNA, RG 59, EUR/RPE, ANF 1948–63, Box
3; Finn (Paris) to Rusk, 10 April 1963, USNA, RG 59, ANF 1963, Box 3697, DEF
4: Collective Defense Pacts, NATO; MemCon between Schröder and Home, 10
April 1963, AAPD, 1963, vol. 1, p. 473.
34 Alphand to Couve de Murville, 6 and 9 April 1963, Documents Diplomatiques
Français (DDF), 1963, vol. 1, pp. 360, 385.
35 The de Gaulle–Rusk talk covered a wide range of issues, see MemCon between de
Gaulle and Rusk, 8 April 1963, DDF, 1963, vol. 1, pp. 374–9.
36 Editorial article, “Signs of an Atlantic Thaw,” 4 April 1963, New York Times, p. 46;
Drew Middleton, “Unity of the Allies is Improved but Problems Remain,” New
York Times, 14 April 1963, p. 159.
37 Strategy Paper, 17 May 1963, “NATO Ministerial Meeting,” FRUS, 1961–63, vol.
XIII, pp. 575–9.
38 Ignatieff Memorandum, 17 May 1963, “Brief for Talk with NATO Secretary-
General,” CNA, RG 25, vol. 4803, 50102-AG-40, pt.2; Strategy Paper, 17 May
1963, “NATO Ministerial Meeting.” On the issue of language use, see NATO Paris
to Ottawa, 9 May 1963, CNA, RG 25, vol. 4803, 50102-AG-40, pt.2 and, for com-
parison, Mahan, Kennedy, de Gaulle, and Western Europe, p. 126.
39 Verbatim Record of NAC meeting, 23 May 1963, 3:30pm, NA, c-r(63)30-e, 32f.;
MemCon between Rusk and Schaus, 24 May 1963, USNA, RG 59, Conference File
(CF), Box 316.
40 Draft speech, 20 May 1963, USNA, RG 59, EUR/RPE, ANF 1948–63, Box 5. For a
summarized version, see Rusk to NATO missions, 29 May 1963, FRUS, 1961–63,
vol. XIII, p. 589.
41 Ibid.
42 Summary record of NSC meeting, 2 April 1963, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, p. 547;
MemCon between Rusk and Schaus, 24 May 1963.
43 Rusk (Ottawa) to DoS, 24 May 1963, USNA, RG 59, CF, Box 316. See also the
declaration by French Information Minister Alain Peyrefitte at a press luncheon:
“None of the somber predictions made in the press and elsewhere have materialized
. . . The Atlantic Alliance is viable and capable of functioning in the face of differ-
ences of opinion.” Anschuetz (Paris) to DoS, 1 June 1963, JFKL, NSF, Box 223.
44 CIA/Office of National Estimates Memorandum, “What Now After Brussels?,” 14
February 1963, JFKL, NSF, Box 213.
45 Memorandum, “La situation de la flotte française de Atlantique,” 24 July 1963,
DDF, 1963, vol. 2, pp. 141–2.
46 Carstens Memorandum, 15 June 1963, AAPD, 1963, vol. 2, p. 632. See also
Carstens to certain NATO missions, 22 June 1963, AAPD, 1963, vol. 2, p. 655;
MemCon between Adenauer and de Gaulle, 4 July 1963, AAPD, 1963, vol. 2, pp.
689–702; de Margerie to Couve de Murville, 22 June 1963, DDF, 1963, vol. 2, pp.
637–40.
124 Anna Locher
47 De Margerie to Couve de Murville, 22 June 1963, DDF, 1963, vol. 1, pp. 637–40.
Jean de la Grandville had informed Washington’s Ambassador to France Charles
Bohlen on 13 June 1963: Bohlen to Rusk, 13 June 1963, JFKL, NSF, Box 223.
48 Memorandum by Carstens, 15 June 1963, AAPD, 1963, vol. 2, p. 632.
49 Rusk to NATO missions, 15 June 1963, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp. 775–6;
Alphand to Lucet, 14 June 1963, DDF, 1963, vol. 2, p. 623.
50 The NATO strategy debate had been stimulated in May 1962 by US Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara’s call for an adjustment of NATO’s strategy. Stikker
had sought since early 1963 to coordinate NATO strategy, forces, and budgets. See
Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist, “Containing the French Malaise: The NATO
Secretary-General and de Gaulle’s Challenge, 1958–69,” in Intra-bloc Conflicts
during the Cold War, ed. S. Victor Papacosma and Ann Heiss (Kent: Kent Univer-
sity Press, forthcoming).
51 MemCons between Stikker and Seydoux, 26 and 30 July 1963, NLNA, Stikker
papers, Box 56. See also Le Figaro, 24 July 1963.
52 De Gaulle to Eisenhower, 17 September 1958, FRUS, 1958–60, vol. VII, part 2, pp.
81ff. See Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur, pp. 114–23.
53 MemCon between Kennedy and Couve de Murville, 25 May 1963, DDF, 1963, vol.
1, p. 538.
54 MemCon between Stikker, Erhard, and von Hassel, 31 October 1963, NLNA,
Stikker papers, Box 56. To be sure, the French had told Stikker in July 1963 that
the directorate was no longer a French demand. MemCon between Stikker and
Messmer, 16 July 1963, ibid.
55 MemCon between Stikker and Rusk, 16 October 1963, NLNA, Stikker papers, Box
58; MemCon between Stikker, Butler, and Thorneycroft, 7 November 1963, ibid.
56 When asked about French reactions to this policy, Stikker had to admit he had “vir-
tually no contact with the French Government.” MemCon between Stikker and
Tyler, 16 October 1963, USNA, RG 59, ANF 1963, Box 2696.
57 MemCon between Stikker and Johnson, [February 1964], NLNA, Stikker papers,
Box 58.
58 Departing October 1963, Stikker regularly used the expression “obstruction” to
label French policies. See e.g. MemCon between Stikker and Tyler, 16 October
1963, ibid.
59 Ignatieff to Martin, 21 February 1964, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-NATO-1. The 1969 ref-
erence related to article 13 of the NATO treaty, which provided for the possibility
to withdraw from the alliance after 20 years with one year’s notice; in view of
French NATO policies, this provision caused recurrent rumors (and governmental
disclaimers) about the imminent end of NATO.
60 MemCon between Stikker, Erhard, and von Hassel, 31 October 1963, NLNA,
Stikker papers, Box 56.
61 MemCon between Stikker, Butler, and Thorneycroft, 7 November 1963, ibid., Box
58.
62 MemCon between Stikker and Rusk, 16 October 1963, ibid.
63 MemCon between Stikker and Rusk, 18 March 1964, ibid.
64 NATO Paris to Ottawa, 20 May 1964, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-NATO-12–1964-Spring;
The Hague to Ottawa, 13 May 1964, ibid; Tyler to MacArthur, 2 April 1964,
FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 31ff.
65 Memorandum, “Hague Ministerial,” 19 March 1964, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-NATO-
12–1964-Spring; MemCon Stikker–Popper, Paris, 20 February 1964, NLNA,
Stikker papers, Box 58; MemCon Stikker–Rusk, Washington, 18 March 1964.
66 MemCon between Stikker and Rusk, 11 May 1964, ibid.
67 MemCon between Rusk and Spaak, 9 May 1964, FPHS, 48/614/8789.
68 Spaak statement, 13 May 1964 (restricted session), FPHS, 32/301/6545. Spaak had
considered and, accepting the US view, discarded the idea of tabling a proposal to
 A crisis foretold 125
set up a NATO review machinery. Briefing paper, 30 April 1964, Lyndon B.
Johnson Library, Austin TX (LBJL), NSF, Country File, Box 165.
69 Annual Political Appraisal, 24 April 1964, NA, c-m(64)35-e, paragraph 20. See
also Francis A. Beer, Integration and Disintegration in NATO: Processes of
Alliance Cohesion and Prospects for Atlantic Community (Columbus: Ohio State
University Press, 1969), p. 31.
70 Spaak statement, 13 May 1964. See also Summary records of NAC meeting, 12
May 1964, NA, c-vr(64)22-e, c-vr(64)23-e.
71 De Staercke to Brussels, 28 May 1964, 13 May 1964, FPHS, 32/301/5651.
72 NATO Paris to Ottawa, 20 May 1964, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-NATO-12–1964-Spring.
See also Greg Donaghy, “Domesticating NATO: Canada and the North Atlantic
Alliance, 1963–1968,” International Journal 52, no. 3 (1997), pp. 445–63.
73 NATO Paris to Ottawa, 20 May 1964.
74 The Hague to DoS, 14 May 1964, LBJL, NSF, International Meetings and Travel
File, Box 34; see also de Staercke to Brussels, 28 May 1964.
75 The Hague to DoS, 14 May 1964. These and similar suggestions were discussed in
Washington since the early 1960s.
76 Ibid.
77 Couve de Murville to French Embassies, 14 May 1964, DDF, 1964, vol. 1, p. 519.
See also The Hague to DoS, 14 May 1964; de Staercke to Brussels, 28 May 1964.
78 Couve de Murville to French Embassies, 14 May 1964. For de Gaulle’s alliance
notion, see Bozo, Deux stratégies, especially Chapters 4 and 5; Soutou, Décision.
79 Couve de Murville to French Embassies, 14 May 1964.
80 MemCon between Stikker, Tyler, and Schaetzel, 3 June 1964, NLNA, Stikker
papers, Box 58.
81 MemCon between Stikker and Ball, 3 June 1964, ibid.
82 MemCon between Stikker and Erhard, 29 June 1964, NLNA, Stikker papers, Box
56.
83 Stikker had repeatedly expressed his concern at Brosio’s unfamiliarity with NATO
and insisted that his selection would “play into French hands.” MemCon between
Stikker and Rusk, 18 March 1964, NLNA, Stikker papers, Box 58. See also Locher
and Nuenlist, “Containing the French Malaise.”
84 Draft memorandum, [2 December 1963], LBJL, NSF International Meeting and
Travel File, Box 34; The Times [London], 14 May 1964.
85 MemCon between Brosio and de Gaulle, Paris, 3 September 1964, DDF, 1964, vol.
2, p. 208.
86 Bohlen letter to Tyler, 14 September 1964, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 71–3.
87 See, for example, Cabinet conclusions, 3 November 1964, CNA, RG 2, Privy
Council Office, Series A-5-a, vol. 6265; Briefing Memorandum, “France and
NATO”, 24 September 1964; Defense Background Brief, 16 September 1964,
USNA, RG 59, CF, Box 358.
88 See Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist, “Reinventing NATO: Canada and the
Multilateralization of Détente, 1962–66,” International Journal [Toronto] 58, no. 2
(Spring 2003), pp. 283–302.
89 Briefing notes for Pearson, 1 October 1964, CNA, MG 26-N3, vol. 273; Memoran-
dum by D L (1) Division to Robinson, 11 January 1965, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-
NATO-1.
90 Ottawa to NATO Paris, 10 November 1964, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-NATO-12–1964-
Fall.
91 MemCon between Brosio, Martin, and Heller, 2 October 1964, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-
NATO-1; MemCons between Rusk and Brosio, 28 September and 13 December
1964, LBJL, NSF International Meetings and Travel File, Box 33.
92 Paper, “Future of the Alliance,” attached to Ottawa to NATO Paris, 5 March 1965,
CNA, RG 25, 27–4-NATO-1.
126 Anna Locher
93 See Speeches by de Gaulle, 4 February and 27 April 1965, in Charles de Gaulle,
Discours et Messages: Pour l’effort, 1962–65 (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 325–42,
354–8; Bohlen to Rusk, 4 May 1965, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 206–7. See
also Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, pp. 93–100.
94 De Staercke to Spaak, 1 March 1965, FPHS, 32/302/5670.
95 Bohlen to DoS, 4 May 1965, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 206f. See also Ball,
The Past Has Another Pattern, pp. 331ff.
96 Grewe to Auswärtiges Amt, 8 June 1965, AAPD, 1965, vol. 2, pp. 973–75, 973.
97 FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII: documents no. 80 (20 April 1965), 82 (1 May 1965), 84
(9 May 1965), 85 (14 May 1965); Verbatim record of NAC meeting, London, 11
May 1965, NA, c-vr(65)20.
98 Scope paper, “NATO Ministerial Meeting,” 1 May 1965, LBJL, NSF, Agency File,
Box 39.
99 The questions regarded the changing conditions to be taken into account in consid-
ering the future of NATO; possible organizational changes in NATO; the reasons
for the diminished military threat emanating from the Warsaw Pact; “NATO’s
proper rôle in East–West confrontation outside the NATO area”; and the manage-
ment and application of nuclear power. Verbatim record of NAC meeting, London,
11 May 1965, NA, c-vr(65)20.
100 Scope paper, 1 May 1965; MemCon between Schröder and Spaak, 2 June 1965,
AAPD, 1965, vol. 2, p. 920; Grewe to Auswärtiges Amt, 8 June 1965, AAPD,
1965, vol. 2, pp. 73–5. In 1965, de Gaulle’s single-handed détente policy came to
fruition. Bozo, Deux stratégies, pp. 133–9; Vaïsse, Grandeur, pp. 421–5.
101 Summary record of NAC meeting, London, 12 May 1965, NA, c-r(65)22-e. See
also MemCon Schröder–Rusk, 13 May 1965, AAPD, 1965, vol. 2, pp. 822–34, 829.
102 De Staercke to Spaak, 9 June 1965, FPHS, 32/302/5672. See also Bozo, Deux
stratégies, p. 145.
103 Cover letter and Report, “Present State and Future of Alliance,” 29 June 1965, NA,
PO/65/366.
104 NATO Paris to Ottawa, 3 July 1965, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-NATO-1; Robinson
speech, 6 October 1965, CNA, MG 31-E83, vol. 22; Robinson speech, 5 November
1965.
105 See e.g. DoS to Brussels, 21 October 1965, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 260f.;
Circular airgram, 22 December 1965, USNA, RG 59, CF, Box 396; Robinson
speech to National Defense College, 5 November 1965, CNA, MG 31-E 83, vol.
22. See also Bozo, Deux stratégies, pp. 138–45.
106 MemCon between Schröder and Spaak, 2 June 1965, AAPD 1965, vol. 1, pp.
918–21; Cover letter to report, “Atlantic Policy After the German Election,” 24
June 1965, USNA, RG 59, POL 3 1965, Box 1803.
107 NATO Paris to DoS, 18 December 1965, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 285.
108 See Communiqué of the defense ministers meeting of 31 May–1 June 1965, para-
graph 4, at www.nato.int/docu/comm/49–95/c650531a.htm. Franz Eibl, Politik der
Bewegung: Gerhard Schröder als Aussenminister, 1961–1969 (München: Olden-
bourg, 2001), pp. 338–414.
109 Memorandum, “NATO December Ministerial Meeting,” 12 November 1965, CNA,
RG 25, 27–4-NATO-12–1965-Winter, 48.
110 Memorandum, “Visit of Brosio,” no date, LBJL, NSF, Agency File, Box 35.
111 Bozo, Deux stratégies, pp. 139–49, 144. See also NATO Paris to DoS, 18 Decem-
ber 1965.
112 Memorandum, “Meeting with Secretary General Brosio,” 1 October 1965, CNA,
RG 25, 27–4-NATO-12–1965-Winter; Bonn to DoS, 12 November 1965, USNA,
RG 59, POL 3 1965, Box 1803; MemCon between Schröder and Brosio, 13
November 1965, AAPD, 1965, vol. 2, pp. 1716–20.
113 Memorandum, “Future of NATO: Mr. Spaak’s Idea,” 23 November 1965, CNA,
 A crisis foretold 127
MG 31-E 83, vol. 13; Memorandum, “Committee of Distinguished Personalities,”
23 November 1965, CNA, RG 25, 27–4-NATO-1. The idea of reviving the “Wise
Men” idea had earlier been considered in the US State Department as well; see
Briefing paper, “Brussels Visit, 8–10 May 1964,” 30 April 1964; Briefing paper,
“France and NATO,” 24 September 1964, LBJL, NSF, Agency File, Box 38.
114 De Gaulle press conference, 21 February 1966, Discours et Messages: Vers le
terme, 1966–69 (Paris: Plon, 1970), p. 6ff.; de Gaulle to Johnson, 7 March 1966,
FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 325f.
115 Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution, p. 1.
116 MemCon between Kennedy, Rusk, and Stikker, 29 May 1963, JFKL, NSF, Box
221.
Part IV
Nuclear dilemmas
NATO consultation and social protest
8 Diverging perceptions of security
NATO, nuclear weapons, and social
protest
Holger Nehring

Introduction
The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the emergence of protests against defense
and alliance policies in Western Europe and the United States. This chapter
focuses on the discussions of NATO and NATO strategy in the protests against
nuclear weapons in Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and
France during this period. It seeks to illuminate important political dimensions
stemming from NATO’s nuclear dilemmas in the early 1960s,1 and it aims to
contribute to a more precise understanding of NATO’s crisis than the analysis of
great-power diplomacy alone might allow.
This chapter suggests that the social protests in the three countries formed part
of wider debates on foreign and security policies at a time when international rela-
tions were in flux and when the parameters of the immediate post-World War II
order were beginning to change.2 This analysis thus highlights the “ambiguity” of
deterrence on a social rather than merely governmental level.3 It locates NATO’s
crisis not in the events of the mid-1960s, but in the emergence of diverging per-
ceptions of security within the societies of the Western alliance from the mid-
1950s onwards. The social protests fundamentally questioned the governments’
abilities to fulfill the function of modern states: to guarantee their citizens’ security
– both social and international – at a time of heightened international tensions.
They addressed an issue that most Western governments could not or would not
effectively voice in conversations with their North American ally.4
This chapter thus contributes to the debate about the interaction between the
Cold War international system and social protests, an issue which Jeremi Suri
and Andreas Wenger first analyzed systematically from a historical perspective.5
There are, however, still no thorough historical studies on the social cohesion of
the Western alliance in the 1950s and early 1960s. Even research on the protest
movements of the 1980s has not taken diverging perceptions of security into
account. Instead, it has tended to locate the causes of the protests in the protest-
ers’ cultural values, specifically in their “anti-Americanism,” or to identify the
social and political conditions in the individual countries. This research has
failed, however, to regard the protests as indicators of diverging patterns of
security within the societies of the Western alliance.6
132 Holger Nehring
The argument offered in this chapter is based on the assumption that social
movements tell us something about the times and places at which they occur.
Social movements are, in effect, self-observations of these societies and their
environments. As rather loosely organized and mostly extra-parliamentary actors,
they communicate problems that other actors in the political system, such as the
government and political parties, seem to neglect. For such self-observations of
societies, the communication of the problems is key: as long as problems are not
communicated, they do not have any social relevance.7 Thus, in the debates
about nuclear weapons discussed here, the structure of international relations
and the definitions of “security” and “national interest” are not given. They are
socially constructed on the basis of specific events and trends.8
After giving an outline of the international situation, this chapter focuses on
the debates about NATO within the British, French, and West German anti-
nuclear weapons movements and highlights the emergence of diverging percep-
tions of security within the Western alliance.

The international context and the protests against nuclear

weapons
The debates about nuclear armament in Britain, France, and West Germany
were connected to changes in international relations at the time. All three coun-
tries faced the same basic dilemmas flowing from the development of thermonu-
clear weapons and from the nuclearization of NATO strategy in the mid-1950s.9
From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union
struggled to reconcile their political aims with the risks stemming from develop-
ments in thermonuclear weapons and delivery systems.10 A series of dangerous
crises reflected this process of accommodation: the two Berlin crises 1958–59
and 1961, the U-2 incident in May 1960, and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
With the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, an arrangement was found that
promised control of the arms race and thus reduced the importance of the arms
race for international relations in favor of economic and ideological develop-
ments.11
Three more specific factors formed the backdrop of the British, French, and
West German debates about nuclear weapons. First, debates about foreign policy
in these countries were able to become more pronounced, as the acceptance of
the status quo by both superpowers lowered the premium on conformity within
both alliances. Second, the emerging recognition of the status quo by the super-
powers from 1955 onwards began to transfer the superpower struggles to other
areas: to the arms race as a “functional substitute for war,”12 on the one hand,
and to economic, ideological and social issues, on the other.
Third, fundamentally, the emerging status quo did not accommodate key
interests of the three main American allies. NATO’s new nuclearized defense
strategy meant that Britain, France, and West Germany were becoming increas-
ingly dependent on weapons over which they had no control, while the use of
US nuclear weapons for the defense of Western Europe had become less cred-
 Diverging perceptions of security 133
ible with the development of Soviet intercontinental strategic capabilities. There
now existed an incentive for the West European governments to acquire their
own up-to-date weapons systems.13 For West Germany, these developments had
even more pressing consequences. The superpowers’ (tacit) acceptance of the
division of Europe threatened to make the division of Germany permanent.
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s “policy of strength,” which had been
based on keeping the German question open, was thus no longer congruent with
US and allied interests and no longer conformed to the general political environ-
ment.14

The protests and NATO

Despite the connectedness of the debates in the three countries, the ways in
which the protesters in the three countries “framed” the international situation
and NATO’s role as social problems differed widely.15 The framing processes,
in turn, reflected both the different domestic political and social circumstances.
Fundamentally, however, these processes were intimately related to different
perceptions of security: the movements voiced concerns about the diverging per-
ceptions of security within NATO that their governments did not want to, or
could not, address. In all three countries, protesters defined “security” very
broadly. It encompassed the realization of national goals in the international,
political, social, and cultural fields. The protests had, therefore, very little to do
with political or ideological anti-Americanism, but rather with perceptions of
“national interest.” The movements were strongest and most resilient where a
government was least able or willing to voice concerns about the diverging pat-
terns of security within NATO.
While Britain and the Federal Republic both experienced large-scale anti-
nuclear weapons protests during this period, France’s anti-nuclear weapons
movement remained comparatively small. In Britain, the focal point of the
protests was the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which was
founded in 1958. In the fall of 1960, a more radical group founded the Commit-
tee of 100.16 In West Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the trade
unions launched the Campaign against Atomic Death when the Adenauer
Government planned to acquire nuclear-capable equipment for the German
Army in early 1958. After the SPD had abandoned the campaign in the wake of
its programmatic changes, a group of Hamburg pacifists founded a new move-
ment after the British example, the Easter Marches of Atomic Weapons Oppon-
ents.17
The parameters of the French debate were more complex than those in
Britain and West Germany. No significant anti-nuclear weapons protests
emerged in France in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as the government, with its
unilateral policy of a force de frappe, appeared to enhance France’s national
security. The French peace movement was, until 1963, almost entirely domin-
ated by the activities of the French Communist Party (PCF) and its Mouvement
de la Paix (MDP). The explosion of the first French nuclear bomb in February
134 Holger Nehring
1960 and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 reactivated French extra-parliament-
ary peace politics and led to the creation of an independent peace movement,
albeit on a much smaller scale than in the other European countries.18 In 1963,
the former resistance leader Claude Bourdet and the biologist Jean Rostand
organized the Mouvement Contre l’Armement Atomique (MCAA). Bourdet had
advocated socialist non-alignment policies since the early 1950s and had strong
contacts with the British New Left. The French Socialist Party (SFIO) joined the
protests from a pro-NATO position.19
Various issues overlapped in the discussions about NATO within the move-
ments: the question of principle and doctrinal debates were intimately connected
to more specific issues, such as stockpiling US weapons for US aircraft based in
Europe, the installation of missile launching pads, and the acquisition of nuclear
submarines. But these were all connected to the protesters’ central concerns
about “national security.” Throughout, the situation of the first and short détente
in 1955–56 formed the point of reference for the ways in which the protesters in
all three countries observed their international environment: this short period
provided them with examples that some kind of détente, both between the super-
powers and within Europe, was indeed possible. The suggestions for new
defense and alliance policies that the protest movements made thus did not pre-
figure the suggestions for détente of the later 1960s. They presented solutions to
the problems within the Western alliance during the “crisis years” that looked
back to the mid-1950s.20

The national perceptions of security

Britain: resisting “independence in concert”

The British movements were primarily responses to Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan’s policy of “independence in concert.” 21 The mainstream protesters
did not take issue with the underlying assumptions of this policy, and they often
even regarded themselves as supporters of the Atlantic alliance. They could,
therefore, be easily reintegrated into the political system, as the government and
the reformist wing of the Labour Party showed enough flexibility to give the
impression of representing national security concerns that would honor alliance
commitments in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.22 Only a more
radical section of the movement opposed British foreign and defense policies
fundamentally.
Two phases can be distinguished in the ways in which the British movement
saw NATO’s role. During the first phase, only a radical minority demanded that
Britain leave NATO. During the second phase, this demand became more main-
stream, as radical pacifist and new-left ideas percolated through the movement.
If we exclude the small minority of radical pacifists within the British campaign,
only a very slim line divided British protesters from their opponents within the
Conservative Government and within the Labour Party at the start of the cam-
paign in 1958–59.23 This reflected the fact that both Labour and Conservative
 Diverging perceptions of security 135
governments had pursued policies of détente in Europe and could thus be seen
as pursuing national security interests. The small but crucial point of disagree-
ment was that, while the government and the majority within the Labour Party
favored multilateral disarmament within a United Nations framework, the cam-
paigners sought unilateral disarmament.
Although there were many different positions within the British protest
movement, there was one basic consensus. This consensus, together with the tra-
dition of liberal dissent against official foreign policy, gave the CND a unique
degree of support even among the Atlanticist defense establishment: all protest-
ers regarded the nuclearization of British foreign and defense policy, which
Secretary of Defense Duncan Sandys had initiated,24 and whose roots predated
similar ideas in the United States, as costly, dangerous, and unrealistic.25
At this early point, British protesters did not yet discuss Britain’s position
within NATO. Most of the evidence even points to an endorsement of NATO’s
role. Many even warned of the dangers that Britain’s disassociation from the
Western alliance might have for international stability. During this early period,
the protesters took up the various disengagement proposals that British and East
European politicians had developed since the 1955 Geneva conference: the
Eden,26 Macmillan, Gaitskell, and Rapacki Plans were all quoted in order to
highlight the importance of reducing conflicts over Central Europe and of
keeping the arms race under control.27
While the CND’s mainstream supporters were solely concerned with matters
of foreign policy, two strong groups within the CND – the Labour left and the
New Left – regarded foreign policy as an element of social policy. A possible
third group, the British Communist Party, was in 1958–59 still opposed to the
CND. It feared that unilateral disarmament might discredit the Soviet Union’s
multilateral disarmament initiatives within the UN framework. From 1960
onwards, despite its attempts to capture this mass movement, the party formed
only a small minority within the CND.28
The Labour left regarded the international situation of the late 1950s as the
verification of its arguments of the late 1940s. Without mentioning NATO, but
with major implications for Britain’s role within it, it revitalized the “third
force” proposals of the late 1940s, in which social security and international
security were inextricably linked.29 Part of the CND’s foreign policy agenda
was, therefore, the last glimmer of the ideas of the traditional Labour left,
developed during World War II and most prominently discussed in 1946–47
under completely different international circumstances. CND’s short-lived
triumph within the Labour Party was the success of a unilateralist motion at the
Party’s 1960 annual conference. This group’s opponents within the Labour Party
were the Atlanticist Labour politicians who were active in the Bilderberg Group
and who supported the journal Encounter.30
As in the late 1940s, Labour left politicians involved in the CND warned of
US hegemony and the dangers to British sovereignty stemming from it: the
apparent dependence of British foreign and defense policy and strategy con-
firmed their worst fears about the dangers flowing from an Atlanticist foreign
136 Holger Nehring
policy. Members of this group not only resented the hegemony of the capitalist
United States in the West, they also feared a resurgent (West) Germany, pos-
sibly equipped with nuclear weapons, within a NATO framework.
Positively, they envisioned Britain as a third force in world politics, a crucial
mediator between the Eastern and Western blocs. Grouped around this new
Britain would be the former colonies, ideologically united within a socialist
commonwealth that would avoid the Soviet Union’s sins but could, at the same
time, benefit from the advantages of planning for a fair and just society. Britain
would maintain its greatness through its ideological mission, rather than through
nuclear weapons.31 Support for the disengagement proposals, and the contact of
Labour left politicians to officials from the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
and the Soviet Union, were the practical side of the coin.32
The other group within the British movement that regarded foreign and social
policies as inextricably linked, and that came to dominate during the CND’s
second phase, was the New Left.33 New-left ideas were most prominent from the
early 1960s onwards, particularly after the defeat of unilateralist motions at the
1961 Labour Party conference. New Left activists only rarely employed foreign-
political and strategic arguments against Britain’s NATO membership alone. For
the New Left’s supporters, NATO was, first and foremost, the expression of a
specific political, social, and economic ideology. NATO’s ideology, they
believed, emphasized apathy and consumption rather than active participation in
public life. The Western alliance was the symbol of this “Natopolitan ideology”
and the post-World War II liberal consensus in the West.34
For new-left activists, British membership in NATO endangered Britain’s
national security needs. They regarded the alliance as the expression of the divi-
sion of the world into two camps, a situation that contained “within [it] the
threat to man’s peaceful advance, indeed to man’s future existence,” and thus
endangered the very security and the humane character of the nation it was sup-
posed to protect.35 If the Cold War continued, by contrast, “the half-frozen
antagonists” would become “more sluggish in their reactions, more stupid in
their thoughts,” merely amassing destructive power for the maintenance of
power blocs and bases.36
The New Left assumed that the strategy of nuclear preparedness and the Cold
War itself, rather than merely Britain’s bombs, posed the ultimate danger. It
was, therefore, wrong for Britain to be part of an alliance that demanded to store
and manufacture bombs. Due to the logic of the Cold War, Britain had given up
any foreign policy flexibility, argued Stuart Hall in a CND pamphlet, prefiguring
later Gaullist arguments for French nuclear weapons: once Britain had accepted
the alliance’s premises, it was obliged to follow “every other dangerous twist in
the weapons race.”37 The failure of NATO to consider the Rapacki and Macmil-
lan plans for disengagement had illustrated how little could be done to move
towards peace “from a position well within an alliance which is committed to
the strategies of war.”38 The case against the bomb thus became a case against
all nuclear alliances and strategies and for a just and fair society at home.
New-left activists regarded Britain as the spearhead for “active neutrality” or
 Diverging perceptions of security 137
39
“positive neutralism.” In contrast to what they saw as the merely “passive”
neutrality of Sweden and Switzerland, this kind of active neutrality was the
“reverse of isolationism.” Active neutrality would entail an active and “indeed
aggressive” foreign policy that was aimed at relaxing East–West tensions,
dismantling the military blocs, and resuming “economic, political and cultural
intercourse between the Communist and non-communist world.” It would lead
to the “elaboration of details of a possible diplomatic détente and the affirmation
of a community of human aspiration at levels deeper than diplomacy.”40
Only if ground broke away from under the feet of the two camps, the new
leftists argued, could the United States and the Soviet Union be brought to talk
to each other. It would, they believed, have an extraordinary effect if one NATO
power contracted out of the Cold War. Such action would also lead to the col-
lapse of the deadlock in disarmament negotiations and free socialist movements
across Europe, and it would send the death-knell to the Stalinism of the French
Communist Party.41 They believed that only Britain, through its traditional ties
to the Commonwealth and due to the strength of the labor movement there, had
the strength to pursue such a policy.42
The New Left’s argument of a national and independent policy of peace came
to dominate CND publications from 1960 onwards. For the majority of sup-
porters, however, national security seemed to have been achieved with the
peaceful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis and the advent of the Limited
Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Due to Britain’s relative flexibility in foreign policy
matters, the government and the Labour Party managed to re-integrate the
majority of protesters into the political mainstream by suggesting successfully
that their policies reflected the national interest.

West Germany: campaigning for survival

Due to West Germany’s semi-sovereign status as a “penetrated system,”43 the
West German government was not as flexible as its British counterpart when
facing the protesters. The fluctuations in US declaratory national security doc-
trines were especially troublesome for the Federal Republic. The West German
state was, due to it semi-sovereign status and its location on the frontline of the
Cold War in Europe, much more dependent on the support of the United States
than Britain and France were.44 The West German government was thus unable
to create the impression of an independent national security policy, particularly
because Adenauer’s “policy of strength” towards the Eastern bloc was running
into trouble at exactly the same time. The West German protests, therefore,
remained far more radical at a time when the British campaign had already
begun to decline, although the West German campaigners expressed far less
radical ideas than their British counterparts.
In contrast to the British campaign, the overwhelming majority of West
German anti-nuclear weapons protesters both within the Campaign against
Atomic Death and within the Easter Marches saw the Federal Republic politic-
ally as part of the West. They questioned, however, the military and political
138 Holger Nehring
components of NATO and the implications for West German security. Although
the GDR’s propaganda machine played no small role by publishing disengage-
ment plans in West Germany,45 a closer analysis shows that the West German
protests addressed the far more fundamental issue of national “security.” Unlike
British activists, and unlike communist propaganda, only very few West German
activists in the West German Easter Marches saw a link between foreign and
social policy.46 Not even national neutralist sentiments made it into the many
leaflets and pamphlets. These sentiments remained confined to either far-right or
far-left publications.47 Instead, the theme of national survival was, and remained,
central.48
The fundamental concern of the German movement was the reliability of US
protection, given that the Soviet Union now appeared to be able to hit the United
States with intercontinental missiles, and given that Germany was to become a
battlefield in a nuclear war. Like the West German Government, members of the
German movement feared that the United States would not risk Washington,
DC, or New York City for Berlin. Also, not unlike their government, they feared
that Germany would become a battlefield for a war fought with conventional or
tactical nuclear weapons.49 Behind these arguments loomed the experience of
destruction during World War II, as the gloomy name of the campaign “against
atomic death” reveals.50 They believed that their government endangered their
most fundamental security needs by following an alliance policy too closely. In
the eyes of the West German protesters, the Adenauer Government’s alliance
policy thus drastically reduced its legitimacy and its ability to protect its cit-
izens.
Nevertheless, most West German protesters did not fundamentally question
Adenauer’s policy of political integration into the West. Instead, they sought to
establish different foreign policy priorities. They referred to plans for military
disengagement in Central Europe as alternatives to the Adenauer government’s
policies for strengthening the Western alliance. The aim of these plans was to
lock Eastern and Western Europe into a geostrategic stalemate. George F.
Kennan’s proposals for neutralization, which he had voiced in the BBC’s Reith
lectures in late 1957 and which were published in Germany in 1958, were espe-
cially popular among West German activists.51
Even during the seemingly more radical second phase of the West German
movement, advocacy of programs that linked social and foreign policies
remained unpopular. None of the Easter March publications in the early and
mid-1960s ever suggested the Federal Republic’s political or military exit from
NATO, and many even warned against advocating a military disassociation
from the Western alliance. The Easter Marches continued to advocate disen-
gagement proposals and plans for a nuclear-free zone in Central Europe at a
time when the SPD had already abandoned such plans.52 The observation that
the defense of West Germany with nuclear weapons would bring about
Germany’s end continued to be their central argument.53
Even when West German protesters began to campaign for a worldwide end
to the arms race, they did not demand an end of “Natopolitan” ideology. West
 Diverging perceptions of security 139
German protesters did not regard NATO as the central problem of security.
They blamed the lack of progress towards a multilateral détente on the West
German Government. West German activists argued that the goal of rolling back
communism had remained the “lie” upon which Adenauer had constructed the
Federal Republic’s integration into NATO in 1955, while other Western govern-
ments had already advocated policies of détente. Unlike the Adenauer Govern-
ment, West German protesters argued, other governments took account of the
irrationality of war in the atomic age and of the apparent liberalization in the
Eastern bloc in the early 1960s.54 West German protesters thus echoed foreign
critics of Adenauer’s hard-line stance.55
Although the West German protests were less radical than those of their
British counterparts, the West German protesters’ emphasis on survival was
non-negotiable within the West German political system. It was this factor that
made the protests so resilient. The specific effects of the Cold War on West
German society reinforced the protesters’ radicalism. As the West German
activists advocated new politics that lay outside the parameters of the SPD, and
thus outside respectable non-communist politics, it proved difficult to reintegrate
them into the conventional framework of politics.56

France: Gaullism as the functional equivalent of social protests

The situation that presented itself in France was of an entirely different nature
than the situations in Britain and West Germany. The government in France
had, unlike that in Germany, the freedom and, unlike that in Britain, also the
will to disassociate itself from the security imperatives of the Western
alliance. In France, the extra-parliamentary movements made a very strong
connection between foreign and social policies, but they faced a government
that did the same and thus weakened the protest movements. President Charles
de Gaulle’s unilateral nuclear security policy formed the functional equivalent
of the anti-nuclear weapons protests in Britain and West Germany. The French
solution to NATO’s nuclear dilemmas consisted precisely of an independent
policy that relied on the creation of a nuclear force de frappe. The idea of a
force de frappe was not “invented” by de Gaulle. It can be traced back to the
attempts by governments in the Fourth Republic to reform NATO, invoke
Article 2, and bring other parts of the globe into NATO’s purview. But France
under President de Gaulle disassociated itself from NATO’s integrated
military structure.57
The specific political situation, combined with certain historical experiences,
meant that the French strategic nuclear force could become “a condensation
symbol for the political stabilization of the state, the economic and technological
modernization of French society, the maintenance of strong and effective
defence . . . and an independent and relatively autonomous role of France on the
world stage.”58 Therefore, the lack of a large-scale anti-nuclear weapons move-
ment in France, rather than the ideas of the small movements that existed, sheds
light on NATO’s crisis during the 1960s.59
140 Holger Nehring
As in Britain and West Germany, the years 1954–55 appear as the crucial
turning point. It was then that the socialist governments in France embarked on a
program to nuclearize France’s forces in order to strengthen its position within
the Atlantic alliance.60 What was new about de Gaulle’s stance was that he
sought to transcend the military straitjacket of that alliance. By 1958, all other
avenues of French assertion in the superpower conflict had led to nothing. There
had been the humiliating withdrawal from Indochina, the escalation of an
unwinnable colonial war in Algeria, the erosion of French influence within
NATO in the wake of the nuclearization of NATO strategy, France’s increas-
ingly inferior status vis-à-vis Britain, and the economic revival of the Federal
Republic.61
At the same time, in the mid-1950s, Britain’s example had demonstrated that
medium powers could develop their own deterrent.62 De Gaulle thus managed to
bind the ambiguities of the French state at home and French foreign policy
together in the development of an independent deterrent. For de Gaulle, there-
fore, the French nuclear program was essentially political.63 De Gaulle’s
approach of linking politics with military affairs thus bore a striking resemb-
lance to the structure of arguments advanced by the British and French New
Left, but it differed sharply from the purely stabilizing approach of the West
German protesters. Despite the SFIO’s initial disagreement, the French strategic
nuclear force had become the touchstone of the French foreign policy consensus
by 1969.64
The absence of a major anti-nuclear weapons movement in the early Fifth
Republic was primarily due to a foreign policy consensus that reached beyond
the political parties into French society, and thus seemed to make protests con-
nected to NATO’s nuclear dilemmas unnecessary. The “presidentialization” of
politics in the Fifth Republic, and the fact that, as a result, pressure group activ-
ity was organized almost exclusively by political parties, reinforced this consen-
sus. Moreover, opposition to France’s official defense policy had traditionally
meant taking up arms, rather than opposing armaments. Thus, for large segments
of both the Right and the Left in France, national legitimacy had gradually come
to be seen as being guaranteed by armed forces. Moreover, “pacifism” in France
was crucially connected with the ambiguous heritage of appeasement, the rather
infamous reputation of allowing German dominance on the Continent, and, even
more strongly than in the Federal Republic, the accusation of communist
subversion.65
Conversely, the Bomb could be seen in France as a way of avoiding not only
any future war and invasion, but also any future defeat. It could be sold to the
French public as a means of preventing war and combat, and of protecting
French territory. It thus helped to put memories of foreign occupation to rest. De
Gaulle’s military (albeit not political) disassociation from NATO, which
stressed that independence meant security, was therefore easy to communicate.
De Gaulle’s calls for the dissolution of the blocs even echoed the demands of the
nouvelle gauche from a different perspective and also the demands of anti-
nuclear weapons movements in other countries. While the possession of nuclear
 Diverging perceptions of security 141
weapons was associated with death and destruction in the Federal Republic, in
France it could thus signify peace and stability.66
Most of the energies of more mainstream peace protests were taken up by the
protests against the war in Algeria, a war on which the French Communist
Party’s line was highly ambiguous. The only French movement against nuclear
weapons comparable to those in Britain and West Germany was Claude
Bourdet’s non-violent peace campaign linked to the French nouvelle gauche.
The formative moment for the French New Left was the Algerian war which, for
many on the left, appeared to have revealed the SFIO’s and the PCF’s bank-
ruptcy.67
The nouvelle gauche debated policies very similar to those of the British New
Left, attempting to establish a European socialist alliance that went beyond the
Cold War. Yet until 1963–64, the French movement never assumed an appeal
similar to that of its West German and British counterparts. After 1963–64,
however, the issue of nuclear weapons remained salient in French politics at a
time when it had gone out of focus in Britain and West Germany.68 When debat-
ing foreign policy, protesters also fought about different concepts of France. It
was this feature that made the French protests more challenging for the govern-
ment from early on. The specific character of the French debate was that protest-
ers and governments argued within the same frame of reference, seeing social
and foreign policies as inextricably linked. Here, de Gaulle’s decidedly Western
ideological stance clashed with those new leftists who advocated policies of a
third and socialist camp. In a way, France’s disassociation from NATO’s mili-
tary command structure may have been less important for the coherence of the
Western bloc than it seemed to be at the time, as the West’s ideological coher-
ence had been preserved. 69

Conclusion
This analysis has repercussions for our understanding of NATO’s crisis of the
1960s. It re-emphasizes the polycentrism of the debate at the time, not only with
regard to governmental positions, but also with regard to the positions of social
actors. Moreover, the analysis of the observations of these social actors suggests
a novel emphasis for the debates on NATO history in the context of détente. It
highlights the very different concepts of détente within the different societies,
resulting in very different responses to NATO during this decade. While protest-
ers in all countries regarded the crisis of NATO as severe, only a vocal minority
amongst the protesters in Britain and France wanted to divorce their countries
militarily and politically from NATO. For the majority of protesters in Britain
and West Germany, NATO’s problems moved out of sight with the conclusion
of the Limited Test Ban Treaty. A younger generation of protesters in both
countries now began to focus on the conflict in Vietnam.
Neither the international situation nor social conditions at home can be
singled out as the dominant factors influencing the movements. The debates
reflected the ways in which the three movements conceptualized issues of
142 Holger Nehring
international security as domestic social problems. The fragile international situ-
ation acted as a prompt, but the movements’ responses were more than mere
reflections of the international strategic balance and international problems.
They depended on the very specific domestic political conditions, and they were
based on national experiences and memories.
The degree to which the protesters framed these issues as national problems
is remarkable. Initially, the British protesters campaigned for British unilateral
disarmament. From 1960 onwards, there were calls from within the movement
that Britain leave NATO as part of this unilateral policy. The West German pro-
testers were equally worried about nuclear tests and US nuclear weapons in the
Federal Republic, but they campaigned primarily for the abandonment of plans
put forward by the Adenauer Government to equip the German army with
nuclear-capable equipment. Only from the mid-1960s on did the West German
movement become increasingly concerned with worldwide disarmament. In
France, extra-parliamentary protests were either linked to the PCF’s political
goals, or they emphasized the overcoming of the Cold War and thus the dissolu-
tion of NATO by means of a socialist foreign policy.
The contemporaneous occurrence of national concerns about NATO’s
nuclear weapons policies in the three countries highlights the fundamental
dilemma of the Atlantic alliance: it brought nations together whose conceptions
of national security and diplomacy differed.70 The arguments that the three
movements put forward were grounded in the diverging perceptions of security
within the Western alliance even before the NATO crisis in the mid-1960s. The
protests thus prefigured the debates among NATO members in the 1960s,
albeit with different arguments. For the protesters, NATO’s nuclearization
did not contribute to guaranteeing a “long peace,”71 but rather to “organized
peacelessness.”72
The size, strength, and degree of radicalism of the movements thus depended
on how well the protesters perceived their governments as representing these
national conceptions of security and diplomacy. This was the main reason why
the protests in France were subdued, in comparison with those in Britain and
West Germany. As the French Government under de Gaulle already addressed
the dilemmas stemming from the nuclearization of NATO in a way that could
command a broad consensus within French politics, and as de Gaulle linked
social and foreign policy, French protests were submerged within the govern-
ment’s position on international security. The majority of French foreign policy
protests had to do with Algeria, rather than with nuclear weapons issues.
Due to its specific position within NATO, the government of semi-sovereign
West Germany, by contrast, had to follow US prescriptions more closely than
the other allies. Protests in Germany were therefore more radical and stronger
than in the other countries. As Britain followed a policy of “independence in
concert,” the majority of British protesters could be re-integrated into the con-
ventional channels of the political system: the British government managed to
maintain the image of acting in what protesters regarded as the “national
interest.”
 Diverging perceptions of security 143
The root for the emergence of these diverging perceptions of security in the
NATO countries lay in the period after the geopolitical stabilization of the Euro-
pean Cold War after the 1955 Geneva Summit. This period saw the nucleariza-
tion of NATO strategy by the United States at a time when many national
governments, particularly the West German one, still focused on conventional
armaments. The decline in credibility of US nuclear defense for Europe in the
wake of the Suez crisis, and of the Soviet development of intercontinental
missile capabilities, further contributed to the perception in West European soci-
eties that the security needs of Europe and the United States were different.
An emphasis on the different security needs within NATO as the underlying
reason for NATO’s crisis opens up room for a different set of questions about
international relations during this period. These questions would address the
reasons why these issues were discussed openly by the British and West German
governments only in the early 1960s, rather than in the late 1950s. West
Germany’s lack of full sovereignty and Britain’s close ties with the United
States can explain a part, but not the whole, of the story. The period between
1958 and 1963, which is conventionally seen as one of transition that led to the
construction of peace in Europe, may then, perhaps, appear as one that delayed,
rather than accelerated, the progress towards a European settlement.73

Notes
1 David N. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC: Brookings Institu-
tion, 1983).
2 See for a similar approach Eckart Conze, “Staatsräson und nationale Interessen: Die
‘Atlantiker-Gaullisten’-Debatte in der westdeutschen Politik- und Gesellschafts-
geschichte der 1960er Jahre,” in Deutschland, Großbritannien, Amerika: Politik,
Gesellschaft und Internationale Geschichte im 20. Jahrhundert; Festschrift für
Gustav Schmidt zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ursula Lehmkuhl, Clemens A. Wurm, and
Hubert Zimmermann (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2003), pp. 197–226.
3 The term “ambiguity” is taken from John Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence: British
Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), especially pp. 4–5.
4 On the more general background, see Hans Braun, “Das Streben nach ‘Sicherheit’ in
den 50er Jahren: Soziale und politische Ursachen und Erscheinungsweisen, ” Archiv
für Sozialgeschichte 18 (1978), pp. 279–306 and Eckart Conze, “Sicherheit als
Kultur. Überlegungen zu einer ‘modernen Politikgeschichte’ der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland, ” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 53, no. 3 (2005), pp. 357–80.
5 Andreas Wenger and Jeremi Suri, “At the Crossroads of Diplomatic and Social
History: The Nuclear Revolution, Dissent and Détente,” Cold War History 1, no. 3
(April 2001), pp. 1–42; Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the
Rise of Détente (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).
6 For the 1980s, see, for example, William K. Domke, Richard C. Eichenberg, and
Catherine M. Kelleher, “Consensus Lost? Domestic Politics and the ‘Crisis’ in
NATO,” World Politics 39, no. 3 (1987), pp. 382–407; Jeffrey Herf, War by other
Means: Soviet Power, West German Resistance, and the Battle of the Euromissiles
(New York: Free Press, 1991).
7 Niklas Luhmann, Ecological Communication (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), pp.
15–21.
8 This follows Gustav Schmidt, “Strukturen des ‘Kalten Krieges’ im Wandel,” in
144 Holger Nehring
Vojtech Mastny and Gustav Schmidt, Konfrontationsmuster des Kalten Krieges,
1946–1956 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003), pp. 1–380, here p. 9.
9 See Saki Dockrill and Günter Bischof, “Geneva: The Fleeting Opportunity for
Détente,” in Cold War Respite: The Geneva Summit of 1955, ed. Saki Dockrill and
Günter Bischof (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), pp. 1–20.
10 See Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settle-
ment, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
11 Schmidt, “Strukturen des ‘Kalten Krieges,’” pp. 375–80; Robert E. Osgood, NATO:
The Entangling Alliance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 189.
12 Andreas Wenger, Living with Peril: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nuclear Weapons
(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), pp. 248, 319–22.
13 Ibid., p. 85.
14 On the emergence of that consensus, see Jost Dülffer, Im Zeichen der Gewalt:
Frieden und Krieg im 20. Jahrhundert (Cologne: Böhlau, 2003), pp. 219–37. On the
implications for the division of Germany, see Helga Haftendorn, Sicherheit und
Entspannung: Zur Außenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1955–1982
(Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1986), pp. 30–1, 66–7.
15 On the concept of “framing,” see Mayer N. Zald, “Culture, Ideology and Strategic
Framing,” in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportun-
ities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, ed. Doug McAdam, John D.
McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp.
261–74.
16 Richard Taylor, Against the Bomb: The British Peace Movement, 1958–1965
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
17 Hans Karl Rupp, Außerparlamentarische Opposition in der Ära Adenauer: Der
Kampf gegen die Atombewaffnung in den fünziger Jahren; Eine Studie zur innenpoli-
tischen Entwicklung der Bundesrepublik (Cologne: Pahl Rugenstein, 1984); Karl A.
Otto, Vom Ostermarsch zur APO: Geschichte der ausserparlamentarischen Opposi-
tion in der Bundesrepublik, 1960–1970 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1982); Mark
Cioc, Pax Atomica: The Nuclear Defense Debate in West Germany During the Ade-
nauer Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
18 “Manifestations dans plusieurs villes,” Le Monde, 19 November 1963; “Contre ‘la
force de frappe’,” Le Monde, 11 November 1963; Beatrice Heuser, Nuclear Mentali-
ties? Strategies and Beliefs in Britain, France and the FRG (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1999), p. 93.
19 Sudhir Hazareesingh, Political Traditions in Modern France (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1994), pp. 178–206; Jolyon Howorth, France: The Politics of Peace
(London: Merlin, 1984); David Hanley, “The Parties and the Nuclear Consensus,” in
Defence and Dissent in Contemporary France, ed. Jolyon Howorth and Patricia
Chilton (London: Croom Helm, 1984), pp. 75–93.
20 Wilfried Loth, “Blockbildung und Entspannung: Strukturen des Ost-West-Konflikts,
1953–1956,” in Zwischen Kaltem Krieg und Entspannung: Sicherheits- und Deutsch-
landpolitik der Bundesrepublik im Mächtesystem der Jahre 1953–1956, ed. Bruno
Thoß and Hans-Erich Volkmann (Boppard: Boldt, 1988), pp. 9–23; Michael R.
Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963 (New York:
Edward Burlingame, 1991).
21 Lawrence Freedman, Martin Navias, and Nicolas Wheeler, Independence in Concert:
The British Rationale for Possessing Strategic Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear History
Project: Occasional Papers 5 (College Park: Center for International Security Studies,
School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland, 1989), especially p. 4.
22 Ian Clark and Nicolas J. Wheeler, The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy,
1945–1955 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Lawrence Freedman, Britain and
Nuclear Weapons (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1980). Jan Melissen high-
lights the political (in contrast to the military) importance of nuclear weapons in his
 Diverging perceptions of security 145
Nuclear Weapons and British Strategic Planning, 1955–1958 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1991). See the rather negative assessment by Nigel Ashton, Kennedy, Macmil-
lan and the Cold War: The Irony of Interdependence (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2002).
23 Mark Phythian, “CND’s Cold War,” Contemporary British History 15, no. 3 (2001),
pp. 133–56.
24 Cmnd. 124: Defence: Outline of Future Policy (London: HMSO, 1957).
25 Taylor, Against the Bomb, p. 25.
26 Saki Dockrill, “The Eden Plan and European Security,” in Cold War Respite, pp.
161–89.
27 See Wayland Young, Strategy for Survival: First Steps in Nuclear Disarmament
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959); M. Saeter, “Nuclear Disengagement Efforts,
1955–80: Politics of Status Quo or Political Change?” in Nuclear Disengagement in
Europe, ed. Sverre Lodgaard and Mark Thee (London and New York: Taylor and
Francis, 1983), pp. 53–69.
28 See John Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The CPGB, 1951–68 (London:
Lawrence and Wishart, 2003), pp. 145–9.
29 Jonathan Schneer, “Hopes Deferred or Shattered: The British Labour Left and the
Third Force Movement, 1945–49,” Journal of Modern History 56, no. 1 (1984), pp.
197–226.
30 Lawrence Black, “‘The Bitterest Enemies of Communism’: Labour Revisionists,
Atlanticism and the Cold War,” Contemporary British History 15, no. 3 (2001), pp.
26–62; Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune?
(London: Frank Cass, 2003), especially Chapters 2 and 7.
31 Meredith Veldman, Fantasy, the Bomb and the Greening of Britain: Romantic
Protest, 1945–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 139–45.
32 J. B. Priestley, “Britain and the Nuclear Bombs,” New Statesman 54 (2 November
1957), pp. 554–6; Stefan Berger and Darren Lilleker, “The British Labour Party and
the German Democratic Republic During the Era of Non-Recognition, 1949–1973,”
Historical Journal 45, no. 2 (2002), pp. 433–58.
33 For an overview of their ideas, see Michael Kenny, The First New Left: British Intel-
lectuals after Stalin (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1995), pp. 168–96. For good
examples, see Edward P. Thompson, “Revolution,” New Left Review 3 (1960), pp.
3–9.
34 John Rex and Peter Worsley, “Campaign for a Foreign Policy,” New Left Review 4
(1960), pp. 49–62. On the emergence of this consensus, see Martin Conway, “The
Rise and Fall of Western Europe’s Democratic Age, 1945–1973,” Contemporary
European History 13, no. 1 (2004), pp. 67–88.
35 “The New Left: General Statement Adopted by a Joint Meeting of the Editorial
Boards of the New Reasoner and the Universities and Left Review on Sunday, 26
April 1959,” Brynmore Jones Library, University of Hull, UK (BJL), John Saville
papers, JS-112.
36 Edward P. Thompson, “Active neutrality,” manuscript, n.d., c.1959, BJL, JS-109;
Peter Worsley, “Imperial retreat,” in Out of Apathy, ed. Edward P. Thompson
(London: New Left Books, 1960), pp. 101–40.
37 Stuart Hall, “N.A.T.O. and the Alliances,” CND pamphlet, n.d., c.1961, p. 4; John
Gittings and Richard Gott, “Nato’s final decade,” London Region CND pamphlet,
1964, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK (MRC), MSS
181–4 CND, pp. 2, 13, 23.
38 Hall, “N.A.T.O. and the Alliances,” p. 5.
39 Michael Barratt Brown, “Third World or Third Force?” New Left Review 20 (1963),
pp. 32–6.
40 Thompson, “Active neutrality;” CND April Notes, 1965, MRC, MSS 181–4.
41 Thompson to Saville, 9 November 1957, BJL, JS-109.
146 Holger Nehring
42 Peace News, 11 April 1958, p. 8; Edward P. Thompson, “Outside the Whale,” in Out
of Apathy, pp. 141–94, here pp. 178, 186.
43 James N. Rosenau, “Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in Approaches to
Comparative and International Politics, ed. R. Barry Farrell (Evanston: Northwestern
University Press, 1966), p. 65; Wolfram Hanrieder, “Compatibility and Consensus: A
Proposal for the Conceptual Linkage of External and Internal Dimensions of Foreign
Policy,” American Political Science Review 61, no. 3 (1967), pp. 971–82
44 Timothy Ireland, “Building NATO’s Nuclear Posture, 1950–65,” in The Nuclear Con-
frontation in Europe, ed. Jeffrey D. Boutwell, Paul Doty, and Gregory F. Treverton.
(London: Croom Helm, 1985), pp. 5–43; Uwe Nerlich, “Die nuklearen Dilemmas der
Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Europa Archiv 20 (1965), pp. 637–52; Peter Fischer,
“Die Reaktion der Bundesregierung auf die Nuklearisierung der westlichen Verteidi-
gung, 1952–1958,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 52, no. 1 (1993), pp. 105–32.
45 See, as one of the many examples, Sicherungsgruppe des BKA (Dr. Brücker) to Inte-
rior Minister, Dept. VI A 3, 24 April 1958, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Germany (BAK),
B106/16053.
46 Arnold Sywottek, “Die Opposition der SPD und der KPD gegen die westdeutsche
Aufrüstung in der Tradition sozialdemokratischer und kommunistischer Friedenspoli-
tik seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg,” in Frieden, Gewalt, Sozialismus: Studien zur
Geschichte der sozialistischen Arbeiterbewegung, ed. Wolfgang Huber and Johannes
Schwerdtfeger (Stuttgart: Klett, 1976), pp. 496–610.
47 Alexander Gallus, Die Neutralisten: Verfechter eines vereinten Deutschlands zwis-
chen Ost und West, 1945–1990 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2001), Chapters 6 and 7.
48 For parallels in Japan, see John Whittier Treat, Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Liter-
ature and the Atomic Bomb (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
49 For the similarities with the position within the West German military, see Christian
Greiner, Klaus A. Maier, and Heinz Rebhan, Die NATO als Militärallianz: Strategie,
Organisation und nukleare Kontrolle im Bündnis, 1949 bis 1959 (Munich: R. Olden-
bourg, 2003).
50 Michael Geyer, “Cold War Angst: The Case of the West-German Opposition to Rear-
mament and Nuclear Weapons,” in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West
Germany, 1949–1969, ed. Hanna Schissler (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2001), pp. 376–408; Holger Nehring, “Cold War, Apocalypse and Peaceful Atoms:
Interpretations of Nuclear Energy in the British and West German Anti-Nuclear-
Weapons Movements, 1955–1964,” Historical Social Research 29, no. 3 (2004), pp.
150–70.
51 See George F. Kennan, Russia, the Atom, and the West (London: Oxford University
Press, 1958); “Kennan gegen Atomwaffen für den Kontinent,” Frankfurter Allge-
meine Zeitung, 3 December 1957; Hartmut Soell, Helmut Schmidt: Vernunft und Lei-
denschaft (Munich: DVA, 2003), pp. 311–58; “Das Selbstverständnis von
Friedenskämpfern,” neue kritik, January 1961, p. 22; “Gegen Atomwaffen in Ost und
West,” neue kritik, May 1961, pp. 31–2.
52 See Soell, Helmut Schmidt, pp. 333–62, 473–85; Hartmut Soell, Fritz Erler, Eine
politische Biographie, vol. 1 (Berlin and Bonn: Dietz, 1976), pp. 337–489.
53 See, for example, Helmut Gollwitzer, “Ostermarschrede ’64,” BAK, ZSg. 1/262–1;
Heinz Kraschutzki, “Koexistenz oder No-Existenz,” Friedensrundschau 12, no. 3
(1958), pp. 3–5.
54 Arno Klönne, “Zur Situation der Europa- und Deutschlandpolitik,” Informationen zur
Abrüstung, no. 38/39 (September/October 1966), BAK, ZSg. 1–262/3, p. 5.
55 Catherine McArdle Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1975), pp. 270–81; Beatrice Heuser, “Stalin as
Hitler’s Successor: Western Interpretations of the Soviet Threat,” in Securing Peace
in Europe, 1945–1962: Thoughts for the Post-Cold War Era, ed. Beatrice Heuser and
Robert O’Neill (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 17–40.
 Diverging perceptions of security 147
56 Rolf Elker, ed., Beiträge zur Geschichte des SDS (Berlin: Asta FU Berlin, 1987), p.
45.
57 Frédéric Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and the
Atlantic Alliance (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001); Frédéric Bozo, “Détente
versus Alliance: France, the United States and the Politics of the Harmel Report,
1964–1968,” Contemporary European History 17, no. 3 (1998), pp. 343–60; Beatrice
Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for
Europe, 1949–2000 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 93–123.
58 Wolf Mendl, Deterrence and Persuasion: French Nuclear Armament in the Context
of National Policy, 1945–1969 (London: Faber, 1970), p. 81; Michael M. Harrison,
The Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity Press, 1981), Chapters 1 and 2; Gérard Bossuat, “France and the Leadership of
the West in the 1950s,” in Securing Peace in Europe, ed. Heuser and O’Neill, pp.
105–24; Maurice Vaïsse, “Le Choix atomique de la France, 1945–1958,” Vingtième
Siècle 36, no. 1 (1992), pp. 21–30.
59 On public support for French nuclear weapons in the late 1950s, see Heuser, Nuclear
Mentalities? p. 140; Philippe Engamarre, “Les partis politiques français face à la
bombe atomique,” Revue de la Defence Nationale 43, no. 2 (February 1987), pp. 42.
60 Mendl, Deterrence and Persuasion, pp. 95–101.
61 On the importance of containing German strength, see Heuser, Nuclear mentalities?
pp. 109–15; Mendl, Deterrence and Persuasion, p. 35.
62 Mendl, Deterrence and Persuasion, pp. 39–48.
63 Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilat-
eralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (Winter
2004), pp. 22–74, here p. 30.
64 La force de frappe, special edition of L’Esprit 31/32 (December 1963); Jules Moch,
“A propos de la force de frappe,” Revue socialiste 162 (April 1963), pp. 337–48;
Lionel de Tinguy, “A propos de l’atome,” Forum France 47 (March 1963), pp.
10–15; Philip G. Cerny, “Gaullism, Nuclear Weapons and the State,” in Defence and
Dissent in Contemporary France, ed. Jolyon Howorth and Patricia Chilton (London:
Croom Helm, 1984), pp. 46–74, here p. 51.
65 Howorth, Politics of Peace, pp. 15, 22.
66 On a contemporary assessment of the advantages that nuclear weapons brought, see
Robert J. Lieber, “The French Nuclear Force: A Strategic and Political Evaluation,”
International Affairs 42, no. 3 (1966), p. 428. On the general background, see Philip
G. Cerny, Politics of Grandeur: Ideological Aspects of de Gaulle’s Foreign Policy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
67 Sudhir Hazareesingh, Intellectuals and the French Communist Party: Disillusion and
Decline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), esp. pp. 138–40.
68 This is the argument in Beatrice Heuser, Nuclear mentalities? p. 93.
69 Heuser, Nuclear mentalities? pp. 120–6; and the chapter by Jeremi Suri in the same
volume.
70 On the specificity of US traditions of diplomacy, see Frederik Logevall, “A Critique
of Containment,” Diplomatic History 28, no. 4 (2004), pp. 473–99.
71 Gaddis admits, however, that his use means stretching the meaning of “peace” a bit:
John Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 216, 245.
72 This term comes from Dieter Senghaas, Abschreckung und Frieden: Studien zur
Kritik organisierter Friedlosigkeit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1969).
73 This would be an alternative reading to that by Trachtenberg, Constructed Peace, pp.
352, 398, and by Andreas Wenger, “Der lange Weg zur Stabilität: Kennedy,
Chrutschow und das gemeinsame Interesse der Supermächte am Status quo in
Europa,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 46, no. 1 (1998), pp. 69–99.
9 From hardware to software
The end of the MLF and the rise of the
Nuclear Planning Group
Andrew Priest

Introduction
The history of the multilateral nuclear force (MLF) and plans for nuclear “hard-
ware” sharing in NATO has been covered in great detail by scholars in recent
years.1 Many different aspects have been explored, including the plans for
alternative forms of nuclear sharing in the mid-1960s. However, far less atten-
tion has been paid to the development of what became the NATO Nuclear Plan-
ning Group (NPG), the “software” solution to the nuclear “hardware” issue in
Europe.
This chapter examines the relationship between plans for a nuclear hardware
sharing agreement and the evolution of the Nuclear Planning Group. Specifi-
cally, it explores US President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision at the end of 1964
to change the course of American NATO policy and not to press for a quick
solution to the nuclear sharing problem, either in the form of the MLF or any
other US-led venture. But it also shows how continued pressure from members
of the State Department and the West German Government to create the MLF,
or some other form of hardware sharing, encouraged US Secretary of Defense
Robert S. McNamara to suggest that consultation on nuclear matters between
allies would be a more appropriate measure for the alliance. Advocates of
nuclear hardware sharing believed that allied, and specifically German, partici-
pation in the nuclear affairs of the alliance was essential, and the only way to do
this was to make the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) a member of a joint
NATO nuclear force. Yet as this view became less popular within the US
administration and NATO, so other concerns began to dominate US thinking as
regards nuclear affairs, and McNamara was able to press ahead with his scheme
for a permanent NATO body to consult on nuclear matters.
Therefore, this episode provides a wider perspective on US relations with
Europe during the Johnson administration.2 The NPG proved to be both a sensi-
ble and successful alternative to the MLF, and one that has endured. In contrast,
the MLF was fraught with difficulties. It was a logistically complex and poten-
tially expensive proposal for all countries that agreed to participate, and many in
Europe feared that these difficulties were not offset by the possible benefits of
nuclear ownership and control. In particular, the issue of the control of nuclear
 From hardware to software 149
warheads in times of peace and war remained hugely contentious and problem-
atic. The US Government was unwilling to cede control to the Germans, fearing
that this would antagonize so many in Europe and, especially, in the USSR.
In contrast, the NPG offered the Germans an opportunity to participate in the
nuclear affairs of the alliance without providing them with nuclear hardware,
which antagonized the Soviets so much. In the mid-1960s, as the United States
and the USSR attempted to broker a non-proliferation treaty (NPT), the MLF
remained an outstanding issue. While the United States wanted to increase the
role of the Federal Republic of Germany in NATO, the Soviets objected to a
NPT that did not explicitly exclude the possibility of a MLF. The development
of the NPG allowed the Johnson administration to advance its policy in the areas
of nuclear sharing and non-proliferation simultaneously, thus making progress
on the NPT. Therefore, the entire MLF-NPG process at this time provides
insights into both relations between the United States and Europe, and also,
more specifically, the management of German–Soviet relations. It sheds light on
developing relations between the United States and Europe at this time, standing
in contrast to tensions that developed over the US war in Vietnam. This episode
also demonstrates some of the internal dynamics of the Johnson administration’s
dealings with Europe and NATO.

NATO and nuclear sharing

Plans for a NATO multilateral nuclear force originated at the end of the Eisen-
hower administration. The main advocates of a MLF were a group of State
Department officials who believed that the dangers of a shortfall in medium-
range ballistic missiles in Europe, as well as West German interest in the nuclear
affairs of the alliance, could both be dealt with by sharing nuclear hardware in a
new military force to be assigned to NATO. This idea became much more
clearly developed during the early part of John F. Kennedy’s administration, and
the new president made a statement endorsing a multilateral force approach to
NATO nuclear affairs only months after taking office.3 By the time a meeting
between Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan took place at
Nassau in December 1962, the basic features of the MLF were well established.
The MLF would be a naval fleet of some 25 surface ships, nuclear armed, most
probably with Polaris A3 missiles, to be manned, owned, and “controlled” by
various subscribing nations. By this time it was clear that the MLF policy was
being driven by a group of State Department officials (sometimes called the
“theologians”), who saw the MLF as a way to bind West Germany into the
alliance and give non-nuclear nations a role, thus encouraging stability in
Europe.
Despite some interest in establishing the MLF, particularly in West Germany,
much European opposition existed.4 French President Charles de Gaulle rejected
the proposal in January 1963 (simultaneously vetoing the British application to
join the European Economic Community) and continued to develop an
independent nuclear force for France. De Gaulle was convinced that relying
150 Andrew Priest
predominantly on the United States for the supply and control of nuclear
weapons was not in France’s interests, and although the British had tentatively
explored the idea of bilaterally sharing nuclear information with the French, this
had amounted to little. De Gaulle was also dissatisfied that the Nassau confer-
ence had been convened with little or no attention paid to France.5
Moreover, other key NATO nations, such as Britain and Italy, remained
ambivalent. With Britain now promised US Polaris missiles of its own following
the 1962 Nassau conference, there were few military reasons to sign up to a
jointly owned and controlled force that would result in more costs and no dis-
cernible extra benefits. And although Italy was becoming increasingly interested
in alliance nuclear affairs, the Italian Government’s attitude towards a MLF was
one of “qualified endorsement” in the first months of 1963,6 although the issue
of how much control nations other than the United States (which would have
retained a veto, at least for the first few years) would have remained the most
contentious. Even in West Germany itself, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
expressed doubts during his final months in office. Kennedy therefore only cau-
tiously endorsed the MLF throughout the last year of his presidency and had
begun to reassess his attitude towards it by the summer of 1963.7
Yet many in Kennedy’s State Department remained wedded to the nuclear
sharing idea and, after Kennedy’s death, they placed pressure on new president
Johnson to press forward. Johnson initially supported their position and made
positive statements on the MLF in April 1964, and also in June 1964, when he
met with new West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard.8 However, when
Johnson examined the MLF proposals in detail at the end of 1964, with the
prospect of agreeing to a MLF charter with other NATO nations early in 1965,
he found them wanting. He saw that the US congress was opposed to a MLF and
that expending substantial political capital on it was unwise, when he required
that so much congressional attention be paid to his ambitious domestic political
program. Johnson also recognized that the considerable opposition in Europe
would make it difficult to broker an agreement in NATO, in the short-term, at
least. In particular, he came to understand the position of the new British Prime
Minister Harold Wilson, with whom he was to meet in December.9
Wilson’s presentation of alternative proposals for a force that combined
various existing nuclear and non-nuclear forces and integrated a mixed-manned
element into what became known as the Atlantic nuclear force (ANF) further
convinced Johnson that a MLF should not be pressed on the Europeans.
Wilson’s motivations in proposing the ANF are suspect. Wilson himself claimed
that the ANF proposal was designed to kill the MLF. Yet more recently, some
historians have suggested that his aims were more complex and that the ANF
was a genuine contribution to the nuclear sharing debate and was intended as a
realistic proposal.10
Wilson’s contribution and Johnson’s growing skepticism led directly to the
president issuing national security action memorandum (NSAM) 322 in Decem-
ber 1964 in which he expressly directed the secretary of state and secretary of
defense not to press specific nuclear sharing formulas on US allies.11 Despite
 From hardware to software 151
this, in the weeks and months after this decision, the pressure for some kind of
nuclear sharing arrangement remained.12 The original purpose behind the MLF –
to contain German nuclear aspirations – had not changed substantially, and the
president remained steadfast in his belief that the Germans were central to
progress in the Cold War in Europe.13
With the MLF now a lesser priority for the United States and no new initi-
ative on the NATO agenda, plans for nuclear sharing were in a state of flux
during the first six months of 1965. This provided opportunities for State
Department supporters of nuclear sharing to continue with their campaign for
such a solution. This group was led by US Undersecretary of State George W.
Ball. A few weeks after the president had issued NSAM 322, Ball assured
Senator Thomas H. Kuchel (Republican, California) that the MLF had not been
dropped and that “this was a decision on our part” to bring the Europeans into
the nuclear arena without arousing the chagrin of President de Gaulle. He also
expressed continued interest in the British proposal for the Atlantic nuclear
force.14 Similarly, in April Ball met with the British ambassador in Washington,
Lord Harlech, and with British Permanent Representative to NATO Sir Evelyn
Shuckburgh and told them that the United States was still “very interested in the
political components of the ANF/MLF.”15
The German Government under Ludwig Erhard also remained deeply dissat-
isfied with Johnson’s new position on the MLF. This was partially because a
possible nuclear sharing arrangement had been part of US policy for so long, but
the Germans were also concerned that the British would not produce a satisfac-
tory solution to the nuclear sharing problem without some US pressure. More-
over, this was tied to German notions that US support for German reunification
was weakening.16 Before the elections in September 1965, however, Erhard was
anxious not to press the MLF issue too hard, for fear of stirring up opposition in
his own country.17

The nuclear planning group

In the middle of the year, another strand re-emerged from debates that had taken
place earlier in the decade.18 At the NATO ministers meeting, held from 31 May
to 1 June in Paris, Robert McNamara, according to British reports, “‘out of the
blue’ and apparently with no consultation of the State Department” suggested a
“defence ministers select committee” to consult on nuclear issues.19 The com-
mittee was, McNamara said, intended to improve allied communications, con-
sultation, and participation in conjunction with other measures. This proposal
was not entirely new – a consultation body for NATO had been discussed at the
Athens meeting in May 1962 – but this announcement substantially changed the
political complexion of the nuclear sharing issue.20
It is clear that McNamara believed the committee idea was a viable altern-
ative to the MLF, and although the way he circumvented consultation with other
departments before announcing the proposal might suggest that he did not want
to antagonize State Department members who still clung to some kind of
152 Andrew Priest
hardware solution, State Official John Leddy claimed that McNamara pressed
for the consultation in spite of protests from State Department colleagues.21 And
while initially McNamara was eager to assert that this new proposal was in no
way intended to cut across or replace the MLF–ANF discussions,22 he later
claimed that he had only introduced the idea when it was clear that the MLF
would fail, and with hindsight he acknowledged that he would have introduced
the concept much earlier, in order to draw Europeans into nuclear affairs.23
In Europe, neither the British nor the Germans fully recognized the implica-
tions of the consultative committee idea at this time, or embraced the concept.24
During a meeting with McNamara in London immediately after the Paris confer-
ence, British Secretary of State for Defense Denis Healey claimed that “in Paris
it became clear that our ANF idea was [the] front runner and the idea of switch-
ing its control to SACEUR [the Strategic Allied Commander Europe] was
gaining support.”25 The British Foreign Office reiterated its support for the ANF
later the same month in the British NATO Intermediate Review. “In the context
of their proposals for an Atlantic Nuclear Force HMG have signified their inten-
tion to commit their four atomic powered submarines, armed with Polaris mis-
siles, to NATO for the duration of the Alliance,” it said.26 The Germans also
remained cautious, suspecting that the new proposals might supersede the
MLF.27 Yet still Erhard had to play down talk of nuclear sharing in the run-up to
elections.28
MLF advocates objected to the consultation proposal for the very reason that
it would obviate the necessity of such a force. MLF advocate and NATO
Ambassador Thomas Finletter said he proposed “to recommend to Mr McNa-
mara to drop the whole idea of arranging these consultations in NATO and to
make such arrangements as he liked with individual Ministers of Defence.” This
suggestion by the NATO ambassador to essentially circumvent the North
Atlantic Council (NAC) as a forum for consultations suggests the degree to
which Finletter and others remained attached to the nuclear sharing option and
also indicates the threat that McNamara’s committee idea now posed to them.29
Key officials from the State Department also objected to McNamara’s proposals,
arguing that nuclear sharing still offered the best solution to the German
problem and that the British could use consultation as a bargaining chip to
prevent nuclear sharing from progressing.30
As soon as the elections in the Federal Republic were over in September and
Erhard had been returned as chancellor, however, nuclear sharing became more
important again.31 In a speech to the Bundestag on 10 November, Erhard stated:

We are thinking in terms of a joint nuclear organization, and we are partici-

pating in relevant deliberation with the allied powers. We have repeatedly
made known that we do not desire national control of nuclear weapons.32

The theologians also renewed their campaign for a hardware solution. At the
start of December, Chairman of the State Department Policy Planning Council
and MLF advocate Walt Whitman Rostow wrote to the president on the eve of a
 From hardware to software 153
visit by Harold Wilson to suggest that it would be in the interest of the United
States to get rid of Britain’s deterrent through some kind of hardware solution
and, once this had occurred, to draw a post-de Gaulle France in as well.33 Ball,
also galvanized by reports of Germany’s insistence on a MLF-type arrangement,
sent a memorandum to the president suggesting that Wilson be “drawn out” over
the assignment of Britain’s four Polaris submarines to NATO (which Wilson
had promised, regardless of whether the ANF came into being or not) and thus
give away Britain’s deterrent.34
State Department pressure was undoubtedly crucial to keeping alive West
German hopes of a hardware solution, but Bonn still insisted on being given an
opportunity to participate in a mixed-manned nuclear force alongside member-
ship of McNamara’s fledgling consultative committee.35 Yet splits within the
government of the FRG over nuclear sharing, and increasing opposition to a
hardware solution in Washington, meant that by the beginning of 1966, most in
Bonn thought it highly unlikely that a MLF treaty would be signed in the short-
term, if at all.36
Although McNamara’s position had not changed radically, he was now
telling the British that the MLF had failed, and consultation was the only option
available. He hinted to the British that the nuclear sharing venture, including the
ANF, might be nearing an end but that the Germans would be bought off only
by adding “some substance” to his committee idea.37 Special Assistant to the US
President McGeorge Bundy, who recommended what he called “a fresh start on
nuclear defense” during the same month to George Ball, now openly supported
McNamara’s position in Washington. The theologians were becoming isolated
within the administration, as the difficulties of brokering a hardware solution
became ever more apparent, and as McNamara’s committee proposal took hold
in NATO. Facing such opposition, Ball retaliated, arguing that a collective
nuclear arrangement was the only way the German people would feel on a level
with the British.38 But the emerging position of the administration was clear.
When Johnson and Erhard met at the end of year, the nuclear hardware sharing
issue was clearly less important than other matters. Their joint statement at the
end of a meeting in December addressed the issue of consultation only, rather
than hardware:

The President and the Chancellor gave close attention to the nuclear
problem confronting the alliance. They agreed that the Federal Republic of
Germany and other interested partners in the alliance should have an appro-
priate role in nuclear defence . . . [They] noted with satisfaction that the
defence ministers of a number of NATO countries have started discussions
on the possibility of improving present nuclear arrangements . . . [They]
agreed that discussion of such arrangements be continued between the two
countries and with other interested allies.39

By the time Erhard and Johnson met, the British were in the process of quietly
dropping their ANF proposal in favor of the consultation approach. This may
154 Andrew Priest
support the view that Wilson had never really intended the idea to be taken seri-
ously, although it may also suggest that Wilson was now simply more realistic
about the chances of the ANF ever coming into being, with the growing crisis
over French participation in NATO and a possible alternative to a hardware
solution on the agenda.40 Although Wilson stated that the ANF was still a part of
official British policy when he met Johnson in Washington on 16 December, he
now expressed his strongest interest in the nuclear consultation committee sug-
gested by McNamara. In Wilson’s opinion, consultation would be enough.
Despite pre-election talk of abandoning the British nuclear deterrent Polaris, he
had decided to keep it for Britain alone, as it was clear that plans for the NPG
made consultation a much more likely US policy than nuclear sharing. 41 Sim-
ilarly, when he wrote to Johnson in February 1966, he concentrated on the
nuclear committee and its utility as a “forum for discussion of nuclear policy,
strategy and planning.” Privately, Wilson told US Ambassador David Bruce that
he was still totally opposed to the Germans getting their hands on nuclear
weapons, and so a hardware solution was now out of the question.42
By early 1966, McNamara was – privately, at least – now in line with the vast
majority of the US Government in his opposition to nuclear hardware sharing.
At this stage, work on the NPG was also progressing in NATO. The proposal
had been greeted with some suspicion by various members when it was first
introduced the previous year. With the French challenge to NATO, and with the
United States initially keen to pursue trilateralism with Britain and the FRG as a
possible substitute for the alliance, smaller allies were concerned that they
would be excluded from nuclear policy and that proceedings would be domin-
ated by the United States, Britain, and Germany, while the Germans themselves
still clung to hardware sharing as the only viable solution to a greater role in
alliance nuclear affairs. Yet the idea of a nuclear consultative group rapidly took
hold, and a special committee of defense ministers from Belgium, Canada,
Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Britain, and the
United States met in November 1965 to discuss the proposal further.43 By the
beginning of 1966, this special committee had set up three working groups to
explore consultation. These groups examined nuclear planning, data exchange,
and communications, respectively, and comprised representatives of the United
States, Britain, Italy, Germany, and Turkey (the last drawn from a hat to repre-
sent the smaller NATO nations).44
The first group, on nuclear planning, was concerned specifically with the
availability and possible use of alliance nuclear resources; the second, dealing
with data exchange, examined what information on nuclear weapons member
governments would require in the consultation process; and the third sought
better ways for the allies to communicate on nuclear matters, if there should be
an emergency.45 Initially, the non-nuclear powers remained skeptical of the con-
sultation process, and agreement on the composition of the groups was a
complex process. The Italians and Germans, in particular, still maintained that
substantive nuclear control should be developed alongside consultation, in order
to meet alliance security concerns.46 Yet pressure from the Pentagon now drove
 From hardware to software 155
the venture forward, and although McNamara continued to acknowledge Ball’s
position on nuclear sharing, his primary concern was the ongoing consultation
process, which was gaining such momentum.47 By the April meeting, McNa-
mara was canvassing British support by threatening that the MLF was in danger
of resurfacing, if the NPG did not become a permanent feature of the NATO
political landscape.48 Yet while McNamara had to try and keep the Germans in
line by not explicitly rejecting a MLF- or ANF-type solution, the British really
required a formal renunciation of nuclear sharing in favor of consultation.49
All in the United States except a few MLF zealots now openly supported
McNamara’s position on consultation. With consultation now Washington’s pre-
ferred option, Johnson issued NSAM 345 on 22 April 1966, which explicitly
required an examination of both consultative and hardware approaches. Yet it
suggested that a “NATO Nuclear Force” would be agreed upon after a consultat-
ive approach (and perhaps arising out of it).50 When Johnson wrote to Wilson
the following month, he still mentioned the ANF but stressed that he was not
“wedded to any particular solution to this problem. . . . We are doing staff work
over a whole range of options. We should not foreclose any of them.”51 These
developments occurred in an atmosphere of confusion and disarray in the
alliance, coming so soon after President de Gaulle’s announcement in March
that he would withdraw France from NATO’s integrated military structure.
There was also the fear in Washington that MLF advocates would attempt to
rejuvenate the MLF-ANF to counter this.52 With Johnson’s clarification,
however, it seemed that MLF advocates could now look forward at best to the
assignment of some national units to a NATO force.53
The position of the FRG was also changing. In July, the US embassy in Bonn
reported that, despite nuclear hardware sharing remaining a long-term ideal for
the West German government, both Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder and
Minister of Defense Kai-Uwe von Hassel felt that they might be willing to give
it up “under certain circumstances,” namely if the NPG evolved into an accept-
able forum for nuclear planning and crisis management with good communica-
tions.54 In Walt Rostow’s words, the US president simply did not want to “wring
the German necks” over this decision but wanted, rather, to press ahead with the
committee as events appeared to be moving in this direction.55 By September
1966, Washington was attempting to talk the West German government out of
keeping the MLF option open, because US priorities were changing in relation
to the Soviet Union. This put Erhard’s government in a precarious situation, and
although his coalition was in crisis primarily because of domestic (and espe-
cially economic) factors, it seems clear that a disastrous trip to Washington, in
which his nuclear aspirations were quashed, helped to seal its fate.56 The fall of
the Erhard government at the end of 1966 removed another key reason for
holding open any possibility of nuclear sharing.57
By this time, significant progress was being made with the Soviets on a non-
proliferation treaty, which became the other half of the solution to the MLF.
Once again, the Johnson administration had to realize the need to make progress
on the negotiation of the treaty without being seen to abandon its most important
156 Andrew Priest
ally in Europe: West Germany. In June 1966, President Johnson had pressed for
tripartite talks with Britain and Germany on the future of nuclear sharing in the
alliance. He retained the option of a collective nuclear force, and members of the
State Department continued to reassure the Germans that the nuclear force was a
possibility, although this seemed unlikely to come into existence while consulta-
tion was gaining momentum.58 Then concessions by both the Americans and the
Soviets in the final months of 1966 made agreement on a non-proliferation treaty
appear much more likely. The United States agreed to compromise on the
nuclear sharing issue, and the Soviets acquiesced on increased nuclear consulta-
tion in NATO in order to enhance Germany’s role, and so the basic elements of
the treaty were agreed.59 This placed Washington in the position of having to
convince Bonn to accept another important element in its strategy for the
alliance, but one that precluded Germany from getting any closer to nuclear
hardware.60
With the nuclear sharing option having now all but disappeared, McNamara
was able to push through his plans and achieve permanent status for his commit-
tee in NATO. This took place in spite of French opposition to permanent status
and France’s threat to veto such a move in the NAC. The growing popularity of
McNamara’s idea, however, ensured that he was able to proceed.61 The alliance
now had the Nuclear Defense Affairs Committee (NDAC) for policy and the
Nuclear Planning Group for more detailed discussions, both permanent bodies.62
While there had initially been some contention over the composition of the com-
mittee, by the beginning of 1967 the NPG comprised four permanent members;
the United States, Britain, Italy, and West Germany, with three seats held by
other members on a rotational basis.63 Both nuclear and non-nuclear members
saw this as a satisfactory solution to the problem of membership, and official
endorsement of the NPG by NATO nations finally removed the MLF from the
political landscape. Despite de Gaulle’s withdrawal from the military structure
of the alliance and the failure of MLF negotiations, the birth of the NPG, as well
as the moves towards the NPT, represented significant changes in NATO’s polit-
ical and military structure, and with the apparent onset of détente, the organi-
zation appeared to have overcome the nuclear sharing controversy. The Vietnam
War had also become a far more important issue in US foreign policy and was
impacting on European–American relations. Progress on consultation and
nuclear non-proliferation was therefore an important element of alliance cohe-
sion at a time of increasing strain. With these issues coming to the fore, the
nuclear sharing solution was simply no longer required, and no more diplomatic
time and effort could be made available for its discussion.
Yet the advocates of the hardware solution on both sides of the Atlantic were
essential in shaping the NPG. Just as George Ball argued that German pressure
for nuclear weapons necessitated a hardware agreement, so McNamara argued
that the hardware option was not the answer, nor was it attainable or even
particularly desirable in the international political climate of the time. Contrary
to the defense secretary’s statement that the NPG was not intended to run
counter to a nuclear sharing agreement, the reality was that it clearly under-
 From hardware to software 157
mined plans for either a MLF or an ANF. Only West Germany retained anything
like a strong interest in either of these options. Both the State Department advo-
cates, led by George Ball, who left his post in September 1966, and the Germans
themselves tried to keep the nuclear sharing idea at the forefront of NATO
policy. But by the end of 1966, consultation was the only option. As McNamara
remarked at a National Security Council meeting in December 1966, establish-
ing the NPG would “end talk of the Multilateral Force.”64 In April 1967, Presid-
ent Johnson met members of the NPG as it convened for the first time as a
permanent body in Washington. “Hopefully,” stated presidential aide Francis M.
Bator, “it will be an adequate substitute for MLF type ‘hardware’ arrange-
ments.”65

Conclusion
As Lawrence Kaplan notes, while the NPG was an adequate substitute for the
MLF, it was also similar to the MLF in that there was an “element of deception”
involved in making the allies believe they were now fully involved in NATO
nuclear planning.66 Yet the NPG served a number of crucial functions during the
period of its formation and in its early years. It demonstrated the determination
of the United States, West Germany, and Britain to continue to improve consul-
tation as France withdrew from the integrated military structure of NATO.
The trilateral negotiations on nuclear consultation and offset arrangements in
Europe had reignited interest in the NATO strategy debate, although the three
were careful to inform and consult smaller members, so as not to exclude them.
As part of this strategy debate, the most pressing concern in the first meetings of
the NPG was the issue of tactical nuclear weapons and the difficulty of envisag-
ing a scenario in which these would be used, combined with discussion on US
calls for an increase in European conventional forces. With de Gaulle’s with-
drawal from NATO’s integrated military structure, and with closer consultation
between the allies, the United States made progress in advancing the new doc-
trine of “flexible response,” which was formally adopted in December 1967.67
Taken in conjunction with the report produced under the direction of Belgian
Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel on political reform within the alliance (the
Harmel Report), the NPG represented a highly significant US effort to include
smaller non-nuclear powers in political and military affairs.68
Finally, increased consultation broadly within NATO, and particularly within
the NPG, was also important in making progress on the NPT. With the adoption
of guidelines on the use of tactical nuclear weapons agreed in the first months of
1968, the United States went some way in responding to concerns about national
input into nuclear planning, as well as in assuring the Germans, in particular,
that the NPT would not interfere with the work of the NPG. The United States
also agreed to requests from the government in Bonn to consult prior to selective
release by the US of nuclear weapons for use in or from Germany, and that the
US would not selectively release nuclear weapons for use by German delivery
forces over the objection of the FRG government.69 With this relatively small
158 Andrew Priest
concession, Washington made considerable progress in persuading the Germans
to agree to the treaty.70 Although the Johnson administration still had to balance
its reassurances to Germany with those it made to the Soviets on these issues
during the final months of the negotiations, the signing of the treaty in July 1968
represented a triumph for the administration in a year of turmoil.71
Therefore, the NPG proved to be a successful software alternative to the
hardware solutions envisaged in the MLF and ANF. It achieved its aim of offer-
ing the medium and small non-nuclear powers in NATO a role in the alliance by
providing them with a forum in which to discuss nuclear matters and share their
grievances with the United States and others. Moreover, it helped in broadening
the NATO agenda at a time when the alliance was under attack and in need of
clear direction. In both these respects, it marked a turning point in NATO
affairs.72

Notes
1 For two recent accounts, see Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making
of a European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999);
Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003). See also John D. Steinbruner, The
Cybernetic Theory of Decision: New Dimensions of Political Analysis (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1974).
2 For an overview, see Lawrence S. Kaplan, The Long Entanglement: NATO’s First
Fifty Years (Westport: Praeger, 1999), pp. 121–47.
3 New York Times, 18 May 1961.
4 In this sense, the United States misperceived European desires regarding nuclear
weapons. See David N. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC: The
Brookings Institution, 1983), pp. 131–5. For a brief summary of German interest in
NATO nuclear policy, see Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG:
Nuclear Strategy and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1997), pp. 124–6.
5 It now seems clear that de Gaulle had decided to reject the British application to join
the other six members of the Common Market before negotiations between the British
and Americans at Nassau had been completed. The Nassau deal merely confirmed his
suspicions and, perhaps, the tone of his press conference on 14 January. See Richard
Davis, “‘Why Did the General Do It?’ De Gaulle, Polaris and the French Veto of
Britain’s Application to Join the Common Market,” European History Quarterly 28,
no. 3 (1998), pp. 373–97; Geoffrey Warner, “Why the General said No: Documents
diplomatiques français,” International Affairs 78, no. 4 (2002), pp. 869–82. See also
Constantine A. Pagedas, Anglo-American Relations and the French Problem,
1960–1963: A Troubled Partnership (London: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 225–73.
6 Italian domestic politics and a desire to support the British position ultimately pre-
vented successive Italian governments from endorsing the MLF more fully. Leopoldo
Nuti, “‘Me Too, Please’: Italy and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons, 1945–1975,”
Diplomacy and Statecraft 4, no. 1 (1993), pp. 124–30.
7 See Bundy to Kennedy, 15 June 1963, Foreign Relations of the United States
(FRUS), 1961–63, vol. XIII, pp. 592–5; Memorandum of Conversation, 29 June
1963, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. VII, p. 754; Memorandum for the Record, 10 July 1963,
FRUS, 1961–63, vol. VII, p. 790; Memorandum of Conversation, 30 June 1963,
FRUS, 1961–63, vol. XIII, p. 600; Bundy to Rusk, 11 July 1963, FRUS, 1961–63,
vol. XIII, pp. 603–4.
 From hardware to software 159
8 Oral History Interview with Thomas K. Finletter, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin
(LBJL), pp. 14–16; Memorandum of Discussion, 10 April 1964, FRUS, 1964–68, vol.
XIII, pp. 36–7; Joint Communiqué issued by President Johnson and Chancellor
Erhard, 12 June 1964, Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson,
1963–1964, vol. 2, pp. 771–3; Telegram From the Department of State to the Mission
to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Regional Organization,
Washington, 3 July 1964, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 59.
9 Memorandum of Conversation, 5 December 1964, “The Wilson Visit and the MLF,”
US Declassified Documents Series, Washington, DC (USDD), 137/1701, 5/1/96;
Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, pp. 39–46.
10 Susanna Schrafstetter and Stephen Twigge suggest that the ANF was a positive pro-
posal intended to achieve a number of important policy objectives for the new Labour
Government. In contrast, John Young has taken a much more cynical view. See
Susanna Schrafstetter and Stephen Twigge, “‘Trick or Truth?’ The British ANF Pro-
posal, West Germany and US Nonproliferation Policy, 1964–1968,” Diplomacy and
Statecraft 11, no. 2 (2000), pp. 161–84; John W. Young, “Killing the MLF? The
Wilson Government and Nuclear Sharing in Europe, 1964–66,” Diplomacy and State-
craft 14, no. 2 (2003), pp. 295–324.
11 National security action memorandum (NSAM) no. 322, 17 December 1964, “Guide-
lines for Discussion on the Nuclear Defense of the Atlantic Alliance,” FRUS,
1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 165–7.
12 Kaplan, The Long Entanglement, pp. 126–7.
13 Frank Costigliola, “Lyndon B. Johnson, Germany, and ‘the end of the Cold War,’” in
Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World: American Foreign Policy, 1963–1968, ed.
Warren I. Cohen and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), pp. 173–210.
14 Telephone Conversation between Kuchel and Ball, 30 January 1965, 10:30 a.m.,
LBJL, Personal papers of George Ball, Box 5, MLF II.
15 Memorandum of Conversation between Ball, Spiers, Harlech, and Shuckburgh, n.d.,
April 1965, LBJL, National Security Files (NSF), Country File United Kingdom, Box
207, 156.
16 Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, pp. 50–1.
17 Catherine McArdle Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 255.
18 Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, p. 52.
19 NATO Select Committee of Defence Ministers on Nuclear Consultation, n.d., Sep-
tember 1965, UK National Archive, Kew, London (UKNA), DEFE 25/92; Remarks
by McNamara at NATO Defense Ministers Meeting, Paris, 31 May 1965, USDD,
355D/129, 10/1/78.
20 Remarks by McNamara at NATO Defense Ministers Meeting, Paris, 31 May 1965,
USDD, 355D/129, 10/1/78; Paul Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation in
NATO, 1965–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 60.
21 Kaplan, The Long Entanglement, p. 133.
22 Shuckburgh to Foreign Office, 1 June 1965; Dean to Foreign Office, 4 June 1965;
McNaughton to Healey, 14 July 1965, all in UKNA, DEFE 25/92.
23 Kaplan, The Long Entanglement, p. 133; Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, p.
52; Jane E. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1988), p. 80.
24 Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation, pp. 41–4.
25 Note of Meeting between Healey and McNamara, 2 June 1965, UKNA, PREM
13/666.
26 NATO Intermediate Review, 1965, UK Submission, 22 June 1965, UKNA, FO
371/184417, p. 3.
27 Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, p. 53.
160 Andrew Priest
28 Erhard informed de Gaulle that the MLF “was not dead, but neither was it really a
live issue at present;” Roberts to Foreign Office, 19 June 1965, UKNA, DEFE 25/92.
29 Shuckburgh to Foreign Office, 8 July 1965, UKNA, DEFE 25/92. Finletter resigned
shortly afterwards, the official reason being that he needed time to nurse his sick and
dying wife. It was rumored, however, that he was disaffected with US policy towards
the MLF negotiations. See Oral History Interview with Harlan Cleveland, LBJL,
pp. 37–8.
30 Memorandum from Kaiser to Rusk, 16 December 1965, “Press Comment on Defense
Aspects of Johnson–Wilson Talks,” 16 December 1965, LBJL, NSF Country File
United Kingdom, Box 209; Spiers to John Leddy, 18 October 1965, “The Nuclear
Problem,” US National Archives and Record Administration, College Park (USNA),
Record Group (RG) 59, Ball Records.
31 Costigliola, “Lyndon B. Johnson,” p. 191.
32 Quoted in Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons, p. 261.
33 Walt Whitman Rostow to the President, 6 December 1965, “The Growing Shadow of
a European Nuclear Force,” USDD, 30/0337.
34 Memorandum for the President from George Ball, n.d., December 1965, “Visit of
Prime Minister Wilson (NATO Nuclear Arrangements),” LBJL, NSF Country File
United Kingdom, Box 215, 10-b-1.
35 Susanna Schrafstetter and Stephen Twigge, Avoiding Armageddon: Europe, the
United States, and the Struggle for Nuclear Nonproliferation, 1945–1970 (New York:
Praeger, 2004), p. 153.
36 Matthias Küntzel, Bonn and the Bomb: German Politics and the Nuclear Option
(London: Pluto Press, 1995), p. 46.
37 Dean to Foreign Office, 7 October 1965, UKNA, DEFE 25/59.
38 McGeorge Bundy, 18 October 1965, “The Nuclear Problem, The Case for a Fresh
Start on Atlantic Nuclear Defense (with no mixed manned forces or plans for such
forces);” George Ball, “Comments on the Proposal to Substitute Bilateral ‘Consulta-
tion’ with Germany for a Collective Nuclear System,” both in USNA, RG 59, Ball
Records.
39 Quoted in Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons, p. 263.
40 Young, “Killing the MLF?” pp. 314–17; Schrafstetter and Twigge, “Trick or Truth?”
pp. 176–7;
41 Notes on President’s Meeting with Prime Minister Wilson, 16 December 1965, LBJL,
NSF, Name File, Box 7, Neustadt Memos; Neustadt to Bundy, 9 August 1965,
USDD, 96/1066.
42 Wright to Maclehose, 4 March 1966; Draft Reply to President Johnson, n.d., late Feb-
ruary 1966, both in UKNA, PREM 13/805; Wilson to Johnson, 26 February 1966,
FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 318.
43 Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation, pp. 44–45
44 Ibid.; Kaplan, The Long Entanglement, p. 133; Nuti, “‘Me Too, Please,’” p. 130.
45 Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation, p. 45.
46 Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation, pp. 50–1; Nuti, “ ‘Me Too, Please,’ ”
p. 130.
47 See Telephone Conversation between Ball and McNamara, 8 April 1966, 7:00 p.m.,
LBJL, Papers of George Ball, MLF II.
48 Meeting between Healey and Nitze, 16 May 1966, UKNA, DEFE 13/673.
49 Lieutenant Colonel Alexander-Sinclair to British Defence Staff, Washington, DC, 4
August 1966, “Nuclear Planning Working Group,” UKNA, DEFE 25/99.
50 NSAM no. 345, Rostow to Rusk and McNamara, 22 April 1966, FRUS, 1964–68,
vol. XIII, pp. 374–5; Rusk and McNamara to Johnson, 28 May 1966, FRUS,
1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 402–3.
51 Johnson to Wilson, 21 May 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 396–8.
52 Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilat-
 From hardware to software 161
eralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (Winter
2004), pp. 22–74, here pp. 37–8.
53 Dean to Booth, 12 May 1966, UKNA, DEFE 13/673.
54 George C. McGhee to State Department, 2 July 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp.
427–30.
55 Background Note, n.d., July 1966, “Prime Minister’s Visit to Washington,” UKNA,
CAB 133/347.
56 Küntzel, Bonn and the Bomb, pp. 52–4.
57 However, new chancellor Kurt Kiesinger stated in an interview with Paris Match in
December: “On the subject of a mixed-manned nuclear force, we reserve the right to
have our say in the constitution of a European nuclear force.” See British Embassy,
Moscow, to Foreign Office, 19 December 1966, UKNA, DEFE 25/99.
58 Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity,” pp. 42–3.
59 Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, pp. 137–8.
60 Schrafstetter and Twigge, Avoiding Armageddon, pp. 163–201; Schwartz, Lyndon
Johnson and Europe, pp. 53–9; Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear
Weapons, p. 263; Schrafstetter and Twigge, “Trick or Truth?” p. 177.
61 Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation, pp. 47–8; Wenger, “Crisis and
Opportunity,” pp. 29–30.
62 Kaplan, The Long Entanglement, p. 134.
63 Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation, p. 44; Shaun R. Gregory, Nuclear
Command and Control in NATO: Nuclear Weapons Operations and the Strategy of
Flexible Response (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 31–2.
64 Summary Notes of 566th NSC Meeting, 13 December 1966, LBJL, NSC Meetings,
vol. 4, Box 2; Kaplan, The Long Entanglement, p. 133.
65 Francis Bator to President, 6 April 1967, LBJL, White House Central File, Inter-
national Organizations IT 34, Box 6, NATO.
66 Kaplan, The Long Entanglement, p. 134.
67 Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity,” pp. 59–61.
68 See Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility,
1966–1967 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 320–62.
69 Rusk and Clifford to President Johnson, 16 March 1968, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII,
p.679.
70 Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity,” pp. 71–2.
71 Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe, pp. 208–10.
72 Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation, p. 60; Nuti, “ ‘Me Too, Please,’ ”
p. 132.
10 NATO and the Non-Proliferation
Treaty
Triangulations between Bonn,
Washington, and Moscow
Oliver Bange

Introduction
The following analysis focuses on the importance of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), and of the negotiations leading up to it, to the breakthrough into a
new era of international détente. This analysis necessitates a multi-polar
approach based on multi-archival work and multinational perspectives.
Although the narrative of this chapter includes descriptions of diplomatic wran-
gling and political intrigues, its main focus is on the history of ideas and percep-
tions. From whatever perspective we might approach the issue of nuclear
non-proliferation in the 1960s, the Germans, particularly those in the Western
part of the divided nation, remained the key to a treaty.
Some, perhaps even the majority, of European statesmen saw the NPT, in
essence, as an anti-German instrument, an opportunity to rationalize their own ger-
manophobia to keep the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), which was gaining
in economic and political influence, under control, at least militarily. Others per-
ceived the seemingly unbroken continuation of a Cold War foreign policy by the
government of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard as an unavoidable and therefore particu-
larly annoying hurdle to a truly global control of nuclear weapons.
From this perspective, the West Germans, and particularly the conservative
right-wingers in Bonn’s cabinet, might be compared to an immobile obstacle
between the superpowers, hindering and even preventing them from moving
decisively towards détente in Europe, which each was doing for its own reasons.
From these motives stemmed a marked dualism of efforts towards non-proliferation
and détente, which could, at least temporarily, have become antagonistic,
particularly if the West Germans had thrown their weight around within the
Western alliance. Consequently, the present chapter is not a history of the NPT
from Bonn’s perspective but, rather, it is an investigation of how West German
policy on nuclear weapons fitted into the sociopolitical and détente-political
landscape of the latter part of the 1960s.
Key to this question are the rather different perceptions of the Western camp
and the Eastern camp regarding Bonn’s nuclear ambitions. To illustrate the often
complicated relationship between national interests and perceptions, seven spe-
cific issues are discussed in this chapter.1 These issues are:
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 163
• German nuclear ambitions, nourished by certain influential conservative
circles in Bonn;
• the US administration’s drive to bring about an era of détente with Moscow
through the NPT;
• the intention of the British Labour Government under Harold Wilson to use
the NPT as an instrument for perpetuating control over the Germans;
• de Gaulle’s maneuvering to make the best use of the differences between
East and West for achieving apparently contradictory goals of his policy;
• Soviet interests in détente with Washington and in security regarding
Germany;
• the resulting special role of West Germany’s Social Democrats under Willy
Brandt’s leadership;
• the repercussions and consequences of the multi-dimensional NPT contro-
versies on NATO’s role.2

It is only the interplay between these different approaches to the critical issue of
nuclear control that reveals the key influence of the German nuclear question:
first, on the increasing multilateralization of non-proliferation, and then, almost
as a side-product, on the survival and revitalization of NATO.

The nuclear ambitions of the ruling conservatives in Bonn

The first and arguably one of the most fundamental issues regarding the NPT is
the well documented wish of the Christian Democratic Union–Christian Social
Union (CDU–CSU) leadership in Bonn to leave open a loophole for the still
fairly young Federal Republic to gain a nuclear capability one day, even if the
chance to secure nuclear hardware for the Bundeswehr and the Luftwaffe was
not yet in sight. The list of protagonists working towards this goal – though for
different reasons and with different strategies – included German Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer, security experts like Kurt Birrenbach and Heinrich Krone,
and those who saw themselves as prospective candidates for the chancellorship,
like Franz Josef Strauss, Rainer Barzel, and Eugen Gerstenmaier. Back in 1954,
Bonn’s accession to the Western European Union was tantamount to a precondi-
tion for the re-establishment of a sovereign (West German) state. On that occa-
sion, Adenauer had denounced the production, procurement, and possession of
atomic, biological, and chemical (ABC) weapons by the FRG. The loopholes in
Adenauer’s public relations move were obvious, as Adenauer himself repeatedly
pointed out to French President Charles de Gaulle: the denunciation was made
“voluntarily,” it had only been made to Adenauer’s allies (and could therefore
be revoked at any time), and it only applied to German soil. Equally, the option
of the control or shared control of nuclear weapons was not covered by the state-
ment.3
Since that time, successive governments in Bonn had either stressed the
German denunciation of nuclear weapons or had underlined the extent to which
there was still a viable nuclear option for the FRG within the framework either
164 Oliver Bange
of NATO or of the European Community, depending on contemporary inter-
national developments, demands, and restrictions. In 1958, Strauss – as Ade-
nauer’s minister of defense – had tried to blackmail the new de Gaulle
government into military nuclear cooperation. In 1962, Strauss returned to the
subject with yet another idea: in return for French nuclear weaponry he offered,
in effect, to lead West Germany out of the US-dominated NATO and into a
closer political-military cooperation with France, once he had succeeded Ade-
nauer as chancellor. To prove his sincerity, he offered an almost bizarre wedding
gift: a special war gas developed by the infamous IG-Farben.4
In the following years, further approaches and plans were made by various
prominent politicians, including Heinrich Krone, Rainer Barzel, Josef Hermann
Dufhues, and Eugen Gerstenmaier. Recently declassified US intelligence
information shows that this “important strand in German thought” sought as
much independent control of nuclear weapons as it could possibly gain. The size
of the prospective nuclear force seemed to be of secondary importance; the com-
bination of independence and nuclear weapons was instead perceived as a basis
for political power and personal influence; in short, the aim was “a larger
German finger on a smaller trigger.”5 Undersecretary of the Federal Foreign
Office (Auswärtiges Amt) Karl Carstens and other officials from the Amt even
felt obliged to draw on Nazi terminology when they told their superiors that
German Lebensinteressen were at stake, due to a sinister conspiracy between
Washington and Moscow that they had detected in late 1966. And in December
1966, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, the CDU chancellor of the Grand Coalition with
the Social Democratic Party (SPD), inquired personally: “Which European,
Atlantic or other solutions are left open by the latest [NPT] draft”6 to German
nuclear ambitions.
What could be perceived, and possibly even excused, as mere personal
intrigues appeared to create a volatile and dangerous situation – both in a
domestic and an international setting – through the combination of secret
national goals and the personal futures of the protagonists. Both Strauss and
Barzel seem to have aspired to topple Kiesinger by raising national emotions
over issues of nuclear defense and national status. From 1967, Strauss’s hysteri-
cal attacks on the “Atomsperrvertrag” (which translates as the “nuclear prohibi-
tion treaty” – a term still widely referred to in the German media today) gave
evidence of his ambition. His desire for the chancellorship was thus linked to his
long-standing doubts about the reliability of the US nuclear guarantee. Already
in the fall of 1962, his closest advisers had deemed reliance on the United States
to be “an incalculable risk” that could only be avoided by an “independent
nuclear force,” for which preparations had to be initiated, and the sooner the
better.7 Seven years later, in the summer of 1969, the rationale was still the
same, only complemented by detailed ideas developed in Strauss’s entourage as
to what the West German deterrent should look like: a minimum of 250
medium-range ballistic missiles with a reach of between 600 and 4,500 kilome-
ters, preferably mobile Polaris and Poseidon missiles adapted to be carried by
tracked vehicles on land, capable of destroying the USSR up to the Urals, as
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 165
well as key industrial spots beyond.8 Consequently, the opponents of German
nuclear armament – be it in Washington, Moscow, or Bonn – had ample reason
to press the urgency of their cause. The NPT appeared to be precisely the instru-
ment to achieve their ends.

The NPT as an instrument of US détente policy

A key factor in bringing about the NPT – given the resistance in Bonn and else-
where – was the continuing acceleration of the Johnson administration’s drive in
favor of the treaty. To enact his concept of ideological competition with the East
– in which “bridge building” was only a euphemism – Johnson needed an era of
détente between the superpowers, and particularly between the two opposing
blocs in Europe. Without military, and particularly nuclear, détente, his policy of
“penetration” would be impossible or, worse, much too dangerous. Former US
president Dwight D. Eisenhower had already realized this, and the crisis in
Prague in 1968 served as a warning to both the core members of the Johnson
team and the small group gathered around Brandt. By 1965, President Johnson
and Secretary of State Dean Rusk realized that serious negotiations for a NPT
offered promising leverage to break the ice with the new Soviet leadership. It
appeared of utmost importance that they make the best use of Moscow’s appar-
ent interest in cementing its exclusive status as a nuclear power (not least within
the Warsaw Pact) and in perpetuating the nuclear disarmament of the Germans.
It was all too obvious that without the Germans there would be no NPT with the
Soviets.
Not least for this reason, the allies in Bonn had to be bound into Johnson’s
overall strategy – to which a nuclear prohibition ordered from Washington was
hardly helpful. The State Department, therefore, argued for a course that com-
bined the drive towards détente and a revision of the alliance. This, it was
widely hoped, would give the Germans a greater and more visible part in plan-
ning and decision-making (in Johnson’s words, “a place in the sun”) while
curbing British influence significantly and axing London’s pseudo-independent
nuclear force. Following the rationale of Francis M. Bator, Johnson’s deputy
security advisor, the solution to the divisions within the alliance over nuclear
proliferation appeared rather simple: one had to make the Germans understand
their own national interests. After all, détente was the only feasible path to
reunification, if it should ever come about, and the renunciation of German
nuclear ambitions had to be a key element in any new Ostpolitik.
Technically, West Germany did not need nuclear weapons of its own so
much as “a highly visible expansion of German participation in nuclear policy
making, at every level and in every practicable way.”9 However, it became
increasingly apparent that the Americans had underestimated the resistance this
would cause within the ruling conservative circles in Bonn – a force that no
CDU–CSU chancellor could ignore in any domestic political calculation.
Neither Erhard nor Kiesinger wielded enough power within the party to simply
push through the policy envisaged by Bator and others. As a result, Johnson
166 Oliver Bange
became increasingly impatient about the obstruction of his own policy towards
the East, which he believed to be fully in tune with both US and German inter-
ests. In January 1967, Johnson finally overruled Rusk and the strategists in the
State Department and decided that progress with the Soviets over non-prolifera-
tion would have to be realized at the expense of Bonn’s so-called “European
option.”10 This presidential decision virtually ruled out any West German partic-
ipation in a prospective multilateral European nuclear force – while leaving
decision makers and the public in the FRG completely in the dark about it.
Bator’s colleague Walt Whitman Rostow put the president’s thinking in
unambiguous words: “The track [to détente] may move more slowly if a non-
proliferation treaty fails at this stage.”11 Rusk was charged personally with the
task of seeing this presidential policy through with both the Soviets and the
Germans, which he did with considerable skill. Already in September 1966, he
had met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in New York. Whereas
the head of the US Atomic Control and Disarmament Agency, Bill Foster,
clearly alluded to German aspirations on this occasion by noting “we [do] not
envisage and have never discussed a situation in which American nuclear
weapons ceased to be American nuclear weapons,” Rusk recommended “com-
plete discretion.” Soon afterwards, Gromyko and Johnson agreed at a dinner in
Washington that the only thing left to do now was to find a “treaty language”
that would not compromise the allies of the United States more than was neces-
sary.12 This was nothing else but a superpower fait accompli over the heads of
even their most important allies.

Harold Wilson’s conception of the NPT as an instrument for

perpetuating control over the Germans
The attitude displayed in private by Prime Minister Wilson was exemplary of
the pursuit of anti-German and anti-Bonn interests under the cover of the NPT –
often paired with almost desperate attempts to defend Britain’s own status as a
middle ranking power, or even a world power, in the face of rising German
influence. Both in Western Europe and in dealing with the Soviet Union, Wilson
played the role of a guarantor against West German nuclear armament, against
German revanchism, and against a more powerful German voice in East–West
affairs. Wilson’s role was everything but philanthropic. And this is completely
unconnected to the question of whether Wilson believed – as his successor Mar-
garet Thatcher did decades later – that the German national character was
intrinsically dangerous and aggressive. During Britain’s repeated European Eco-
nomic Community (EEC) applications in the 1960s, Wilson consciously
gambled on the impact of Britain’s anti-German posture. British protection
against an overly powerful Germany was clearly insinuated to the smaller EEC
member states, and the old and mighty Charles de Gaulle in Paris was fed the
illusion of a potential Anglo-French condominium with its own independent
nuclear force.
Relying on the credibility of his performance as a watchdog over Bonn’s sin-
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 167
ister intentions, Wilson also aspired to a key role in the West’s relationship with
the Soviet Union – a mediatory position claimed also by de Gaulle with varying
degrees of success since the mid-1960s. Wilson’s ambitions and self-image
showed a remarkable continuity. Already in October 1963, as leader of the
opposition, he had sketched out the role he intended to play in a conversation
with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who cynically replied that “a re-united
Germany would be a threat to the UK and France – but not Russia.” 13
Wilson’s aversion to German aspirations of becoming a part of the commun-
ity of nuclear powers, and his promises to the Soviets in this respect, remained
virtually unchanged over the years. Similarly, he did not change his approach to
Britain maintaining its world power status by nuclear means and to the global
role a nuclear capability would give Britain. According to Wilson, Britain –
perhaps in combination with de Gaulle’s France – had to remain the most influ-
ential power in Europe, the most important adviser in Washington, particularly
in nuclear questions, and a more potent (nuclear) mediator than Paris in
East–West relations and in the Third World:

We have a role in influencing America, and it is precisely for that reason

that the Soviet Union, despite her very real difficulties, will come more and
more to listen to us. France may claim to say more things that Russia likes,
but they are essentially negative things. And for this very reason France has
less in reality to offer. And Russia understands this.14

Wilson and his foreign secretary, George Brown, did not tire of bringing this
message home to the Soviets over the following years. In a conversation with
Kosygin early in 1967, Wilson and Brown wholly excluded West German par-
ticipation in a NATO nuclear force and practically excluded a European nuclear
force, too. Wilson himself pressed on Kosygin that the precondition for a Euro-
pean option was a new European state and repeated, so that Kosygin would fully
understand the far-reaching meaning of this, “the word State must be emphas-
ised.” London’s rationale was intriguing: at best – or from a British perspective,
at worst – only a confederal European construction was feasible in the distant
future; this would never be or become a “state,” which was why there would
never be a European nuclear force.15 Wilson added: “We realise of course that
we could not expect the Soviet Union to say publicly that they approved of these
arrangements; nor would we gratuitously make our interpretations public.”
These interpretations were even handed over to the Soviets in written form. By
this, in effect, Wilson had put himself at the mercy of the Kremlin for the sake
of his country’s, and his own, international role. Even the British protocol of the
meeting had to be heavily doctored before it was allowed to be circulated on a
very restricted basis in Whitehall. Thus, Wilson had made a far-reaching pledge
in his private conversation with Kosygin, very much at Bonn’s expense:

Indeed this was one of our two motives of seeking entry into the Common
Market: to squeeze the German problem . . . He could assure Mr. Kosygin
168 Oliver Bange
that President Johnson feared the Germans, de Gaulle despised and hated
them and so long as he himself was in power there would be no question of
the Germans being allowed a finger on the nuclear trigger.16

And Wilson’s gamble seemed to pay off. When Brown communicated the same
line to Gennadiy I. Voronov, a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union (CPSU) Politburo, the answer was unequivocal and straight. If the British
remained helpful in settling the German nuclear problem, Voronov virtually
guaranteed that preferential treatment by Moscow would ensure a special role
for the Wilson government in East–West affairs.17 Almost a year later, in early
1968, Wilson praised himself at having played the watchdog role over Germany
“just right,”18 and when in early 1969 Kiesinger was still dragging his feet over a
German signature to the NPT, Wilson, with no regard to the events in Czecho-
slovakia in August 1968, was yet again ready to jump at the Germans (to “bear
down hard on Kiesinger”)19 and let the Soviets know about this.

Contradictory French interests

The government in Paris monitored these proceedings from a distance. De
Gaulle and his ministers had criticized the NPT from the outset as an Amer-
ican–Soviet plot and had refused to sign, citing France’s national interests.
Nevertheless, it soon became clear that France – along with the United States
and the USSR – would rank among the main beneficiaries of any treaty on
nuclear non-proliferation. This was not least because the implicit understanding
between the superpowers to freeze the number of nuclear powers at the current
status quo would confirm France’s status as a nuclear power of world rank, and
France’s contemporary advantages over other states – whether in terms of stra-
tegic options or of mere prestige – would be reinforced in that other states would
be prevented from acquiring nuclear forces.
For much the same reasons, France had no interest whatsoever in the nuclear
armament of German troops. This was stated in unambiguous terms both to
France’s allies in the West and to the Soviet Union, while in their discussions
with Bonn over the nuclear and reunification issues, the French tended to refer to
the possibility of resolving these issues in the distant future. In any case, the rap-
prochement between the superpowers helped Paris to avoid an otherwise
unavoidable, definitive answer to Bonn’s repeated approaches regarding bilat-
eral nuclear cooperation. Indeed, it allowed the French to exploit to their own
advantage the differences within the Western camp over the “right” method of
tying Bonn in. Within the EEC and the European Atomic Energy Community
(Euratom), French diplomacy was thus able to present itself (making a pointed
barb at London) as a guarantor and nucleus of a future European nuclear force.
At the same time, French diplomats in Moscow presented France as a protec-
tor of, and mediator for, Bonn. And in Bonn itself, France’s representatives con-
tinuously complained over the fait accompli presented by Washington and
Moscow, both completely neglecting German interests for the sake of a super-
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 169
power condominium. One could not express French opportunism more bluntly
than French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville did in a conversation
with Karl Carstens in October 1964: France might have agreed to West German
participation in the MLF back in 1963 in order not to lose the Germans entirely
to the Americans; but that was yesterday, and today was a new situation with
new rules of play.20
To the conservatives in Bonn, meanwhile, the French, and particularly de
Gaulle, appeared to be natural allies in their fight against the NPT.21 Although de
Gaulle was quick to realize the opportunities this offered him, not for a second
did he consider sharing his force de frappe with the Germans, nor did he allow
himself to be used in the German drive towards nuclear reform within NATO.
Instead, de Gaulle declared that France did not intend to sign the NPT but would
act as if it had acceded to the treaty.22 Faced with ever-increasing resistance to
the NPT in Bonn, despite Germany’s signature in July 1968, the Soviets
approached the French secretly in late January 1969 asking for help with the
West German government.23 Despite the temptation to allow France to display
its role in European, if not in world affairs, de Gaulle restrained himself. Despite
all the illusions of global grandeur associated with de Gaulle’s public rhetoric,
his reserve in this situation was a clear indication that France, after all, saw itself
as a significant power only in West European terms and that France valued its
good relations with Bonn considerably higher than any adventurous opportunity
to attain a stronger global position.24 Until his resignation in May 1969, de
Gaulle kept to his ambiguous line on the NPT – and was never forced by the
course of events to choose between France’s role in Europe and France’s role in
the world, or between posturing as a victorious power in Germany and simultan-
eously as Bonn’s best ally.

Soviet interests in détente with the West and in security

regarding Bonn
In the eyes of the leadership of state and party in Moscow, a comprehensive
non-proliferation treaty would serve two important foreign policy goals: protec-
tion from Germany, specifically, and the launch of an era of détente with Wash-
ington and the West, in general. The aspects of this policy with regard to
Europe, to the Warsaw Pact, and to domestic politics were closely intertwined.
Thus, when the Polish and Soviet leaders met in fall 1967 in Moscow, the Poles
had a disturbing story to tell, which they had in turn been told by de Gaulle
during his recent visit to Poland: the Germans were producing nuclear weapons,
which was why, de Gaulle had argued, the French needed their own force de
frappe both as deterrence against the USSR, and also to hinder the Germans
from gaining their own nuclear capability. Polish Prime Minister Józef
Cyrankiewicz said the Poles could only agree with de Gaulle’s conclusion: “The
most important thing is that the Germans will not receive access to nuclear
weapons in any form.”25 Fears of German aggression and nuclear intentions
were deeply rooted not only within the Russian people, but also within its
170 Oliver Bange
leadership, and these fears were a driving force that now appears almost irra-
tional, given the division of Germany and the control achieved over its two parts
by integration into the West and the East. Not until the series of meetings
between Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev and German Chancellor Willy Brandt
in the early 1970s would there be a slow revision of this picture of Germany and
the Germans, established as a result of so much damage and trauma. Now, in the
mid-1960s, the decision about the NPT also raised questions about the future of
a détente policy devised by an ageing Soviet leadership and about the USSR’s
master plan for the future of the communist world. The Soviet leadership had yet
to prove to its people, its party, its allies, and not least to the younger (though
still not so young) generation of hard-liners in the Politburo that détente with the
West would not compromise Soviet security interests.
In January 1967, Gromyko made his first open appeal for a turn towards
détente before the members of the Politburo of the CPSU. Reversing the argu-
ment that détente would weaken Soviet security, he claimed that only détente
could bring about a non-proliferation treaty – and thereby bring protection from
Germany.26 In the delicate domestic situation that existed, the supporters of
détente in the Kremlin desperately needed an unequivocal signal from Washing-
ton, proving that – at least on the surface – US and Soviet interests coincided
with regard to the maintenance of the status quo in Europe and that the Ameri-
cans were prepared to exercise all their influence in Bonn accordingly.
When US President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry
Kissinger first stepped on to the stage as vigorous defenders of narrow national
interests, détente seemed to be finished even before it had begun. In order to
drive the Americans to concessions at the negotiating table, the Soviets
advanced a counter-concept of a “selective détente,” including those forces in
Europe, and particularly in Bonn, that wished to go forward with a constructive
approach. Besides the Soviets’ greater strategic considerations, a number of
opportunities for them to pursue their infamous “wedge-driving” game occurred
in the course of the NPT negotiations between 1967 and 1969.27 Despite intrigue
and rough language in public, the Soviet leadership was well aware of the delic-
ate balance of power within the West and was attuned to the importance of this
for obtaining the more important Soviet goals. When the Americans ran into
more resistance over the NPT in Bonn than they had originally envisaged, and
appeared to withdraw slowly from their original promises in early 1968, the
Soviets reminded them in none too subtle a manner of the understanding reached
in October 1966. They hinted at this in discussions with the West Germans, who
– as was to be expected – started to ask penetrating questions in Washington.28
And in January 1969, leading figures in Moscow were even prepared to do what
hitherto had been unthinkable: they went a long way towards meeting the
demands made by Bonn and virtually guaranteed the Germans protection from
nuclear blackmail and aggression. Despite concerted action in the following
weeks by Premier Brezhnev, head of the KGB Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov,
Soviet Ambassador to the US Anatoly Dobrynin, Henry Kissinger, and Willy
Brandt, the Conservatives in the Grand Coalition would have none of this, and
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 171
Kiesinger had to delay the decision – with tacit acceptance from Brandt – until
after the general elections in September 1969.29 There was nothing Washington
or Moscow could do but to wait for the outcome of these crucial elections.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin had secured the most important goal it had hoped to
achieve with the NPT: negotiations for a more cooperative and constructive
coexistence with the US administration had been opened and were maintained,
despite tensions after the Prague invasion of summer 1968. Following the
change of government from Kiesinger to Willy Brandt as chancellor and Walter
Scheel as foreign minister, Bonn acceded to the NPT in November 1969, and the
Soviet Union could finally ratify the treaty and open the way towards a new era
of détente.

A “special role” for Brandt’s Social Democrats

If the Germans held the key to the launch of détente through the NPT, within
Germany, Brandt’s Social Democrats had to overcome the hitherto insurmount-
able opposition of the Conservatives. All sides, divided in terms of the goals
they pursued through the NPT, saw one thing clearly: that without the accession
of the Federal German government, there would be no Soviet ratification and
thus no treaty. Johnson’s “penetration” of the communist world – under the
camouflage of bridge building – had not been realized in partnership with the
Erhard government. In spite of the change of chancellor and government in
Bonn in December 1966, the CDU–CSU was still led by the same politicians
who had dominated the party during the Adenauer era. However, there was now
a new coalition partner, the SPD. And almost all the key proponents of the NPT
had maintained close relations of respect and even mutual trust with its figure-
head, new foreign minister Willy Brandt, since well before the relatively sudden
change of government in Bonn.
This was certainly true for Johnson and Rusk, for de Gaulle, and even for the
Soviets. All of them now pinned their hopes on Brandt, whose position on
nuclear armament and on the need for a new German policy of détente towards
the East – Ostpolitik – was well known. With Brandt’s help, Johnson and Rusk
intended to overcome the impasse that their own bridge-building efforts were up
against; with his help, the Kremlin planned to free the way for its own European
and détente policy; and with his help, de Gaulle envisaged a new order in
Europe that would be more stable than the postwar situation and which would be
more receptive to de Gaulle’s own ideas of a third power between the superpow-
ers in the East and the West.
Brandt and his new Ostpolitik became the key to the acceptance of the status
quo in Europe and to the final legalization of territorial losses and gains as a
result of World War II. For the leading figures in the Kremlin, as for most
British politicians, this remained a goal in itself. Others expected from Brandt’s
Ostpolitik the start of still further developments, such as increasing doubt in the
East about the merits of socialism or the resurgence of European national identi-
ties. However different the concepts of de Gaulle, Johnson, or Brandt might
172 Oliver Bange
have been, in their rationales or details, all of them were ultimately aimed at
overcoming the division of Europe and, in the case of Brandt, also the division
of Germany.
Brandt’s concept, in which the NPT, Ostpolitik, and reunification were
closely interconnected, was clearly laid out in Washington and Paris by trusted
envoys at the beginning of the Grand Coalition. Thus, Hans-Jürgen Wis-
chnewski, Günter Markscheffel, and Helmut Schmidt explained to the French:
“Le parti SPD est en faveur de l’abandon de toute forme d’association à l’arme
atomique” (the SPD is in favor of the abandonment of any form of association
with atomic weaponry). Only this, they hoped, would create “a new climate,”
the beginnings of détente between East and West, and would enable the “multi-
plication of contacts” with the people in the East, which was at the core of
Brandt’s Ostpolitik strategy, because only this could possibly open up real
opportunities for unification by softening up the communist regimes from
within. Helmut Schmidt, who would later succeed Brandt as chancellor, even
pleaded for active French help for the NPT as a way of combating illusions over
an eventual national nuclear force harboured in certain circles of the Conservat-
ive coalition partners,30 whom Herbert Wehner – yet another powerful figure
within the SPD – simply labeled the “fetishists.”31 Brandt himself, in his new
role as foreign minister, became somewhat drawn into the fight against the
superpower fait accompli in 1967, before realizing that this course was actually
endangering his Ostpolitik goals.32 Without (West) German participation in the
NPT, there would be no understanding with the Soviets regarding a renunciation
of force agreement, as it was then codified in the Moscow Treaty of August
1970. Without such a renunciation of force agreement with Moscow – and this
was the blueprint for all of the Eastern treaties to come – progress in all other
areas of Ostpolitik, including inner-German relations and Berlin, would have
been rendered virtually impossible. Valentin Falin, a close collaborator of both
Brezhnev and Gromyko, acknowledged the gatekeeper function of the NPT,
both with respect to “selective détente” with the Germans and also thereafter
with respect to the desired global détente with the Americans; according to
Falin, the NPT was an “enormously important treaty.” And US Ambassador
George McGhee, not known as being overly friendly towards Brandt, judged in
retrospect that the NPT “encapsulated the most important ideas which Willy
Brandt had developed during his time as Foreign Minister.”33

NATO and the multilateralization of nuclear non-

proliferation
In 1966, NATO was, if not doomed as an international institution, then at least
an alliance in profound crisis: with the all but certain failure of the multilateral
nuclear force–Atlantic nuclear force (MLF–ANF), the issue of “nuclear sharing”
within the alliance was once again wide open. The French withdrawal from
NATO’s military structure posed fundamental questions about NATO’s future
military and strategic viability. The move towards a strategy focused on a more
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 173
flexible response, first initiated by the Kennedy administration, was widely
accepted. The West German response to ever-increasing US pressure to apply
flexible response might serve as an example: while the Ministry of Defense in
Bonn and the Bundeswehr’s generals paid due rhetorical respect to the doctrine,
they simultaneously attempted to resist the central changes connected to it.34
They refused to give up their nuclear-capable F-104 Starfighters (to be armed
with US warheads) for more viable sea-based US Polaris missiles; they resisted
the relocation of the ADMs, the atomic mines hitherto concentrated along the
East German–West German border; and they refused the necessary restructuring
of their defense budget towards conventional warfare.35 When US Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara proposed a nuclear planning group (NPG) in
December 1965 – implicitly as a “software” replacement for the MLF’s “hard-
ware” solution to assumed German nuclear desires – and the NPG was institu-
tionalized a year later, the West German military simply deemed the new
developments “insufficient.”36 In Washington and London, the full or partial
withdrawal of troops from the European continent remained at the top of the
public agenda and was mirrored by contingency plans drawn up in the respective
ministries.
The increasing bilateralism between Washington and Moscow found its
equivalent in various efforts to form the EEC into a platform through which to
pursue European interests in international affairs. As if bilateralism was itself
not enough of a challenge to Western cohesion, the situation was exacerbated by
a combination of doubts connected to the growing economic strength of the
FRG; by factionalism among Europeans; by the intertwining of the interests that
various member states brought to the NATO council (notably the British EEC
entry); and by the seemingly endless trilateral quarrels over offset costs (of
pivotal importance to the debate about whether one should maintain control over
the Germans or augment their independence). All this coincided with the end of
the NATO treaty’s duration in 1969, which many feared might signal the end of
NATO itself. The NPT crisis – provoked by Soviet-American cooperation over
their partners’ heads – hit NATO in the midst of this turmoil. The effect was so
serious that no lesser person than the organization’s secretary-general, Manlio
Brosio, convinced himself that this was going to be the last nail in NATO’s
coffin.37
Instead, the NPT, or rather the fundamental questions related to it, became
yet another factor in the effective restructuring that turned NATO, within a few
years, and in some respects even within months, into the forum that would
effectively serve as a “smoothly functioning” platform for Western coordination
in that crucial multilateral phase of détente culminating in the establishment of
the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1975.38 It
might well be argued that without NATO’s almost classical catharsis in
1967–68, the West might not have been able to achieve its clear superiority over
the communist regimes of Eastern Europe that became obvious and institutional-
ized at the end of the détente era – and which held firm until the final showdown
in 1989–90.
174 Oliver Bange
However, later developments are a far cry from the troubling shape of the
alliance in early 1967. The months following the first tabling of the joint Soviet-
American NPT draft were marked by multiple crises and by hysteria within the
alliance. Washington was faced with a dilemma. Trust, the glue of any alliance,
was being lost at an alarming speed in Paris (where NATO still resided) and had
to be regained as soon as possible. At the same time, speed was of the essence, if
the Americans were to maintain the timetable agreed with the Soviets, which
foresaw agreement on a draft text by the Eighteen Nations Disarmament Confer-
ence (ENDC) in Vienna in May, to be presented to the UN General Assembly in
the autumn. The unceasing protests of the nuclear have-nots within the alliance,
particularly the FRG and Italy, necessitated a quick revision of the draft, which
was tabled and explained to the North Atlantic Council (NAC) by Bill Foster,
the US chief negotiator in Vienna, on 4 April. Foster’s was a courageous effort
to win over the hesitant governments represented in this multilateral forum.
Once again, the draft hit an Italo-German stonewall. The Italians – supported
by Brosio – complained about the NPT’s unlimited duration (as set against
NATO’s limited lifespan), and the German list of considerations was so
“extremely detailed” that it had to be circulated in full after the meeting. Appar-
ently driven by his country’s recent EEC application, the British representative
replied with what – in light of the Wilson–Kosygin discussions mentioned above
– can only be termed an outright lie, saying that his government did not want to
see Euratom weakened and that it attached the “greatest importance to leaving
open the option for European Federation which should be able to have nuclear
weapons in succession. This option had been mentioned to Mr. Kosygin when
he visited London and he had not objected to it.” And even the Dutch, who had
emphasized their preference for a speedy signature of the NPT, found it right to
remind the Americans of their “heavy responsibilities regarding the solidarity of
the Alliance” and to urge for more time for the allies to study the new text.39
Still the Americans would not give up their ambitious goals. On 5 May, only
days after the reopening of the Foster–Roshchin negotiations in Vienna, they
were back with a more low-key approach, which included: an explanatory letter
by their permanent representative, Harlan Cleveland, advising the allies not to
hand in proposals in Vienna that might provoke the Soviet Union; written US
interpretations of the NPT clauses; the latest information on the proceedings in
Vienna; and an up-to-date compilation of the US and Soviet draft articles.
Critique once again centered on the safeguards article (Article 3), detailing how
adherence to the NPT was eventually to be controlled by the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – a provision to which the Euratom members
took particular offence.40 And again, the chairman closed the session by observ-
ing that there was a need for further consultations.
In Vienna, meanwhile, the Soviets refused any softening up of the IAEA con-
trols that would favor Euratom, which meant that the Johnson administration
now faced two stonewalls; one in Paris and one in Vienna. By now it was clear
that Washington’s timetable was on the rocks and that the Americans’ earlier
tactic of steamrolling their allies had blown up in their faces. Finally, in late
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 175
May 1967, this situation was evident in the US negotiation posture. Still unwill-
ing to give up on the prospect of an early UN debate on the treaty, the US
administration proposed to table the draft text in New York, while leaving the
controversial Article 3 blank. Simultaneously acknowledging the situation
within NATO, Cleveland now pledged that his administration “keep the Council
closely informed.”41
With the Americans now spending more time on consultations with their allies
and staging considerable efforts to impress their Euratom problem upon the
Soviets, the turmoil within NATO was still far from over. In July 1967, the other
allies detected that the French – against their proclaimed will to stay out of the
NPT negotiations – had indicated to the Soviets in various high-level meetings that
they did not object to IAEA safeguards, thus effectively undercutting the position
of the Euratom members, and particularly that of Bonn. Over the following
months, German Permanent Representative to NATO Wilhelm Grewe maintained
on behalf of the Federal Republic that IAEA controls were tantamount to discrimi-
nation, and the Italians fought fiercely against any unilateral US explanatory state-
ments outside the NPT text, which they argued were not binding under
international law. However, the French intervention, combined with Soviet
stonewalling and increased consultation efforts, made it possible for the United
States to recast its own role as that of honest broker and guardian of the alliance. It
was only in this changed environment in September 1967 that the Soviets slowly
gave way to the US compromise proposal to place the existing Euratom controls
under the IAEA, thus paving the way for the treaty’s signature in summer 1968.42
The Johnson team had finally recognized that it was the only player in the game
that could break the deadlock and broker an all-round deal, and it had come to
realize the necessary components of such a deal. Parallel to the Americans’ efforts
to agree on an NPT draft with the Soviets that would be acceptable to their part-
ners in NATO, the US decided to beef up the NPG, so it would constitute suffi-
cient compensation for the FRG and also to foster comprehensive political and
military consultations in NATO, while receiving in return the final acceptance and
codification of “flexible response” and all that came with it in terms of allocation
and troop goals. Most of these considerations found their way into the so-called
“Harmel Exercise” – a series of multilateral negotiations on the political and mili-
tary restructuring of the Western alliance under the auspices of Belgian Foreign
Minister Pierre Harmel, institutionalized by the NATO ministerial meeting in
December 1967. The Harmel Report fixed a consensus on NATO’s overall strat-
egy, on troop levels, consultation procedures, and nuclear planning, and it struck a
balance between the organization’s political and military tasks and needs.43 The
next NPG meeting in April 1968 included the necessary carrot for the West
Germans: it established the principle that the use of nuclear weapons on German
soil – thus including East Germany – would be “subject to confirmation by the
FRG Government” and that a future NPT “would not interfere” with Bonn’s role
in the NPG.44 All this was accomplished within a few months and provided the
framework in which the NPT could then be accomplished.
Throughout all this, the NPT remained the magnifying glass through which
176 Oliver Bange
national interests were identified. It is hard to see the kind of wider bargains that
compensated for the specific disadvantages the NPT held for the FRG, Italy, and
others to which Johnson, Rusk, and Brandt were looking, and to which recent
scholarship has pointed. In the first months of 1967, it became obvious that the
superpowers had to backtrack at least far enough to allow their own allies to
agree to the general outline of their draft treaty. That made it all the more neces-
sary to engage in comprehensive multilateral consultations. And there was no
better – or no other – institutionalized forum available than NATO.
The realization of this led to an enhanced recognition of NATO’s value to the
pursuit of both individual national interests and the interests of the West in
general. This, in turn, facilitated the rebuilding of NATO and gave further credi-
bility to its new second pillar – political consultations, which were meant to sup-
plement the mere military cooperation that had dominated NATO so far.
Nevertheless, NATO never became an actor in its own right – unlike, for
example, the European Community during the CSCE negotiations. The discus-
sions within the NAC created a certain dynamic of their own, which had reper-
cussions on national policy decisions. The basis for this phenomenon were the
unofficial working procedures in and around the NAC, of which very few gov-
ernments seemed to be aware. For George Vest, probably the most experienced
NATO expert on the US side at the time, “most NATO council meetings that
were recorded were discussions of a bunch of professional ambassadors who
expressed themselves with great delicacy and reserve.”45
Almost always, the key participants in the forthcoming debates met and dis-
cussed their home governments’ instructions on a strictly personal basis before
the council, and they did the same with NATO’s secretaries-general, Dirk
Stikker and Manlio Brosio. In all of these meetings, ideas for compromise were
thrashed out – and possibly even agreed upon – and, as a result, the council
meetings, which the permanent representatives would later report on, appear to
have been largely stage-managed by them in order to fit into the tentative solu-
tion scenario. It was only this working scheme that made the rather ambiguous
role of the German permanent representative to NATO, Wilhelm Grewe, pos-
sible. Officially a representative of the FRG’s foreign office under SPD leader
Willy Brandt, Grewe held firm to the principles of Adenauer’s policy towards
the East, thus repeatedly undercutting both his own superior and the new Ost-
politik of the Grand Coalition: détente, he intimated to his colleagues in the
council in the summer of 1967, was a mere illusion.46 He continued to oppose
the NPT in public, claiming that it would send the FRG back to the techno-
logical Stone Age, and his reports to Bonn remained tinted by the prospects of a
broad front against the treaty within NATO, which in view of his own efforts
behind the scenes in Paris was tantamount to a self-fulfilling prophecy.47

Conclusion
The NPT showed that behind, below, or across the East–West confrontation
there still loomed – and very large, at that – the long-established national inter-
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 177
ests of the various states, governments, and nations. But it also showed that the
combination of the all-consuming East–West conflict and the new nuclear age –
globalization at its purest – had changed the rules of the game. This meant that
solutions to national problems (like the German question) or “only” to national
status (as in the French and British cases) could be sought only within a multilat-
eral framework. This is why nuclear sharing and nuclear non-proliferation
became Siamese twins. The solutions lay in their parallel multilateralization.
This was true within, as much as across, blocs. If the Germans at the center of
the NPT controversy were to give up any nuclear aspirations, for now and for
eternity, then they had to be given compensation: a truly reliable umbrella pro-
vided by their nuclear allies; full knowledge about the details and intricacies of
this umbrella; and a practical veto against its consequences with regard to
German soil. Simultaneous multilateralization also meant that both of these
aspects – effective control48 (of the Germans and their non-nuclear status in
particular) and sharing (of nuclear responsibility, at least for one’s own national
territory) – could only be provided for within NATO. And this is something that
both the United States and the USSR came to realize and acknowledge through
the NPT process. For NATO, this meant a new role, the importance of which
was recognized by East and West, the emergence of which helped to pave the
way to NATO’s effective reconstruction in the Harmel exercise, and the institu-
tionalization of which effectively guaranteed NATO’s future as the prime forum
for multilateral Western consultations during the East–West conflict.

Notes
1 For a comprehensive, multinational account of the NPT, the road to détente, and the
German question, see Oliver Bange, “Ostpolitik und Détente in Europa: Die Anfänge,
1966–1969” (habil., University of Mannheim, 2004).
2 A discussion that the doyen of NATO research, Lawrence Kaplan, started with the
author at the Zurich conference.
3 Conversation between de Gaulle and Adenauer, Paris, 4 July 1962, 10:05–11:15 a.m.,
Archives Nationales, Paris (AN), 5 AG 1 (de Gaulle), vol. 161.
4 Conversation between Messmer and Strauss, Paris, 23 January 1962; summary and
analysis from Messmer to de Courcel, both in AN, 5 AG 1 (de Gaulle), vol. 161.
5 Memorandum from the Head of the State Department’s Planning Council to the Presid-
ent, 6 December 1965, “The Growing Shadow of a European Nuclear Force,” Lyndon B.
Johnson Library, Austin, TX (LBJL), WHCF, Confidential File, FG105, vol. 23.
6 Enquiry by Osterheld at the Office of the Foreign Minister, Federal Foreign Office, by
personal request of Kiesinger, 22 December 1966, Politisches Archiv des Auswärti-
gen Amts, Berlin (PAAA), B150 (MB, VS-vol. 10083).
7 Memorandum from Schmückle to Knieper, on personal order of Strauss, 19 October
1962, “Gleichgewicht und Atommacht,” Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg im
Breisgau (BAMA), BW 1/2377.
8 Letter from Seidl to Kiesinger, 9 June 1969, Archiv für Christlich Soziale Politik,
Munich (ACSP), NL Strauss, Büro Bonn, vol. 3708.
9 Memorandum from Bator to Johnson, 4 April 1966, “A Nuclear Role for Germany:
What do the Germans Want?” LBJL, Bator Papers, vol. 28. Bator’s rationale was
clearly shared in comments by McNamara and Rusk. See also Rusk to Johnson, 6
April 1966, “Chronology on Nuclear Problem,” LBJL, Bator Papers, vol. 28.
178 Oliver Bange
10 Francis M. Bator, conversation with the author, 27 March 2004, and written
exchanges thereafter. On Johnson’s order, Bator used wording that would clearly rule
out a European option and penciled this into the American–Soviet draft treaty; see
LBJL, Bator Papers, vol. 21.
11 Cover Note from Rostow to Johnson, 8 September 1966, LBJL, NSF, Rostow File,
vol. 11.
12 Memorandum of Conversations between Rusk, Thompson, Kohler, Goldberg, Foster,
Gromyko, Fedorenko, Dobrynin, Roschin, and Mendlevitch, Waldorf Towers, New
York, 22 and 24 September 1966, US National Archives and Record Administration,
College Park, MD (USNA), US Department of State, Washington, DC (DoS), Con-
ference Files, lot 67D586-CF84; Memorandum of Conversation between Johnson,
Gromyko, Rusk, Foster, Thompson, Harriman, Leddy, Toon, Dobrynin, Zinchuk,
Vorontsov, and Ippolitov, Madison Room, DoS, 10 October 1966, USNA, DoS, S/S-I
Files, lot 79D246 (also in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1964–68,
vol. XI, pp. 388–91).
13 Conversation between Wilson, Walker, Khrushchev, and Gromyko, Moscow, 10 June
1963, Bodleian Library, Oxford (Bodleian), Wilson Papers, MS Wilson c.957.
14 Manuscript of Wilson Speech before the Parliamentary Labour Party, 15 June 1966,
Bodleian, Brown Papers, MS Eng. c.5015.
15 Conversation between Wilson, Brown, and Kosygin, London, 10 February 1967. This
British position was even handed over in writing; see UK National Archive, Kew,
London (UKNA), PREM 13/1840.
16 The handwritten alterations by Michael Palliser, Wilson’s foreign policy adviser, to
the original protocol of Wilson’s private conversation with Kosygin on 7 February
1967 can be found in UKNA, PREM 13/1715.
17 Conversation between Brown and Voronov, British Houses of Parliament, 16 Novem-
ber 1966, UKNA, PREM 13/1220.
18 Handwritten Comment by Wilson on a Foreign Office Note to Palliser, 22 January
1968, UKNA, PREM 13/3216.
19 Embassy Telegram by Bruce, 1161, London, 11 February 1969, USNA, DoS, POL
FR-UK.
20 Conversation between Couve de Murville and Carstens, Paris, 24 October 1964, AN,
5 AG 1/162.
21 Memorandum on French attitude on disarmament, Ref. IIB1 (Lahusen), Archiv der
sozialen Demokratie, Bonn (AdsD), Dep. E.B., vol. 316.
22 Conversation between de Gaulle and Adenauer, Paris, 14 January 1967, Akten zur
Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (AAPD), 1967, doc. 19.
23 Conversation between Alphand and von Braun, Paris, 30 January 1969, Ministère des
affaires étrangères, Quai d’Orsay, Paris (MAE), Europe, RFA, vol. 1610.
24 See Note of the Sous Direction Europe Centrale (YP/CT), Paris, 19 February 1969,
“Le problem allemand,” MAE, Europe, RFA, vol. 1813.
25 Conversation between Gomulka, Cyrankiewicz, Brezhnev, Podgorny, and Kosygin,
Moscow, 22 September 1967, Archivum Akt Novych, Warsaw (AAN), KC PZPR,
Gomulka’s office files, XI A/84.
26 This is, at least, the interpretation that Soviet Ambassador to the US Anatoly
Dobrynin gave to the memorandum circulated by Gromyko before the Politburo on
13 January 1967. An English translation of the document can be found in Anatoly
Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presi-
dents (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), p. 640.
27 See, for example, the memoirs of Julij A. Kwizinskij, Vor dem Sturm: Erinnerungen
eines Diplomaten (Berlin: Siedler, 1993), p. 16ff.
28 The Soviets used the annual international Wehrkundetagung (later renamed the
Munich Conference on Security Policy) in Munich to explain to the West Germans
that they would prevent any European or NATO option. The Germans immediately
 NATO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty 179
discussed this provocative Soviet stance with their allies in Washington. And Wash-
ington immediately sensed the covert warning from Moscow. Conversation between
Guttenberg and Naumow, 16 February 1968; Telegram from Bonn to Washington,
154, both in PAAA, B150, Ref. IIA4 and IIB1, VS-vol. 4313 and 4348; Memoran-
dum of Conversation between Davis and Tcherniakov, 7 May 1968, USNA, DoS,
RG59/2665, POL US-USSR.
29 For Soviet and US analyses of this concerted action, see Memorandum from
Kissinger to Nixon, 19 March 1969, USNA, Nixon, NSC, PTF, vol. 489. The analysis
of the German desk of the Soviet Foreign Ministry of 24 February 1969 came to very
similar conclusions. See Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiskoi Federatsii, Moscow
(AVP RF), 0757, op. 14, p. 53, d. 5, 1.1–8. For a detailed account of these triangula-
tions between Moscow, Washington, and Bonn, see Oliver Bange, “Kiesinger’s Ost-
und Deutschlandpolitik von 1966–1969,” in Kurt Georg Kiesinger 1904–1988: Von
Ebingen ins Kanzleramt, ed. Günter Buchstab, Philipp Gassert, and Peter Thaddäus
Lang (Freiburg: Herder, 2005), pp. 455–500.
30 For Wischnewski’s explanations to French diplomats in Bonn on 8 December 1966,
see Telegrams, 6943–51, Bonn, 9 December 1966; Memorandum by Puaux on con-
versation with Markscheffel (on 12 December 1966), Paris, 13 December 1966;
Statement by Schmidt to Seydoux, 7 January 1967; Telegrams, 100–05, Bonn, 8
January 1967, all in MAE, Europe, RFA, vol. 1608.
31 Herbert Wehner, interview by Reinhard Appel, Bonn, 1969, “Gefragt: Herbert
Wehner,” in Der Onkel: Herbert Wehner in Gesprächen und Interviews, ed. Knut
Terjung (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1986), p. 148.
32 “The position of the Federal Government on the NPT is putting the credibility of our
entire détente policy at stake.” Letter from Brandt to Kiesinger, 15 July 1968, AdsD,
Brandt archive, BAM, 13.
33 Valentin Falin, Politische Erinnerungen (Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1993), p. 65;
George McGhee, Botschafter in Deutschland, 1963–1968 (Munich: Richard Bechtle,
1989), p. 377.
34 For a detailed discussion of the available evidence, see Christian Tuschhoff, Deutsch-
land, Kernwaffen und die NATO, 1949–1967: Zum Zusammenhalt von und
friedlichem Wandel in Bündnissen (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002),
especially pp. 215–72.
35 Experts and leading politicians in the chancellor’s office and in the West German
ministries of defense and foreign affairs agreed upon the “ongoing erosion” of the US
“nuclear guarantee” for the FRG through “flexible response” and the need to maintain
a credible nuclear deterrence. This is clearly borne out by Defense Minister von
Hassel’s diary notes throughout 1966 and by the nuclear priorities within the drafts
for the Bundeswehr’s planning exercises between 1965 and 1967. See BAMA, BW
1/108–110 and BW 1/373–594.
36 Matthias Küntzel, Bonn und die Bombe: Deutsche Atomwaffenpolitik von Adenauer
bis Brandt (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1992); Küntzel cites on pp. 95 and 101 cor-
responding documents of BAMA from the Nuclear History Program (NHP) collec-
tion.
37 Wilhelm G. Grewe, Rückblenden, 1976–1951: Aufzeichnungen eines Augenzeugen
deutscher Außenpolitik von Adenauer bis Schmidt (Frankfurt am Main:
Ullstein/Propyläen, 1979), p. 699. On the coordination of resistance to the Non-Pro-
liferation Treaty between Grewe and Brosio, see Küntzel, Bonn und die Bombe, p.
152.
38 Helmut Sonnenfeldt, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 29 April 2005.
39 Memorandum of the NAC Meeting on 4 April 1967, NATO Archives, Brussels (NA),
LOM 82/67.
40 Letter by Cleveland, 3 May 1967, including an American interpretation of the NPT,
statement by Cleveland from 3 May 1967, as well as US and USSR draft texts,
180 Oliver Bange
NATO, LOM 103/67. Record of NAC Special Meeting on 5 May 1967, NATO,
LOCOM 7966.
41 Cleveland’s Statement to NAC, 24 May 1967, NATO, LOM 113/67.
42 NAC Meetings on 5 July and 20 September 1967, NATO, LOCOMs 8090 and 8232.
Cleveland’s statement at the NAC meeting on 6 September 1967, NATO, LOM
198/67.
43 “The Future Tasks of the Alliance: (The ‘Harmel Report’),” 13–14 December 1967:
www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b671213a.htm.
44 Memorandum from Rusk and Clifford to Johnson; Telegram from the US Embassy in
The Hague to Washington, 19 April 1968, both in FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 690
and p. 679, respectively. For a detailed discussion of these documents, see Andreas
Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and Multilateralization of
Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (Winter 2004), pp. 22–74,
here pp. 69–70. Tuschhoff (Deutschland, Kernwaffen und die NATO, p. 343) rightly
points out that the United States had already granted these rights – albeit secretly – to
Italy and Turkey.
45 George Vest, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 25 April 2005.
46 Private Meeting of Permanent Representatives, Harmel Exercise, 12 July 1967,
NATO, NISCA 4/10/5, Item 29, cited in Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity,” p. 62.
47 The first of numerous public statements by Grewe against the NPT, on 24 January
1967, can be found in Europa Archiv, 3/1967, p. 77ff. A much-cited speech against
the treaty before the Wehrkundetagung in Munich in February 1969 – completely
against the official line of the Coalition Government – led to a reprimand from the
Foreign Office’s undersecretary, which in turn triggered CDU–CSU accusations that
Brandt and the SPD were trying to curb freedom of speech and which even led to a
debate in the Bundestag. For a detailed analysis of Grewe’s reports on the NPT pro-
ceedings in Paris, his public statements, and the repercussions in Bonn, see Bange,
“Ostpolitik und Détente in Europa,” pp. 572–726.
48 Ultimately, Article 3 of the NPT established the principle of control through the
IAEA to which the results of Euratom’s control measures had to be reported. It was
and is clear, however, that this legal and technical framework had to be supplemented
by viable political control – in effect executed by each superpower within its bloc and
the various alliances themselves.
Part V
Changing domestic
perspectives on NATO
11 Striving for détente
Denmark and NATO, 1966–67
Jonathan Søborg Agger

Introduction
This chapter addresses one of the biggest gaps in the study of Danish security
policy during the Cold War: Denmark’s security policy in the mid- and late
1960s. The defining characteristic of this policy was the steady search for a
relaxation of tension between East and West. Most significantly, the Danish
government actively supported NATO’s efforts to reduce international tensions.
This was Denmark’s diplomatic moment of glory. In Danish historiography, two
cases in particular are generally seen as the most prominent examples of
Denmark’s political initiative and groundwork for a more active NATO policy
of détente: first, the suggestion made by Denmark in 1966 that NATO take the
initiative in organizing a conference on European security; and second,
Denmark’s active participation in the process leading up to NATO’s adoption of
the Harmel formula in 1967, according to which détente supplemented the
former twin goals of the NATO alliance: defense and deterrence.
Until now, Denmark’s attempts in the 1960s to strengthen NATO’s focus on
détente have been touched upon only briefly in a few general introductions to
Danish alliance policy, and the motivations for the Danish policy of détente
remain uncharted territory. However, there is a consensus that Denmark’s efforts
were aimed at stimulating peace and understanding between East and West,
although the domestic advantages of this policy have also been stressed.1 Based
on recently accessed Danish documents, this chapter uncovers the driving forces
behind the Danish pursuit of a NATO policy of détente. It argues that Danish
efforts to increase NATO’s détente profile were motivated not only by a genuine
search for détente, but also, and to a large degree, by a number of other political
factors, not least of a domestic political nature.
In the early Cold War, Denmark followed a loyal but rather low-key alliance
policy. The Danish governments showed some reluctance to participate actively
in developing overall NATO policy and in solving international security prob-
lems. The general Danish attitude was that major security issues were matters
for the great powers. In the early 1960s, however, Denmark more frequently
assumed independent and often critical policies in international matters and
engaged quite prominently in political, cultural, and economic contacts, first
184 Jonathan Søborg Agger
with the Soviet Union, and later with the smaller East European countries. To
some extent, the expansion of contacts with the Soviets was a confidence-build-
ing measure in the wake of the establishment of the Danish–West German Baltic
Command in late 1961. Furthermore, experiences from the Cuban missile crisis
made a reduction in international tensions seem even more prudent. Further-
more, the appointment of the active and pro-Atlantic Social Democrat Per
Hækkerup as foreign minister in 1962 helped to bring forth a more active
Danish policy towards NATO and the UN, and to gain attention for the diplo-
matic engagement of Denmark, and later also NATO, with the Eastern bloc.

Denmark’s 1966 proposal for a European security

conference and its reception in the North Atlantic Council

Danish push or US pull?

The possibility of a security conference had been a topic of discussion for
many years. The Soviet Union had aired the idea in 1954, but the concept did
not actually take shape until the early 1960s, when Poland began to advocate it
strongly. In early 1966, the Eastern European states, including the Soviet
Union, began to take a more earnest interest in the conference, though
Moscow did not envisage US participation. This circumstance tempered the
Western countries’ enthusiasm for the proposal.2 However, a number of coun-
tries did give some consideration to the notion of a security conference. Thus,
during talks with Poland, Belgian Foreign Minister Paul Henri Spaak launched
– in vain – the idea of a pre-conference meeting with representatives from the
two alliances – NATO and the Warsaw Pact – and from the neutral countries.
During talks with Poland in 1965, British Foreign Minister Michael Stewart
also expressed an interest in a possible conference, acknowledging the useful-
ness of such a meeting if the circumstances were favorable, and if thorough
preparations were made. Furthermore, Stewart stressed that US participation
would be a prerequisite.3 In late 1965 and early 1966, the Danish government
adopted a similar, relatively positive position during bilateral talks with the
East European countries. This was especially the case during Hækkerup’s visit
to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria in the fall of 1965. However, like the
British, the Danes continuously stressed the necessity of US participation and
thorough preparations.4
On 17 May 1966, the US deputy assistant secretary of defense for inter-
national security affairs, Arthur W. Barber, approached the Danish embassy in
Washington. Barber, who was a close personal adviser to US Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara, suggested that the Danish government consider
raising the question of NATO’s negotiating role during the next council meeting
in Paris, possibly with previous British and Norwegian agreement. According to
the embassy, Barber’s idea was that suggestions could be tabled during the
forthcoming Permanent Representatives’ Council meeting and that, at the
impending ministerial meeting in June, the NATO countries should discuss and
 Striving for détente 185
decide in principle on their willingness to enter into negotiations over the secur-
ity of Europe with the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries.5
In all likelihood, Barber’s move to approach Denmark was mainly motivated
by a desire to counter an unfortunate development arising out of the current
crisis in NATO. In February–March 1966, a serious yearlong rift within NATO
between France and the Anglo-American NATO countries, in particular, culmi-
nated in the announcement by French President Charles de Gaulle that France
would withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command structure. This
move caused a veritable crisis within the alliance. Given the recent proposals
from the Eastern countries and the still more frequent comments by European
NATO partners on the importance of a European settlement, Barber’s plan was
probably partly aimed at preventing further political damage to NATO by
exploiting existing sentiments to create détente. Only five months earlier, he had
argued for a similar active policy directed at resolving political problems within
NATO before these could grow to crisis proportions.6
Barber’s approach to Denmark was not in vain. Even though his plan was
regarded as somewhat unorthodox, Denmark followed it to the letter. Already
the following day, the Danish Foreign Ministry issued an instruction to its dele-
gation to NATO and to the relevant Danish embassies. After an initial reference
to Barber’s approach and remarks – which were to be kept confidential – the
Foreign Ministry instructed the Danish delegation to NATO to inform the
council that Denmark was contemplating suggesting that, at the forthcoming
ministerial meeting in Brussels, the NATO countries might engage in an initi-
ative vis-à-vis the Soviet Union with a view to conducting more extensive nego-
tiations on European security problems.7
Although Barber had presented his views on a purely personal basis, the
Danish embassy in Washington expected his ideas to be in accordance with
McNamara’s. However, the Danish willingness to follow Barber’s scheme
should probably not be seen solely as evidence of Copenhagen’s submission to
US political preferences. Barber had stated clearly that his view did not reflect
the prevailing sentiment at the State Department. It was his impression that the
State Department’s lack of initiative stemmed from its adherence to traditional
Cold War thinking, and from its preoccupation with problems concerning the
French withdrawal. According to Barber, US President Lyndon B. Johnson per-
sonally was not opposed to the idea of a negotiation initiative coming from
NATO. However, the president did not have a proposal to this effect from the
State Department, which, in turn, could not be expected to foster this kind of
innovative thinking at this stage. Furthermore, Johnson would hardly support
any US steps to inflict a new initiative on the European members of NATO. But,
Barber argued, an initiative from the European members could obtain Johnson’s
approval.8
Denmark took up Barber’s suggestion because it was in keeping with the pre-
vailing overall Danish view of world politics. As the Danish embassy in Wash-
ington noted, Barber’s point of view corresponded rather well with Danish
considerations as put forth during negotiations between the Fourteen in Paris –
186 Jonathan Søborg Agger
that is, the NATO countries excluding France – as well as during Danish Prime
Minister Jens Otto Krag’s visit to Washington in April 1966.9 Furthermore,
Danish decision makers had made several statements in late 1965 and early
spring 1966 that not only remarked on the importance of East–West détente as
such, but also called for an increased role for NATO in this respect. Thus, in
December 1965, Hækkerup had stated in the council that the NATO countries
should maintain and strengthen the alliance as an instrument of peace.10 Also, on
5 May 1966, Krag had said in a newspaper article that NATO should take up the
task of promoting détente in Europe without jeopardizing the alliance’s defen-
sive efforts.11 Together with Denmark’s relatively positive attitude towards the
Polish suggestions in 1965–66, statements of this kind may have given Barber
the idea of approaching Denmark, rather than other traditionally détente-oriented
countries, such as Norway, to launch the conference proposal.

Danish détente policy: NATO as a forum of political consultation

Although the Danish government did not anticipate that NATO would assume
the role of a negotiating partner, it now argued that the alliance should be a key
instrument in achieving a reduction of tension between East and West. To some
extent, this constituted a break with how Denmark had hitherto approached the
achievement and development of détente in practical terms. Certainly, for years
Denmark had stressed the importance of NATO’s focusing on obtaining détente.
However, in connection with the initial Polish idea for a security conference, the
Danes had promptly referred to bilateral contacts as a better means of improving
the relationship between East and West.12 As the US State Department had
noted, Danish decision makers felt especially qualified to engage with their
smaller counterparts in Eastern Europe, while feeling that an opening from, for
example, Britain or the US would be less likely to succeed.13
The persistent focus on bilateral approaches was in keeping with the tradi-
tional Danish stand on political consultations within NATO. Danish decision
makers were concerned to avoid limitations to Danish sovereignty and political
maneuverability – particularly, submission to West German policy. Further-
more, Denmark also attempted to avoid becoming trapped into controversial
NATO decisions, especially with respect to out-of-area conflicts.14 Now, the
Danish government had apparently changed its priorities: NATO was to play a
more active role.
According to Hækkerup’s briefing to the Danish Foreign Policy Committee,
the Danish change of policy was to be seen in light of the apparent real increase
in the Eastern bloc’s interest in a security conference. While Hækkerup had
doubted the depth of the Polish interest in late 1965, recently things had moved
swiftly in Eastern Europe, and there was now an ardent wish for action on the
European question.15 Also, the foreign ministry found it especially interesting
that in March and April 1966, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Jozef Winiewicz
had mentioned that the idea of a security conference had now obtained the
support of all members of the Warsaw Pact. Furthermore, the positive Danish
 Striving for détente 187
expectations regarding Eastern willingness for talks were apparently based on
recent Soviet statements on the subject. According to the Foreign Ministry’s
instruction to the Danish delegation to NATO, these could constitute a starting
point for such negotiations. Probably bearing in mind Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrei A. Gromyko’s recent negative statement concerning US participation in
such a conference, the instruction stated that the Soviet Union might very well
accept US participation in such a conference.16 The reasoning behind this estim-
ate was that Gromyko’s negative statement had been provoked by the nature of
the question put to him. Therefore, the ministry concluded, the question of the
Soviet attitude towards US participation in such a conference was still unre-
solved.17
Barber had reached a similar position, starting from a somewhat different
perspective. From discussions with Soviet contacts, Barber was under the
impression that Moscow would hardly resist US participation, supposing that the
West European countries wanted this, and the US showed a positive attitude.
According to Barber, Gromyko’s negative comments on US participation were
due to the dismissive US attitude that the Soviets believed they had witnessed
during a confidential communication.18 During another meeting at the Pentagon
in late June 1966, Barber agreed with a Danish diplomat that there was a
genuine interest in East–West negotiations among the East European countries.
With regard to the Eastern desire for a conference, Barber mentioned Polish
fears of a future European settlement through a US–German–Soviet agreement
that completely bypassed Poland. Even though the main Polish purpose in
raising the conference issue may have been a genuine attempt to ensure Polish
security, subversive exploitation of the security conference was clearly on both
the East German and Hungarian agendas.19

Pre-empting Eastern and Western détente initiatives

The Danish focus on the Eastern bloc’s apparently genuine interest in a security
conference did not just relate to the prospect of achieving real détente. Since
Hækkerup found it desirable that NATO should not, in its present situation, be
the hesitant party, the reasoning also seems to have been that it was now impera-
tive for NATO to pre-empt any imminent proposal from the East.20 As
Hækkerup stressed, the Soviet Union should not be allowed to reap the propa-
ganda advantage of being the party to call for a security conference. Further-
more, as Hækkerup told the US ambassador to NATO, Yugoslavia was expected
to call a European inter-parliamentary conference on European problems in
Stockholm in fall 1966. Therefore, Hækkerup thought, it would be preferable if
Western governments took the initiative before that. NATO simply could not
allow itself to be outdone by the Eastern bloc on the question of détente.21 More-
over, displaying internal disagreement and hesitation over détente would open
up a breach in the West that could be used in Soviet propaganda. Thus, as
Hækkerup stated at the ministerial meeting in Brussels in June, the allies had to
underline the peacemaking aim of the alliance clearly and to formulate their
188 Jonathan Søborg Agger
goals correspondingly, so that the Soviet Union would be unable to take advant-
age of any disagreement between the alliance partners.22
From the Danish point of view, however, it was not only the Eastern bloc’s
expected initiatives that induced the need for NATO to act promptly. The Danes
also expected President de Gaulle to raise the question of a security conference
during his forthcoming visit to Moscow. During confidential consultations with
Danish politicians and NATO representatives, Foreign Minister Hækkerup
repeatedly stated that it would be desirable for de Gaulle not to monopolize the
idea of a conference on that occasion. By suggesting the possibility of a security
conference in the forum of the Fifteen – that is, of all the NATO countries,
including France – prior to de Gaulle’s talks with the Soviets, the Danish
government hoped that France would support the Danish proposal for a NATO
initiative. And even if the proposal obtained support only from the Fourteen, the
security conference would appear to be a NATO initiative and would place
France in a considerably weaker position with regard to any initiative to encour-
age East–West negotiations.23 Apparently, this tactical view, as Hækkerup called
it, was central to the Danish plans. Barber’s reasoning seems to have been
motivated by similar considerations. But whereas the Danes feared that NATO
might be outdone by de Gaulle, Barber was focusing on the prospect of future
US moves: if Paris presented the European desire for a security conference, the
existing antagonism towards the French in the US State Department would
prevent it from dealing further with the matter.24
The French, who generally seemed very well informed about Danish policies,
were perfectly aware of the fact that de Gaulle’s visit to Moscow had stimulated
the Danish suggestion. According to the French military attaché in Denmark, the
suggestion appears to have been aimed at pulling the rug from under the French
president in his charm offensive vis-à-vis the Eastern European countries.25

The French challenge: keeping NATO together – and Germany down

The expected de Gaulle initiative seemed especially critical, as it appeared in the
wake of the crisis that arose from France’s withdrawal from NATO’s integrated
military command structure. The French withdrawal created a serious crisis
within NATO and stimulated Danish attempts to prevent a deepening of the split
between France and the rest of NATO.26 This, however, was also motivated by
France’s influence over Denmark’s potential admission to the Common Market,
together with Britain. The Danish concerns were further accentuated when it
was rumored that de Gaulle intended, during his visit to Moscow, to try and
engage the Soviets directly in bilateral negotiations on European security prob-
lems. Hækkerup believed that this prospect would have most unpleasant
implications for the resurgence of German nationalism. He stressed that such a
move posed a potential danger to European security.27
There appears to have been a twofold approach in the Danish reasoning
behind these statements. First, the Federal Republic of Germany might benefit
from the French withdrawal by taking over the role of the strongest NATO
 Striving for détente 189
28
country on the continent. For several years, Denmark had been very attentive
to increased West German influence in NATO. In 1964, the Danish ambassador
to NATO had stressed the expectation that, in gaining a more stable foothold in
NATO, the Federal Republic would gradually attempt to achieve the Platz an
der Sonne (place in the sun) that the German Reich had traditionally
demanded.29
Second, West Germany might also be inclined to enter into bilateral negotia-
tions directly with Moscow on security matters, meaning in this case the
German question. The entry of West Germany on to the world stage as an
independent actor was definitely not desirable. The prospect of increased
German nationalism in the wake of de Gaulle’s initiative made it important to
maintain solidarity between the Fourteen. According to Hækkerup, this collect-
ive solidarity had to be considered a prerequisite for NATO’s continuation.30
Barber stressed this point even more strongly, pointing out that the preserva-
tion of a united NATO would only be possible if the alliance was made an
instrument for negotiations between East and West on a European peace settle-
ment. Otherwise, Barber feared, the ground would slide from under the
alliance.31 Although less alarmist with regard to NATO’s survival, the Danish
Foreign Ministry instructed its delegation to NATO along similar lines: while
NATO remained in its present state of inner weakness, it was important to focus
attention and vigor on something more positive and to restore the alliance’s
public reputation.32 If NATO were able to signal unity and a will for progress,
attention would be directed away from the deplorable situation created by de
Gaulle’s action.33

The domestic factor

In 1969, any member could leave NATO after one year’s notice. With the
prospect of a harsh debate over Denmark’s continued membership, the problems
of NATO’s future were of increasing concern to the Danish authorities. In the
mid-1960s, several parties in the Danish parliament argued repeatedly for the
necessity of engaging on a fundamental discussion over continued Danish mem-
bership in the alliance. The possibility of holding a referendum on future Danish
membership of NATO was also raised, although Danish decision makers repeat-
edly ruled this out during talks with the US side.34 However, the Danish govern-
ment found itself in a most difficult situation that was not eased by the
increasing public opposition to US involvement in Vietnam. Furthermore, the
fact that the Danish public was becoming less and less fearful of aggressive
Soviet intentions made it increasingly difficult for the Danish government to
maintain public support for NATO membership beyond 1969.
The Danish authorities feared that, if no steps were taken to promote détente,
the alliance would be exposed as a rigid, static organization incapable of creat-
ing, and even unwilling to create, dialog between East and West. As the State
Department in Washington noted, Danish decision makers in 1969 felt that they
had to stress the importance of NATO for Danish security, but at the same time
190 Jonathan Søborg Agger
create the impression that NATO could, and would, be more than a purely mili-
tary organization.35 According to the Danish authorities, a positive NATO
announcement on the prospect of a security conference would accord with
public opinion.36
Apparently, besides obviating criticism of Danish security policy, a rethink-
ing of the main tasks of the alliance also held domestic advantages. Thus, the
pursuit of a high-profile policy of détente was also advantageous in a
parliamentary context. One contemporary US analysis stated that:

The Danish government’s behavior in Brussels may have important con-

sequences for Krag’s and Hækkerup’s personal fortunes. Because of the
shaky support that the Social Democratic minority government has in Par-
liament, defections from the left wing of the Social Democrats could drive
the government from power.37

Besides smothering the beginnings of an anti-NATO campaign in order to

secure what was considered the only wise security policy, the Social Democratic
government probably gained political points by paying considerable attention to
this popular issue.

A chilly reception
When the Danish proposal was first presented to the permanent representatives
on 26 May 1966, it received a rather chilly reception. Several members raised
discreet criticism that the Danish proposal had not been thoroughly prepared and
sufficiently thought through. Furthermore, there were doubts as to whether the
Soviet Union would accept US and Canadian participation. Also, the question of
East German participation became a stumbling block. None of the NATO coun-
tries had recognized East Germany, and it was argued that its participation
would inevitably be construed as formal recognition. Apparently, the Danish
representative did not clearly dismiss the prospect of East German participation.
Furthermore, according to US press rumors, he only “assumed” that West
Germany should participate in the conference. Presumably, this provoked a dis-
missive US and West German attitude.38
At a council meeting on 1 June 1966, the Danish ambassador attempted to
soothe his colleagues by explaining the Danish reasoning in detail. The Foreign
Ministry had issued him with relevant answers to the criticisms raised. With
regard to East German participation, he was to stress that this was strictly a
matter for West Germany to decide. However, the informal Danish position was
that the exclusion of East Germany from the conference would be unacceptable
to the Soviet Union. Nor did the Danes expect East German participation to con-
stitute a problem with regard to recognition, since there was no precedent for a
link between participation and recognition: for example, Hanoi’s participation in
the recent Geneva Conference on the future of Vietnam had not led to the formal
recognition of North Vietnam.39 Furthermore, the ambassador underlined that
 Striving for détente 191
although the Danish government did not have a blueprint of the final concept,
this should not prevent it from raising the issue.
Although the NATO allies appreciated the Danish initiative in raising the
question, their overall reaction at this new meeting was apparently rather similar
to that at the first meeting. The most positive responses came from the Norwe-
gians.40 Otherwise, the proposal was almost unanimously questioned on issues
such as timing, participation or agenda. The main problem was the expected
negative Soviet position on the matter of US participation. The US representa-
tives themselves stated that a distinct line had to be drawn between symbolism
and realities. Realities showed that the Soviets could not agree to a solution to
European security problems without conflicting with their own security con-
cerns.
Despite Barber’s clear indication of the State Department’s misgivings, the
negative US stand must have been somewhat surprising to the Danish authori-
ties. Only a few days before Denmark first raised the issue in the council, the
Danish foreign minister had mentioned a possible Danish proposal to the US
ambassador to NATO, Harlan Cleveland, who had responded positively to the
idea and had even noted that Secretary of State Dean Rusk had recently
expressed similar thoughts.41
When the Danish suggestion was discussed at the ministerial meeting in
Brussels in early June 1966, the US and West German delegates, in particular,
proved to be strongly adverse to it. Although stressing the importance of a
general détente, Dean Rusk was categorically dismissive of even the possibility
of a future conference. France also took a highly negative stand: an early confer-
ence should be avoided, and in any case, such issues were matters for the indi-
vidual countries, not the military alliances. The general attitude of most of the
other members was mainly negative, although a number of countries suggested
that the matter might more appropriately be raised at a later stage.42 Although
the Danish authorities believed that a far-reaching NATO decision on a security
conference initiative was desirable, they would have been satisfied with even a
positive NATO statement on the question.43 But despite these modest objectives,
their hopes were disappointed. After a brief discussion, the Danish proposal was
not even mentioned in the final communiqué.44 This was mainly due to US and
French opposition, but even Norway, which had previously been Denmark’s
closest supporter in this matter, doubted the benefit of a reference in the commu-
niqué, since nobody expected results in the immediate future.45

The interim conclusion: the security conference

In 1966, the Danish policy of détente went from focusing only on bilateral steps
to focusing also on NATO as an instrument for peace. The direct inducement for
the Danish proposal for a security conference had come from a US Pentagon
employee close to Secretary McNamara. Although we cannot discount the possi-
bility that Danish decision makers were themselves contemplating similar initi-
atives at that time, apparently no concrete plans existed, and the foreign ministry
192 Jonathan Søborg Agger
at least did not know of any such Danish deliberations prior to this US approach.
Underlying Denmark’s willingness to promote NATO as a means of détente was
a combination of internal and external factors. The apparent increase in Eastern
interest was a key factor. The increased Danish promotion of the conference idea
was due not only to the desire to exploit this window of opportunity to engage in
real negotiations on the reduction of international tensions, but was also to a
great extent driven by the wish to avoid being outdone by the East on détente
issues. This perspective also applied to the expected French proposal of a secur-
ity conference, which the Danes, in light of the imminent French withdrawal
from NATO’s command structure, saw as a potential setback for NATO’s public
image. In particular, the prospect of a public debate in Denmark on the country’s
future NATO membership after 1969 reinforced the need for NATO to be seen
as a vibrant and modern organization. Also, from a Danish perspective, the
political problems regarding France made allied unity and coherence more
important than ever, not least in order to avoid increased German military and
political influence.

Challenges beyond deterrence: NATO’s adoption of the

Harmel formula of 1967

Launching the Harmel study

After a year’s preparatory work, NATO ministers in December 1967 adopted the
so-called Harmel Report, which revised the political agenda for Atlantic cooper-
ation. The study originally derived from a Canadian initiative of 1964, which,
following on a suggestion made in 1966 by Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre
Harmel, led to a NATO Council decision to discuss, and possibly alter, the goals
and tasks of the alliance.46 A further impetus for the Belgian initiative might
have been Dean Rusk’s statement at the ministerial meeting in Brussels in June
1966 that the alliance should expand its political work and strengthen its efforts
to establish contacts between East and West. The US authorities received the
suggestion positively, and Rusk specifically appreciated the fact that the initi-
ative had come from a smaller European NATO country.47
When Harmel launched his suggestion in December 1966, the NATO coun-
tries received it very positively. According to NATO’s international staff, the
degree of success that greeted Harmel’s suggestion stemmed from the fact that
he had touched upon a general trend within the alliance. There was a general
agreement that NATO was outdated and that the French withdrawal from the
allied command structure had further strengthened the necessity to rethink the
NATO concept. The future of the alliance depended on the ability of its
members to act in unison.48 The Danish Foreign Ministry noted that there was
reason to believe that a Danish effort might pay off, the more so as an opportun-
ity had been presented to work towards positing NATO as an organization that
promoted, rather than restrained, détente and that was a firm foundation for
Western initiatives to advance the resolution of extant problems.49
 Striving for détente 193
NATO’s purpose rethought: military security and détente
The Harmel study gave rise to a redefinition of NATO’s tasks. According to the
study, the first task was “to maintain adequate military strength and political
solidarity to deter aggression and other forms of pressure and to defend the terri-
tory of member countries if aggression should occur.” In this climate of stability,
security, and confidence, the alliance should carry out its second function,
namely “to pursue the search for progress towards a more stable relationship in
which the underlying political issues can be solved. Military security and a
policy of détente are not contradictory but complementary.”50
This duality of NATO’s agenda was fully in accordance with traditional
Danish thinking on security policy, and during the Harmel study, the Danish
authorities had consequently supported a greater emphasis on the détente aspects
of NATO policy. Also, the formula on NATO’s dual purpose was mentioned in
a Danish–Norwegian draft that clearly influenced the subsequent composition of
the final report.51 Yet, although Denmark was among the most persistent sup-
porters of boosting détente in the rethinking of NATO’s tasks, and although it
assisted in bringing the famous Harmel formula on to the dual track of NATO’s
work into the final report, the Danish ideas were far from unique. With regard to
the crucial reference to the duality of NATO’s tasks, the wording in the
Danish–Norwegian draft was actually adopted word for word from papers drawn
up by US diplomat Foy M. Kohler, who was in charge of the Harmel study’s
subgroup III on NATO defense policy.52 Furthermore, the wording on the dual
nature of NATO in the final report was actually phrased in the Belgian draft,
which is also where the famous formula on military security and détente as
complementary elements was first drawn up.53
However, although several NATO countries clearly shared Denmark’s view
on the necessity of a stronger allied focus on détente, this did not mean that there
was a consensus on what NATO’s main focus should be. According to the
Danish Foreign Ministry, Turkey and Greece were absolutely opposed to détente
measures as such.54 Although most other countries appreciated the attempts to
relax international tensions, there was no general consensus on NATO’s con-
crete role as a tool for such measures of détente.

Political consultations revisited: NATO as an instrument of peace

In accordance with the Danish statements of late spring 1966 on the need for
NATO to engage more actively in promoting détente, the foreign ministry noted
in early 1967 that NATO, whose nuclear shield was a prerequisite for any dis-
cussion of détente, ought to be one of the forums where deliberations concerning
détente should take place.55 The basic Danish stand was that détente policy could
build just as well on bilateral as on multilateral steps. As far as bilateral moves
were concerned, individual countries should be able to act without obtaining a
prior consensus from NATO, while still being conscious of their responsibility
towards their allies.56
194 Jonathan Søborg Agger
However, Denmark’s acknowledgement of NATO’s role as a protagonist in
achieving détente between East and West also caused problems. The Danish fear
was that support for a stronger political role for NATO in pursuing active
détente could easily backfire, since other countries might agree and suggest that
NATO should become the only forum for conceiving the détente policy, and
might try to control the debate in practice through internal censorship and polit-
ical regimentation. However, the Danish authorities thought it would be pos-
sible, to a certain degree, to find expressions that, with a little ingenuity, could
be interpreted differently depending on where the interpreters placed the main
emphasis.57
There was yet another unfortunate implication of Denmark’s support for
boosting NATO’s political role in order to promote détente. By increasing
NATO’s political role in détente, there was a risk that the agenda would be
broadened to include, for example, out-of-area matters. Denmark could by no
means be politically implicated in conflicts in, for example, Vietnam or
Angola.58 Thus, the Danish authorities stated that they would have no difficulties
as long as the transformation of NATO into a “political alliance” did not involve
more than the promotion of détente. However, if the transformation involved
steps beyond this, the development would seem far more problematic from a
Danish point of view.
However, Danish deliberations on the extent of NATO’s political role
extended beyond these objections in principle, to political cooperation. Avoiding
a showdown with France was considered a main Danish foreign policy interest.
Beside concern about France’s influence on future Danish membership of the
Common Market, the Danes worried that a further decrease in French participa-
tion in the political work of the alliance would enlarge the gap between NATO
and France. Therefore, the Danish authorities considered how they might
promote a political stand that served Danish political interests relating to détente
without alienating the French. In this connection, the foreign ministry pointed
out that Krag had recently referred to NATO’s role as a clearinghouse for the
exchange of experience and assessments. This approach, the foreign ministry
felt, would hardly clash with French views. Nevertheless, it was considered
prudent to investigate exactly how far France was willing to go in this direc-
tion.59
During their subsequent conversations with the French, the Danish authorities
stressed that Denmark did not support too wide an expansion of political cooper-
ation, especially regarding out-of-area issues. For Denmark, the domestic polit-
ical necessity of boosting NATO’s image was a cardinal point. The Danes stated
that, in order to prevent a serious problem from emerging in 1969, Denmark was
aiming to provide NATO with an image that would make it seem attractive to
the Danish population. However, if Denmark were to agree to a markedly
expanded role for NATO in matters outside the geographic boundaries of NATO
proper, the Danes argued, this would be counterproductive, and the public boost
NATO could gain in Denmark by détente would be lost again.60 In addition,
after emphasizing the problem of Danish public opinion during a conversation
 Striving for détente 195
with French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, the Danish ambas-
sador to France believed he had obtained French support for casting the Harmel
Report as a constructive tool for détente.61 Yet although these Danish statements
were clearly aimed at accommodating France, the political views put forward
were in keeping with actual Danish perceptions.

Countering domestic criticism

At a Foreign Policy Committee meeting in late 1967, Danish Foreign Minister
Hans Tabor stated that the Danish government had not so much seen the Harmel
exercise as an attempt to change NATO than as an attempt to create a new
image for the alliance.62 The exact meaning of the foreign minister’s words are,
however, open to interpretation. It could be argued that Tabor was merely
describing Harmel’s intention to launch a debate about NATO’s tasks and
objectives. If that was the case, Tabor was largely correct. According to
NATO’s International Staff, the Belgian proposal was motivated by fears that
NATO might break up following France’s withdrawal, as well as by a desire to
stimulate public debate in order to satisfy détente-oriented public opinion. The
Belgian point of view was that the alliance should conduct a study showing that
it still had something to offer, and thus be a few steps ahead of harsh criticism of
it. According to the Belgian proposal, this study should be completed before
1969, from which point on a withdrawal from NATO would be possible for all
members.63
However, in all likelihood, the Danish foreign minister’s statement to the
committee was also an expression of Denmark’s own approach to the Harmel
exercise. Starting with the very first analyses in early 1967, the domestic angle
appeared to be a key motivation behind Denmark’s policy. Indeed, the Danish
preoccupation with the domestic aspect of the Harmel discussions was emphas-
ized most explicitly by the director of the politico-juridical department of the
foreign ministry, Janus Paludan, in September 1967:

Danish participation in the operation must have as its main objective the
eliciting of a result which can support the declared policy of the govern-
ment. This is to the effect that NATO, and thus Danish membership thereof,
must live on. Hence it follows that, seen from a narrow Danish point of
view, this does not per se revolve around making the Alliance viable, seen
objectively – for it will pull through – but around making it more attractive
to that part of the Danish electorate which is, or may be, skeptical. The key
instrument in this policy up to this point has been, and must surely be
during the Harmel study too, a stronger assertion of NATO’s role as a pro-
tagonist of détente between East and West.64

Such clear statements on the domestic advantages of a policy of détente con-

tinued to appear in the following months. Thus, in a memorandum for the
foreign minister, it was stressed that there was a domestic interest in the Harmel
196 Jonathan Søborg Agger
discussions resulting in a clear-cut demonstration in principle of NATO’s inten-
tion to contribute actively to the development of the current efforts at détente
between East and West.65 Foreign Minister Tabor also focused on the import-
ance of countering criticism from younger voters, in particular. By gradually
incorporating détente among the political goals of the alliance, Tabor argued,
NATO would acquire the image of a modern, progressive organization, which,
under changed international circumstances, would contribute to making it
attractive to the public, not least to the younger generation.66
Tabor’s comment on the role of young people was not unique. During the
discussions in subgroup II on NATO’s internal relationships, the Danish ambas-
sador to NATO, Henning Hjorth-Nielsen, stated that one of the most important
tasks for the Harmel study was to provide something new for the younger gener-
ation, who did not have any personal knowledge of the prevailing political cir-
cumstances.67 The head of subgroup II, Belgian Minister of State Paul-Henri
Spaak, retorted that the task ahead was to seek the truth, not to pander to the
young. Anti-communism was NATO’s framework. This, Spaak stated, was
something that young people had to understand.68
In a personal letter to Spaak following the meeting, Hjorth-Nielsen explained
the reasoning behind the Danish stand. Although the Danish government and a
majority in the parliament would support Denmark’s remaining in the alliance,
there were elements in the Danish population as well as in other countries who
were less enthusiastic. This was particularly true, Hjorth-Nielsen claimed,
among the younger generation. Therefore, the Danish representative noted, it
was important for NATO to put forward a realistic suggestion regarding the use-
fulness of a flexible and modern alliance. In this respect, it would hardly be a
good idea to portray NATO as an ideological tool against communism or, even
worse, as part of an ideological crusade into Asia. Such ideas had very little
support in Denmark. The only political step that Denmark could support was
détente in Europe, Hjorth-Nielsen stated.69
Although Prime Minister Krag steadfastly dismissed the possibility of a
Danish referendum on future NATO membership during talks with the US side
in March 1967, the continuous domestic talk of a possible referendum caused
him in 1969 to instruct the foreign ministry to cooperate closely with Norway in
the Harmel discussions as a way of avoiding such a referendum, since an elec-
tion campaign would be “unpleasant.”70
The strong Danish focus on the domestic situation did not mean that there
was no sincere appreciation in Copenhagen of the possibilities of creating
détente. As had previously been the case concerning the proposal for a security
conference, the Danish government regarded the reduction of tensions between
East and West as a key factor in the purpose of the Harmel study. As the Danish
representative stated in the initial phase of the exercise, the Harmel study was
useful in drawing up concrete measures for détente.71 However, he went on to
observe that an important goal in modernizing NATO was to achieve public
support for the alliance. The same kind of duality in the approach to the Harmel
study emerged from an early Danish analysis of the potential content of the
 Striving for détente 197
study. After referring to the importance of avoiding a referendum on Denmark’s
future membership of the alliance because a majority of the population was
expected to vote “no,” a senior Danish official noted that Denmark’s engage-
ment in the Harmel initiative was motivated by the hope of reforming NATO in
an unprejudiced direction. Thus, both in reality and in the public perception, he
stated, NATO should develop into the kind of organization in which the military
security aspects did not overshadow developments towards a more peaceful
world.72

The interim conclusion: the Harmel study

During the Harmel study, Denmark, together with Norway and Canada,
represented a more active wing that aimed to “modernize” NATO, as the Danish
authorities had phrased it, in early 1967.73 This modernization process was not
only a matter of securing a stronger allied focus on détente: it also aimed at
avoiding involvement in out-of-area affairs and at minimizing the role of ideo-
logy in NATO’s raison d’être. These two aims, in particular, demanded close
cooperation between the three countries, while many more members supported
the strengthening of détente, in particular Belgium and Britain.
Denmark’s active participation in rethinking NATO’s main goals was mainly
motivated by both a genuine wish for détente and a tactical attempt to counter
specific domestic political problems. In particular, Danish decision makers
feared that public support for NATO would plummet unless the alliance was
seen as a modern and flexible organization. However, the Danish line of policy
was a delicate balancing act. Too strong an emphasis on political cooperation in
order to strengthen NATO’s détente profile might backfire and lead, for
example, to Danish political involvement in out-of-area-matters. Similarly, the
expected reserved French position on détente issues dictated a cautious Danish
approach in order to avoid political problems with Paris. Besides risking further
damage to the coherence of NATO, a conflict with France would possibly
endanger future Danish admittance to the Common Market.

Conclusion
In the mid-1960s, Denmark played a far more active role in strengthening
NATO’s détente profile than before. Although Denmark had steadily argued,
since the 1950s, for a stronger allied focus on détente, the Danish government
had focused almost exclusively on bilateral, rather than multilateral, approaches.
Denmark’s new, rather high-profile policy of détente was not least due to the
development in the international situation. First, the international climate
appeared to have improved, and Eastern interest in negotiations on security
issues seemed to have increased. These factors increased the probability that the
genuine Danish wish for détente could be fulfilled. But the increased Eastern
interest also necessitated Western initiatives, if the Eastern bloc was not to outdo
NATO on détente issues.
198 Jonathan Søborg Agger
Second, developments within NATO, in particular the French withdrawal,
which might lead to increased German influence, made it increasingly important
for the Western alliance to ensure and demonstrate political coherence. Not least
due to the possibility of Denmark withdrawing from NATO after 1969, it had
become increasingly necessary to counter the growth of anti-NATO opinion and
to convince the Danish public that NATO was relevant. This was one of the
most prominent and consistent motives behind the Danish efforts for a greater
NATO profile in promoting the relaxation of tensions between East and West.
To sum up, the main motivating factors behind the Danish pursuit of a higher
NATO profile on détente were, on the one hand, a genuine wish for relaxation
between East and West and, on the other hand, a blend of foreign and domestic
political considerations, in particular the 1969 withdrawal option. There was a
clear agreement between the political vision and political tactics, and it is diffi-
cult to determine precisely the relative importance of the motives. Nevertheless,
to put it somewhat simplistically, the wish for détente represented the principal
political outlook and at the same time a somewhat distant political goal, whereas
domestic and foreign politics were the immediate issues that triggered the polit-
ical steps actually taken.

Notes
1 See, for example, Poul Villaume, “Denmark and NATO Through 50 Years,” in
Danish Foreign Policy Yearbook, ed. B. Heurlin and H. Mourtizen (Copenhagen:
DUPI, 1999), pp. 38–9; Nikolaj Petersen, “Danish security Policy in the Seventies:
Continuity or Change,” Cooperation and Conflict 3–4 (1972), p. 147. Here, Petersen
clearly indicates the domestic advantages of the Danish policy of détente.
2 Danish White Book, Problemer omkring dansk sikkerhedspolitik [Problems Concern-
ing Danish Security Policy] (Copenhagen: Danish Foreign Ministry, 1970), pp.
146–50.
3 Danish Foreign Ministry, Copenhagen, (DFM) Memorandum, 27 May 1966; Danish
Embassy in Rome to DFM, 14 May 1966, both in Danish National Archives, Copen-
hagen, (DNA), Archives of the Danish Foreign Ministry (ADFM), 5.E.110.a.
4 DFM Memorandum, 27 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
5 Danish Embassy in Washington, DC, (DaEmbWash) to DFM, 17 May 1966, DNA,
ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
6 See Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1965–68, vol. XV, p. 344.
7 DFM to Danish Delegation to NATO (DANATO), 20 May 1966, DNA, ADFM,
5.E.110.a.
8 DaEmbWash to DFM, 17 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
9 DFM to DANATO, 27 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
10 Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist, “What Role for NATO? Conflicting Perceptions
of Détente, 1963–65,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 2, no. 2 (2004), pp. 185–208,
199–201.
11 Information, 5 May 1966.
12 DFM Memorandum, 27 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
13 US Department of State (DoS) Research Memorandum, 1 July 1966, Lyndon B.
Johnson Library (LBJL) Austin, Texas, National Security Files (NSF), Country File:
Denmark Memos, Box 168, doc. 113.
14 Villaume, “Denmark and NATO,” p. 35.
15 Minutes of Meeting in the Foreign Policy Committee (FPC), 31 May 1966.
 Striving for détente 199
16 DANATO, 20 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.d.
17 DFM Memorandum, 27 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
18 DaEmbWash to DFM, 17 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
19 Memorandum of Conversation between the Deputy Foreign Ministers of Poland and
the GDR, 23 October 1969, SAPMO-Barch, DY 30/J IV 2/201/1106.
20 Minutes of NATO Ministerial Meeting, June 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
21 Memorandum of Conversation between Cleveland and Hækkerup, 23 May 1966,
DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a; Minutes of Meeting in FPC, 31 May 1966.
22 Minutes of NATO Ministerial Meeting, June 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
23 Memorandum of Conversation between Hækkerup and Harmel, 4 June 1966; Memo-
randum of Conversation between Cleveland and Hækkerup, 23 May 1966, both in
DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a; Minutes of Meeting in FPC, 31 May 1966.
24 DaEmbWash to DFM, 17 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
25 Military Attaché in Copenhagen to Paris, 2 June 1966, Rapports des attachées au
Danemark, 14 S, Service historique de l’Armee de terre, Paris (SHAT).
26 Minutes of Meeting in FPC, 25 October 1966.
27 Memorandum of Conversation between Cleveland and Hækkerup, 23 May 1966,
DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
28 DaEmbWash to DFM, 6 April 1966, DNA, ADFM, ad 5.E.126.
29 DANATO to DFM, 14 April 1964, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a. Naturally, the ambas-
sador did not expect that Germany was actually still trying to acquire a colonial
empire overseas as the original quote from 1897 refers to. Rather, he used the expres-
sion in its general, more metaphorical sense, namely a more central and influential
position in world politics.
30 Memorandum of Conversation between Cleveland and Hækkerup, 23 May 1966,
DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
31 DaEmbWash to DFM, 17 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
32 DFM to DANATO, 27 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.d.
33 Military Attaché in Copenhagen to Paris, 1 July 1966, Rapports des attachées au
Danemark, 14 S, SHAT.
34 See, for example, Bo Lidegaard, Jens Otto Krag, 1962–1978 (Copenhagen: Gylden-
dal, 2002), p. 288.
35 Intelligence Note, 12 August 1966, LBJL, NFS, Country File, Denmark Memos, Box
168, doc. 113.
36 DFM to DANATO, 20 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.d.
37 DoS Memorandum, 1 July 1966, LBJL, NFS, Country File, Denmark Memos, Box
168, doc. 113.
38 Washington Post, 27, 29, and 31 May 1966.
39 DFM to DANATO, 27 May 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
40 DANATO to DFM, 1 June 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
41 Memorandum of Conversation between Cleveland and Hækkerup, 23 May 1966,
DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
42 Minutes of NATO Ministerial Meeting, June 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
43 DANATO to DFM, 1 June 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
44 “Ministerial Communiqué,” Brussels, 7–8 June 1966, www.nato.int/docu/comm/
49–95/c660607a.htm (last accessed 19 December 2005).
45 DFM to DaEmbWash, 10 June 1966, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.a.
46 “Ministerial Communiqué,” Paris, 15–16 December 1966, www.nato.int/docu/
comm/49–95/c661215a.htm (last accessed 19 December 2005).
47 Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilat-
eralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (Winter
2004), pp. 22–74, here pp. 57–74.
48 Memoranda, 28 December 1966 and 13 January 1967, NATO Archives, Brussels
(NA), NISCA 4/10/1.
200 Jonathan Søborg Agger
49 DANATO to DFM, 18 February 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
50 “The Future Tasks of the Alliance (The ‘Harmel Report’),” 13–14 December 1967,
www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b671213a.htm (last accessed 19 December 2005).
51 DFM Memorandum, 26 September 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.d; Danish–Norwe-
gian Draft, undated, NA, NISCA 4/10/6; Minutes of Meeting in FPC, 8 December
1967.
52 Memorandum for Rapporteurs, 18 July 1967, NA, NISCA 4/10/5; Report by Kohler,
1 September 1967, NA, NISCA 4/10/4/3.
53 Draft Report, Belgian Version, undated, November 1967, NA, NISCA 4/10/6.
54 DFM Memorandum, 26 September 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.E.110.d.
55 DFM Memorandum, 17 April 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
56 DFM Memorandum, 22 February 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
57 Letter by Paludan, 29 September 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
58 Ibid.; DFM Memorandum, 3 March 1967; Memorandum for the Foreign Minister, 14
October 1967, both in DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
59 Memorandum for the Foreign Minister, 14 October 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
60 DFM Memorandum, 18 October 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
61 Danish Ambassador to France to DFM, 27 October 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
62 Minutes of Meeting in FPC, 8 December 1967.
63 Memorandum, 13 January 1967, NA, NISCA 4/10/1.
64 Letter by Paludan, 29 September 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d, translated by the
author.
65 Memorandum for the Foreign Minister, 14 October 1967, ADFM, NA, 5.D.110.d.
66 Krag to DANATO, 24 October 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
67 DFM Memorandum, 7 July 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
68 Ibid.
69 Letter from DANATO, 12 July 1967, NA, NISCA 4/10/4/2.
70 Krag to DANATO, 24 October 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
71 DFM Memorandum, 17 April 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
72 DFM Memorandum, 22 February 1967, DNA, ADFM, 5.D.110.d.
73 DFM Memorandum, 19 September 1967, ADFM, NA, 5.D.110.d.
12 A decade of delusions and
disappointments
Italy and NATO in the 1960s
Leopoldo Nuti

Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to trace the evolution of Italy’s attitude towards
NATO during the 1960s, showing how throughout the decade the original firm
reliance on the Atlantic alliance was mitigated by a number of factors, such as
the frustration of Italy’s nuclear aspirations, the mounting involvement of the
United States in the Vietnam War, and the perception of a growing instability in
the Mediterranean. In order to illustrate the process of transformation, this
chapter looks at the Italian reactions to a number of simultaneous processes in
the international system, namely:

• the overall evolution of the global strategic context, with the gradual pro-
gression of the superpowers’ relationship from confrontation to détente, on
the one hand, and the deterioration of the situation in Vietnam, on the other;
• the changes in West European relations and in the Atlantic alliance;
• the evolution of the Mediterranean strategic context and the twin crises of
1967–68, all of which were particularly relevant for Italy.

By analyzing the Italian response to these trends, the chapter suggests that a
growing apathy characterized Italy’s relationship with the alliance in the late
1960s, as if NATO had progressively come to play an almost perfunctory role in
the country’s foreign policy. The chapter concludes that after the twin shocks of
the Six Days’ War and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which for a brief
moment seemed to restore the old clear-cut division between the blocs, a trend
can be detected towards the elaboration of a more independent foreign policy –
somewhat comparable to a counter-insurance policy for meeting the challenges
of a new, uncertain phase of the international system.

Italy, NATO, and détente

For many years after Italy’s inclusion in the Atlantic pact, NATO fulfilled a
central role in Italian foreign and security policy. NATO represented not only
the best possible guarantee of US protection from a Soviet threat, but it also
202 Leopoldo Nuti
protected Italy from the subtler threat of a return to the old European game of
power politics. The US presence in Europe through the Atlantic alliance
implied, in fact, that no other West European power – be it a resurgent Germany
or a Gaullist France – would again try to impose its supremacy over the rest of
the Continent. In the words of one Italian diplomat, “the richest and most distant
master is always the best.”1 At the same time, Italy’s membership in NATO
represented the irrevocable pro-Western orientation of the country’s political
system and provided a strong anchor against any attempt to steer it in a different
direction. In a country where pro-Soviet forces numbered between one-quarter
and one-third of the electorate, such a counter-insurance was regarded as crucial
by all anti-communist political forces. This dual role made the Atlantic alliance
a crucial feature of Italy’s postwar political landscape.2

The nuclear issue

By the end of the 1950s, NATO had become even more important by becoming
the main instrument through which Italy could try to achieve a nuclear status. As
atomic armaments evolved into the central instrument of Western strategy, the
Italian government had tried to gain access to the new status symbol by develop-
ing a strategy of cooperation with other powers, particularly with the United
States within a NATO framework. By the late 1950s, therefore, the Italian
government had become quite active in a range of initiatives related to military
applications of nuclear power, all of which were based on a close collaboration
with the United States. Paramount among these initiatives was the Italian
decision in summer 1958 to accept the deployment of two squadrons of 15
Jupiter medium-range ballistic missiles, leading to the 26 March 1959 agree-
ment on, and the subsequent set-up of, the 36th Air Brigade of the Italian Air
Force, which manned and operated the missiles together with special US teams.3
In short, at a time when nuclear sharing was fast becoming the central theme
of Atlantic relations, the Italian government had reached the conclusion that its
only way to a nuclear status would be through close cooperation with NATO
and the United States. This strategy was for quite some time fully compatible
with the nuclear sharing schemes put forward by the late Eisenhower adminis-
tration, as well as with the more general US interest in strengthening the
Western military posture.4 NATO was therefore central to Italy’s nuclear aspira-
tions, and the deployment of the Jupiters was seen as simply the first step
towards strengthening the country’s nuclear role. This explains the Italian readi-
ness to follow through the deployment of the first generation of intermediate-
range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) with a new generation of missiles, whenever
these might be ready: in spite of mixed signals from the Kennedy administration
as early as 1961, the Italians probably expected through most of 1962 that the
Jupiters would soon be replaced with sea-based Polaris missiles, either under
Italian control, under NATO, or with a bilateral US–Italian agreement.
The turning point of this modest bid for a nuclear status was probably Italy’s
failure to ensure the continuation of the special nuclear relationship with Wash-
 A decade of delusions and disappointments 203
ington when in early 1963 the United States decided to remove the Jupiter mis-
siles from Italy and refused to provide a new generation of IRBMs to be
installed aboard the cruiser Garibaldi, which the Italian Navy had modified in
the previous years to host the new missiles.5 The removal did provide some
behind-the-scenes resentment, and rumors circulated in Italian political circles
that it was a result of a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev to solve
the Cuban missile crisis – not an entirely wrong speculation, indeed, since the
Italian Jupiters were dismantled to ease the removal of the Turkish ones.6 The
growing US resistance to providing nuclear weapons to its West European allies,
therefore, was clearly going to deprive Italy of one of the trump cards that Rome
had been willing to exploit during the previous years. At the same time, in
December 1963, the formation of the alliance between the Italian Socialist Party
(PSI) and the Christian Democrats (DC) meant that both parties would be
inclined to keep a low-profile Atlantic policy in order not to jeopardize the new
fragile and unstable majority. As will be seen in the discussion of the impact of
the Vietnam War below, any strong Atlanticist stance was likely to have a negat-
ive impact on the Socialist decision to support the government, since the PSI had
only recently discarded its previous pro-Soviet attitude.
Nevertheless, it took quite some time before Italy fully metabolized the
notion that a nuclear option through NATO was ruled out by the growing incli-
nation of the United States to seek a détente with the Soviet Union in the field of
arms control. For a number of years, and in spite of the many doubts that its
political leaders nurtured about the project, Italy continued to display a moderate
interest in the project of the NATO Multilateral Force (MLF), even if this
represented only a second best, compared to the previous bilateral
arrangements.7 By the summer of 1964, according to a number of reports, even
the Socialist Party had given its quiet consent to the MLF, allowing Italy to
participate in the MLF working group and in the mixed manning experiment on
the USS Biddle. Inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a group composed of the
leading Italian diplomats worked out a proposal for creating a small control
committee inside NATO, which would allow the countries participating in the
MLF to retain control of the force. As the Italian director-general for political
affairs, Roberto Ducci, explained to US Ambassador Frederick Reinhardt, the
proposal was meant to assure for Italy a “first-class status” in NATO strategic
planning, which otherwise Italy could acquire only by developing its own
nuclear arsenal, following the French and British examples.8 When the Johnson
administration let the matter drop, therefore, there were some clear signs of
Italian discomfort at the disappearance of the project.9
The Italian government, however, still hoped that some form of joint NATO
control of nuclear weapons could be created. When in April 1965 US Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara proposed to set up a special committee that would
study the possible solutions for implementing consultation on nuclear planning
within the alliance, the Italian government initially took a very cautious attitude
towards the initiative, as it was not sure what Italy’s role in the committee could
be.10 As soon as it appeared that there was a chance of permanent membership in
204 Leopoldo Nuti
the new board, however, the Italians showed firm resolution to be included, and
in spite of McNamara’s original preference for a small panel of knowledgeable
experts, “the smaller allies, led by Italy, prevailed over US reservations and
were able to gain broad representation on the Committee.”11
Eventually, in December 1966, the ministerial session of the NATO Council
decided to create both a general board, the Nuclear Defense Affairs Committee
(NDAC), open to all members of the alliance interested in discussing its broad
policy outlines, as well as a select body, the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG),
which would be the place for more detailed discussion of nuclear problems. The
latter would be composed of the United States, West Germany, Britain, Italy,
and three more members of the NDAC in rotation.12 The result was obviously
pleasing for the Italian Government, and at the second NPG meeting held in
Ankara in September 1967, the Italian defense minister took advantage of his
position to sponsor a debate about national participation in the alliance’s nuclear
planning.13 Finally, the active beginning and the amelioration of the Italian posi-
tion in one of the alliance’s relevant bodies were capped by one of the peaks in
the country’s nuclear diplomacy with the appointment of Italian General Nino
Pasti as deputy supreme allied commander Europe (deputy SACEUR) for
nuclear affairs, a new position created at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers
Europe (SHAPE) in September 1966 and terminated two years later.14
Italy’s modest success in ensuring a role inside the NPG was, however, more
than offset by the developments related to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
which turned into one of the most bitter pills Italy had to swallow in its postwar
diplomacy. The NPT, in fact, generated a large amount of skepticism among
West Europeans and in Italy, in particular – which shows that Italy’s concern
with NATO nuclear problems was related to a broader range of factors that went
beyond the mere desire to play an active role in shaping the alliance’s nuclear
plans. While some members of the government majority, like Deputy Prime
Minister Pietro Nenni and Secretary of the Republican Party Ugo La Malfa,
openly supported the NPT, others, like Prime Minister Aldo Moro, Foreign
Minister Amintore Fanfani, and President Giuseppe Saragat, were perplexed
about its implications, particularly its negative repercussions for NATO nuclear
sharing and the fact that it seemed to sanction a permanent discriminating divi-
sion between nuclear and non-nuclear powers. Italian diplomacy, therefore,
ended up fighting a sort of delaying action against the NPT. In one of his cutting
quips, Ambassador Ducci scathingly referred to the treaty as “the treaty by
which it is requested that those who have made a chastity pledge now emascu-
late themselves.”15
In the 1964–65 NATO discussions about the correlation between the MLF
project and possible forms of arms control, the Italians had already shown an
increasing restlessness at the idea of giving up all hopes of nuclear sharing for
the sake of a non-proliferation agreement.16 When the United States finally
worked out a joint draft with the Soviets and presented it to the allies between
the end of 1966 and the early weeks of 1967, the Italian reaction was rather spir-
ited.17 Italy began a rearguard action to try and slow down the implementation of
 A decade of delusions and disappointments 205
the NPT – or at least to exact the highest possible price for its acquiescence. In
particular, Italian diplomatic action focused on the general issue of non-discrim-
ination between nuclear and non-nuclear powers, as well as on two specific
facets, namely the duration of the treaty (which Italy successfully tried to limit)
and the control of its implementation – which Italy insisted should be carried out
by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), rather than by the Inter-
national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).18
Nevertheless, as will become clear below, the uneasiness displayed by Italy
towards the NPT was not due only to Italy’s concerns about being cut out of the
technological race or to its aspirations for a nuclear status. These preoccupations
were indeed felt by a sizeable number of diplomats and politicians but were not
at the core of the malaise. “This nuclear problem,” summed up Prime Minister
Moro, “was essentially a political one,” and the Non-Proliferation Treaty “could
have a negative effect on the Atlantic Alliance.”19 In Ambassador Reinhardt’s
words, the Italians feared that:

The policy of the United States toward Europe may be beginning to shift.
They are worried that the US, in its enthusiasm for détente, will be led to
settle US–Soviet differences at the expense of Europe. They thus believe
that they see the beginning of a process which, if continued, would not only
impair the NATO alliance but might eventually lead to a reversal of
alliances.20

The documents of these years are, in fact, replete with expressions of discomfort
at what the Italians perceived as the rationale behind the NPT, which from their
point of view implied a number of unpalatable developments. Détente was to
many Italian politicians a welcome development, and indeed one that they them-
selves had been working towards, but not at the price of a US withdrawal from
Europe or of a deal between the superpowers sur le dos of the Europeans. The
latter, in particular, became a recurring fear, as the United States became more
and more involved in the Vietnam War. Here, suffice it to say that even a mod-
erate, centrist politician such as Aldo Moro went as far as declaring that the
Vietnam War and the NPT were two facets of the same nightmare scenario,
since their joint impact on Italy, as well as on the other West European coun-
tries, might end up pushing them towards a more neutralist stance.21 In short, the
underlying fear among the moderate Italians was that NATO would become
useless, a sort of empty shell devoid of a soul, if détente was achieved at the
price of a Soviet-American deal over the heads of the European allies.

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam conflict was the other crucial problem that enhanced Italian suspi-
cions about the future of the Western alliance. The growing US involvement in
the war threatened Italy in more than one way. Domestically, it was the single
most important issue on which the center-left coalition between the Christian
206 Leopoldo Nuti
Democrats and the Socialists (PSI) might founder, should the cabinet be called
to pledge its full support to US escalation. Divided as it still was among several
factions and groupings, the PSI was at best capable of quietly endorsing any
declaration of approval for the United States that the government might make,
but it was much more likely to take an openly critical stance against US involve-
ment in the war – a position that the large majority of the Christian Democrats,
on the other hand, would be certain to oppose.22 Furthermore, from the point of
view of Italy’s foreign policy, the war in Vietnam seemed to confirm that
Western Europe was no longer the number one priority of the United States. As
a US State Department memorandum noted:

Italy is deeply concerned that the United States is becoming decreasingly

interested in Western Europe and that because of our preoccupations with
Southeast Asia, we may exchange the security of Western Europe for an
agreement with the Soviet Union which would open the way for a more
apparent than real settlement in Asia.23

From 1965 onwards, therefore, US–Italian meetings turned into a litany of

Italian expressions of discomfort at the prospect of any further US involvement
in the war. The Socialists were particularly hard put: “This war,” Nenni con-
fessed in early 1965 to Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs W. Averell
Harriman, “is creating many difficulties in Europe, in Italy, and in me.”24 Faced
with loud leftist opposition inside his own party, which was constantly demand-
ing a firmer stance against US participation in the war, Nenni was torn between
his desire to see the success of the Center-Left – the political experiment on
which he had staked the last years of his political career – and the need to
prevent any further split inside the PSI, which had already lost a sizeable left-
wing fraction upon entering the government in late 1963.25 Nenni was also afraid
that the war would widen a gap between American and European public opin-
ions, a belief similar to that held by the Italian ambassador in Washington,
Sergio Fenoaltea. While in public Fenoaltea felt it necessary to display unwaver-
ing support for the United States – to the point that he handed in his resignation
to protest against a speech by Foreign Minister Fanfani that he regarded as not
supportive enough of Washington’s policy – in his private remarks Fenoaltea
was very pessimistic about the outcome of the war and feared its repercussions
on the Atlantic alliance.26
With the passing of time and the deepening of US escalation, Italy developed
another, more subtle form of anxiety. As the United States found itself more and
more incapable of getting out of its predicament, some European governments
began to fear that Washington might look to the Soviet Union for help in per-
suading Hanoi to accept a reasonable settlement of the conflict. Thus, expres-
sions of concern for a possible Soviet-American deal over the heads of the
Europeans became commonplace, particularly in those countries, such as West
Germany and Italy, which had the strongest interest in the development of a
nuclear sharing formula inside NATO. As early as May 1965, Fanfani had asked
 A decade of delusions and disappointments 207
US Secretary of State Dean Rusk whether the “Soviets might be trying to link
the problem in Vietnam with talks on European problems, such as the MLF,”
receiving a long, reassuring answer from Rusk.27 As the war got worse,
however, suspicions grew more intense. In the gloomy, pessimistic interpreta-
tion of the NATO crisis that he entrusted to the pages of his journal, NATO
Secretary-General Manlio Brosio made no mystery of his fear that the United
States would end up paying a high price to extricate itself from Vietnam and that
the Non-Proliferation Treaty would turn out to be the ideal ground for a Soviet-
American compromise – at the expense of Western Europe and NATO.28
The pursuit of the war, therefore, created such an element of friction in the
transatlantic relationship that, not only did the Italians privately recommend
moderation and a negotiated conclusion of the conflict, but they also actively
participated in some of the clandestine initiatives aimed at opening a channel of
communication between Washington and Hanoi, hoping to bring about a quick
settlement of the war that would restore some strength and vitality to the
Atlantic alliance.29 The repeated failures of these initiatives, however, left a deep
sense of frustration and increased the Italian doubts about the US leadership of
the alliance.

No progress in Europe30
In spite of all disillusionment with NATO, by the mid-1960s the alliance still
offered Italy a better perspective than Europe did. After the outburst of several
promising, if somewhat contradictory, initiatives in the first two years of the
decade, European integration had suffered a dramatic setback by 1963. Italy had
pledged its qualified support both to the French Fouchet plan for the creation of
a political union among the Six and to the British request about London’s pos-
sible inclusion in the European Economic Community (EEC), but after both pro-
jects had ground to a halt, the Italian optimism of the previous years gave way to
a more sober assessment of what the EEC could achieve. Nevertheless, the
Italian Foreign Ministry discussed new plans for re-launching a possible polit-
ical project among the Six; it continued to sponsor the enlargement of the EEC
to include Britain; and it appreciated the positive results in the field of the
Common Agricultural Policy.
All these efforts to re-launch European integration in 1964–65, however, met
with very limited success, while the “empty chair crisis” of 1965 persuaded Italy
that no progress would be possible, at least as long as French President Charles
de Gaulle remained in power in Paris. By the mid 1960s, the general feeling in
Rome was that the whole pattern of relations within the Western bloc had to be
watched with the utmost attention.
The Italian Government could not help noticing that the élan and the confi-
dence of the previous years had gone and that the most likely result of a renewed
British EEC application would be yet another failure. “Since 1962,” wrote
Ambassador Ducci in 1968, “Europe is walking backwards.”31 To the Italians,
therefore, the “empty chair crisis” of 1965–66 did not come as a surprise but
208 Leopoldo Nuti
merely confirmed that the most that could be expected from the process of Euro-
pean integration was some slow progress in the economic field – as shown by
the success of the Common Agricultural Policy – but no outstanding innovation,
as long as French foreign policy continued to be shaped by Gaullist
conceptions.32
From the point of view of bilateral relations with the West European partners,
the picture was hardly a better one, as relations with both France and Germany
were marred by a number of problems. The Fifth Republic pursued a foreign
policy that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs found in many cases totally at
odds with its own conceptions. In the field of European integration, in particular,
de Gaulle’s intentions and actions – and in particular the 1965 crisis – were
defined in an official Foreign Ministry study as “diametrically opposed” to those
of the Italian Government.33 As for the Federal Republic of Germany, with
which Rome had never managed to establish a connection as close as with other
European partners, the relationship was now made more difficult by the growing
tensions between Italy and Austria about the unresolved problems of the Alto-
Adige region, brought to the foreground by a new wave of terrorist bombings.34
As the Italian ambassador in Bonn remarked at the time, the relations between
Rome and Bonn, friendly as they may have been, still featured several “seeds of
misunderstandings ready to flourish at the first opportunity.”35
The only European government with which the Italian Center-Left seemed to
enjoy a rather warm relationship was the British Labour government led by
Harold Wilson, both because of its reformist domestic approach and because of
its foreign policy program. Rome was openly in favor of Britain’s entry into the
EEC, and any proposals Italy put forward in the field of European integration
always emphasized the need to leave the door open to a later British inclusion;
furthermore, the Labour government also shared the Italian belief in a negotiated
settlement of the Vietnam War, although Wilson displayed more conspicuous
support for the US position than Italy did.36 To put things in the correct perspect-
ive, however, it must be stressed that Italy attached more importance to its rela-
tionship with London than vice versa.
Thus the center-left cabinets felt an increasing risk of isolation, which was
intensified by the perception that since 1962 the two pillars of Italian foreign
policy – NATO and European integration – had not only stopped growing, but
had actually experienced a period of decline – temporary, perhaps, but clearly a
source of serious concern. In 1966 this feeling of isolation was further height-
ened by the exclusion of Italy from the trilateral group formed by the United
States, Great Britain, and West Germany to deal with the problem of the cost of
NATO’s conventional forces.37 The event raised the specter of a new form of
directorate when the scope of the talks was extended to broader strategic issues,
and it was all the more resented in Rome because of the attachment to the
alliance that Italy had displayed for many years. The creation of a “clandestine
tripartite steering committee” would be “a tragic mistake,” noted Ambassador
Fenoaltea.38
 A decade of delusions and disappointments 209
The 1966 NATO crisis and the Harmel exercise
At a time when its relations with the main European partners were rather cold –
if not outright difficult – and relations with the United States stood under the
ambiguous shadow of the uncertain perspectives of détente and Vietnam, most
Italian politicians felt they could not afford a serious showdown with France,
which explains the rather mild Italian reaction to the 1966 crisis ushered in by
the French withdrawal from NATO. Even if the French withdrawal was a very
dangerous development, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs believed it was
of the utmost importance not to exacerbate the situation, particularly if one
wanted to keep the door open to a possible return of France into the alliance.39
To make things worse, the Atlantic crisis caught the Italian Government in a
delicate domestic situation. The memorandum informing Italy of the French
decision to withdraw from the integrated military structure was handed to
Ambassador Giovanni Fornari on 9 March, after Aldo Moro’s newly completed
third cabinet had received a confidence vote by the Italian Senate (on 8 March)
but before this had been confirmed by the chamber of deputies.
The very first official Italian reaction, in fact, was contained in the foreign
policy section of the speech with which Moro presented the cabinet to the lower
chamber on 15 March. The prime minister stressed that the new government
would remain loyal to the Atlantic alliance and its political and military goals,
he hinted at the “risks” of the “re-emergence of nationalistic attitudes” which
could “spread in a dangerous fashion,” and he formulated the wish that the
“current developments” did not “weaken the existing ties.”40 This altogether
mild reaction seems to have been shared by President Saragat, who reportedly
sent a personal reply to de Gaulle stressing the traditional feelings of friendship
between the two countries, feelings that remained, in spite of the recent French
foreign policy initiatives.41 The new cabinet debated the problem of a possible
reaction in its very first meeting on 16 March 1966, in an atmosphere of general
pessimism, and was dominated by the impression that the whole architecture of
the Western bloc had received yet another shattering blow after the crises of
1962–63 and 1965. The gloomy session was concluded by the approval of the
British proposal for a declaration of the “Fourteen.”42
On 26 March, after the declaration of support for the alliance by the other 14
members on 18 March, Italy gave a formal reply to the French memorandum
when Ambassador Fornari presented a note asking the French Government to
clarify the extent and the exact consequences of its decision.43 The cabinet
debated the problem once again two-and-a-half months later, on 31 May 1966.
This time the ministers were already focusing on the technical consequences of
the withdrawal, as the immediate threat of a sudden dissolution of the alliance
had disappeared. They discussed such problems as the financial cost and the
future location of the main institutions of the alliance. Nenni, however, touched
on a very sensitive issue when he stated that the problem of where to transfer
NATO’s headquarters to should be discussed in more depth at the time of
the renewal of the Atlantic pact, which was going to happen in 1969 – thus
210 Leopoldo Nuti
implicitly, and perhaps even involuntarily, hinting at a possible alteration of the
character of NATO.44
All things considered, and apart from the more outspoken reactions of the
press, the Italian Government followed a remarkably quiet course of action.
While constantly praising the virtues of the alliance and stressing the utmost
Italian loyalty to its principles, no member of the cabinet openly criticized de
Gaulle in such a way as British Foreign Minister Michael Stewart and German
Undersecretary of State Ullrich von Hase did. Italy’s willingness to remain
firmly anchored to Washington, in other words, was moderated by its desire not
to break or damage irreparably the relationship with Paris.45 As Fanfani pointed
out to Rusk, some Italian political forces were concerned with the possible stra-
tegic isolation of Italy resulting from the crisis and felt that “maximum links
with France had to be maintained to facilitate France’s future re-association.”46
Eventually, aside from Foreign Minister Fanfani’s proposal to develop an
Atlantic project to bridge the growing technological gap between the two sides
of the Atlantic, Italy took a number of steps designed to enhance its own role
within NATO. It made known that it was willing to accept that several of the
alliance’s institutions be removed from French territory as a consequence of
the French decision to withdraw, in particular, the NATO Supply Center and the
NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency, and it eventually ended up hosting the
NATO Defense College in Rome. It also made clear to the US Government that
it might be willing to add its own contribution to the defense assistance provided
by the alliance to Greece and Turkey, an issue to which the United States (the
main contributor to the defense budget of these countries) attached great import-
ance for the defense of the alliance’s southern flank.47
Italy’s confidence in the alliance, however, had been badly scarred, and in the
subsequent debate about the Harmel Report – arguably the most significant
transformation of NATO since its foundation – Italy kept a very low profile.
This attitude was probably due to the impending political elections and the fact
that the government felt it too risky to take any high-profile political initiative.48
It is significant, therefore, that the NATO secretary-general himself, the Italian
Manlio Brosio, was deeply skeptical about the possible results that the Harmel
exercise could achieve, and his line of thinking may have influenced the Italian
perception of the initiative.49 Throughout the discussions of the four subgroups
that prepared the Harmel Report, Italy played a rather passive role. It can be
safely said that it accepted, but did not actively promote, the final report adopted
by the alliance in December 1967.

The changes in the Mediterranean and the two crises of

1967–68
At least as relevant as all previous changes was the transformation of the stra-
tegic context of the Mediterranean, where a number of alterations significantly
affected Italy’s perception of its security. The most significant change was a
growing Soviet naval presence in the Mediterranean, which became particularly
 A decade of delusions and disappointments 211
strong at the time of the 1967 war, and which was all the more remarkable, con-
sidering that until 1963, Soviet naval activities had been almost irrelevant in that
region. By 1965, however, the programs of naval rearmament launched by
Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev in the late 1950s had come to fruition, and
the Black Sea Fleet started to deploy some detachments in the Mediterranean –
the Fifth Eskadra or Sovmedron (Soviet Mediterranean Squadron).50
The impact of the increased Soviet presence was heightened by the progres-
sive withdrawal of the West European powers from the southern shore of the
Mediterranean and by a variety of local tensions. Cyprus became independent in
1960, only to become a troublespot after a few years; France granted independ-
ence to Algeria in 1962 and also withdrew its forces from the alliance’s integ-
rated organization, denying NATO the use of two major harbors, Toulon and
Mers-el-Kebir; Britain granted independence to Malta in 1964. The legal status
of the NATO command on the island, Allied Forces Mediterranean (AFMED),
was negotiated with the new Maltese Government the following year and
allowed NATO to retain its installations on the island, but a couple of years
later, Britain left the command, and AFMED was deactivated, to be replaced by
a subordinated command, Allied Naval Forces South (NAVSOUTH) – led by
the Italian Admiral Luciano Sotgiu – under AFSOUTH.
As the case of AFMED–NAVSOUTH shows, this gradual withdrawal of the
European powers from the Mediterranean might have opened up a number of
opportunities for Italy to fill the vacant slots in the alliance’s chain of command
and, above all, to expand its influence in the region. Coupled with the expanding
Soviet presence and the growing tensions in the Middle East, however, the Euro-
pean retreat turned out to be a rather mixed blessing. Many of the maritime
states of the southern shore of the Mediterranean seemed willing to step up their
relationship with Moscow, and the Italian documents of the time reveal a
growing concern over the Soviet penetration and the opportunities that the rising
tensions in the area seemed to offer to the Soviet Union.51 Together with the pre-
occupation regarding a shift of US interests away from Europe and towards
Asia, this concern made the Italian Government eager for a more direct NATO
role in the Mediterranean, but also skeptical that the alliance was able to play
that role.52
This concern was most visible during the Six Days’ War of June 1967. The
new clash between the Arabs and the Israelis proved that, in spite of the pro-
Arab proclivities of many members of the government, the majority of Italian
public opinion was at the time overwhelmingly in favor of Israel and forced the
government, after some initial hesitations, to drop all pretenses of “equidistance”
between the warring factions. Public criticism of the government “continued to
mount until by the time of the Israeli military victory change became
inevitable.”53 In a few days, the highest authorities, including President Saragat
and Prime Minister Moro, took a clear-cut pro-Israeli stance, reaffirming that
“Italian policy toward the Middle East must be based on traditional bases of
Italian foreign policy, that is, solidarity with Italy’s Western Allies.” The tradi-
tional caution towards the Arab states was partially abandoned when, at the
212 Leopoldo Nuti
General Assembly of the United Nations, Moro added that a possible Israeli
withdrawal from the occupied territories should be part of a general settlement
of all problems of the area. All Arab foreign ministries immediately expressed
their deep resentment to the Italian ambassadors in the Middle Eastern
countries.54 In the following weeks, these initial declarations were somewhat
toned down, but it was clear, as US Ambassador Reinhardt cabled to the State
Department, that “the recent Middle East crisis did stimulate renewed Italian
devotion to the Alliance.”55
A few months later, the Czechoslovak crisis would once again renew Italian
interest in strengthening NATO. The Prague Spring had been followed with the
utmost interest in Italy, and the Soviet intervention in August 1968 – even
though it had been feared since the inception of the Czechoslovak reformist
movement – generated widespread indignation, to the point that it marked the
first serious disagreement between the Italian Communist Party and the Soviet
Union. The repression of the Czechoslovak move towards a new form of social-
ism not only confirmed all beliefs in the deeply illiberal nature of the Soviet
regime, but it also seemed to wave aside – albeit only for a short while – previ-
ous progress achieved towards an international détente. Conjectures soon began
to circulate that other possible dissident states in Eastern Europe, namely
Romania and Yugoslavia, could be the object of the next Soviet attempt to
regain full control of its sphere of influence, and both the Romanian and the
Yugoslav governments made no mystery with the Italians of their preoccupa-
tions in this regard.56 From a purely military point of view, moreover, the
Czechoslovak crisis altered the balance of conventional forces in Europe by
bringing a large number of Soviet divisions into the heart of the European conti-
nent, from where they could easily strike in almost any direction. For Italy, this
meant that a possible attack from the Warsaw Pact against Yugoslavia – if not
directly against its own frontiers – could benefit from the additional strength of
the new forces deployed to crush the Dubček Government.
The Italian Government decided that, in such an uncertain international situ-
ation, détente had lost much of its meaning. The government decided that it
could not sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if the parliament had already
granted the necessary authority to do so. President Saragat made clear that to go
to Moscow and sign the treaty in the aftermath of the invasion was indeed
impossible.57 As a consequence of this hardened attitude, all previous rumors
about a possible Italian appeal in 1969 that the North Atlantic Treaty be deeply
transformed by the time of its 20th anniversary were quickly abandoned. Sud-
denly, a strengthened NATO turned once again to the center of the Italian polit-
ical stage as the best guarantee against any new Soviet initiatives, and in his
speech that condemned the Soviet aggression, on 24 August, Italian Foreign
Minister Giuseppe Medici openly called for a reinforcement of the alliance.
Within a few days, however, the Italian Government was to find out that there
would be no strong reaction to the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia from
the United States. Lest any harsh criticism spoil the remaining chances for
détente, Washington issued only a rather bland censure and a call from US
 A decade of delusions and disappointments 213
President Lyndon Johnson for the withdrawal of the occupation troops.58 From
Vienna, Ambassador Ducci, with his customary lucidity, penned an even more
disheartening comment about the relationship between the Prague invasion and
the future of NATO:

The contradiction of which this fundamental organization for the defense of

Europe [i.e., NATO] suffers is that it is meant to help Europe, but its
essence is American. Alas, the priority of Europe in American foreign
policy varies with the passing of time: today it is very low. When one talks
to the Americans about Europe . . . they turn their heads in the other direc-
tion. The motive is not just the Vietnam war . . . this is, after all, a contingent
reason. There are two other basic motives. The first is the absurd evaluation
that it is necessary for the US to “pay” the Soviet support against the future
Chinese threat, when it is actually the USSR which is the first designated
victim of Chinese expansionism, and it is therefore up to the Soviets to “pur-
chase” the American support. Because of this primitive and rigid concept,
détente with the Soviet Union enjoys, and will continue to do so (at least as
long as the US will not adopt more realistic concept) the priority over Europe
– including the countries of the Atlantic alliance. [Emphasis added.]
True, these countries can hope in something better than the poor Czechs:
but exactly how much better? The rape of Czechoslovakia is a confirmation
of the Cuban affair: in a situation of nuclear balance, victory goes to those
who enjoy a conventional superiority in the local area. NATO (and this is
the second reason why Europe holds a second place behind the USSR for
American priorities) does not have a local conventional superiority. Since it
does not have it, and since one cannot believe that the American govern-
ment may unleash a nuclear war if not in the direst circumstances, NATO is
forced to watch sans bouger all developments of the European military
balance which work to her disadvantage
. . . Even leaving aside the French secession, therefore, the current
NATO cannot defend Europe from a gradual deterioration and weakening
of its political and strategic positions.59

Conclusion
Ducci’s gloomy reflections illuminate the mood of Italian diplomacy as the
decade approached its end. In a few months, the seemingly powerful impact of
the two crises of 1967 and 1968 had already been superseded by a return to the
trends of the previous years and, above all, by the pursuit of détente between the
United States and the Soviet Union. The deterioration of the strategic picture in
the Mediterranean and in the Middle East seemed bound only to allow further
Soviet encroachments, while the United States and the Western alliance seemed
unable to provide the adequate means to oppose this penetration. With the
United States intent on pursuing the logic of arms control and engrossed in
finding a way out of Vietnam, Italian diplomacy felt that it would become
214 Leopoldo Nuti
necessary to rely more and more on the limited means Italy had at its disposal to
protect Italian interests and security in the new, difficult environment that was
being shaped. This sensation was reinforced by the increasing stagnation of the
domestic political situation, where the Center-Left was rapidly losing what little
reformist zeal it had had in the past and was failing to give the country the
stability it had been looking for.
This meant going along, albeit obtorto collo for a sizeable minority of diplo-
mats and politicians, with the logic of arms control, and it meant signing the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Italy did at the end of January 1969. It implied
reinforcing Italian attempts to work out its own limited détente, on a regional
scale, with some East European countries, as well as securing the country’s
borders by eliminating all residual tensions from World War II with Italy’s
neighbors (the pacchetto, or package deal, over Alto-Adige with Austria and the
Osimo Treaty with Yugoslavia). Finally, it entailed a return to a policy of
“equidistance” in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, marked by the
attempt to re-open channels of communication with the Arab world and by some
conspicuous initiatives such as the 1969 Fanfani visit to Algeria – the first offi-
cial visit of a Western foreign minister in that country since its independence.
By and large, and always bearing in mind that we are talking about a very
nuanced shift rather than a radical reassessment, the foreign policy that Italy had
begun to follow by the end of the 1960s was more independent and nationally-
oriented; above all, it was a policy in which NATO continued to play a central
and crucial role but in which it was gradually being emptied of the important
functions it had played in the past. The alliance remained there as a crucial
insurance against any domestic revirements and a possible Soviet aggression,
but it turned out to be less useful for promoting the country’s interests in the
other fields. For these interests, and for a number of years, Italy would have to
look elsewhere.

Notes
1 Ducci to Foreign Minister Piccioni, 4 February 1963, Italian National Archives,
Rome (ACS), Archivio Ugo La Malfa, Box 75, La grossa questione dell’Inghilterra.
2 Leopoldo Nuti, “Commitment to NATO and Domestic Politics: The Italian Case and
Some Comparative Remarks,” in Contemporary European History 7, no. 3 (Novem-
ber 1998), pp. 361–77.
3 Leopoldo Nuti, “‘Me too, please’: Italy and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons,
1945–1975,” in Diplomacy and Statecraft 4, no. 1 (March 1993), pp. 114–48. On the
Jupiters, see, in particular, L. Nuti, “L’Italie et les missiles Jupiters,” in L’Europe at
la crise de Cuba, ed. Maurice Vaïsse, (Paris: Armand Colin, 1993).
4 Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1991); and, above all, Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the
European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
5 For a full analysis of this episode, see Leopoldo Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti e l’apertura a
sinistra: Importanza e limiti della presenza americana in Italia (Roma: Laterza,
1999), pp. 553–67.
6 Ibid., p. 565.
7 “I can’t hide the fact that [the MLF] is just an illusion . . . But let’s be satisfied with
 A decade of delusions and disappointments 215
this illusion, let’s believe in it, and let’s use it – since it is not dangerous – to move
the ground from below other illusions which are far more dangerous.” Ambassador
Quaroni to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 7 January 1963, Pietro Quaroni (Roma:
Servizio Storico Ministero Affari Esteri, 1973), p. 117.
8 Telephone Call from Reinhardt to Secretary of State, 2219, 18 February 1964, US
National Archives and Record Administration, College Park (USNA), RG 59, Box 7,
European clause.
9 See, for instance, the reaction of Ambassador Fenoaltea in January 1965, as described
in Letter from Livingston T. Merchant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Euro-
pean Affairs, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1964–68, vol. XII, pp.
217–18.
10 Paul Buteux, The Politics of Nuclear Consultation in NATO, 1965–1980 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 42; Glenn T. Seaborg and Benjamin S. Loeb,
Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years (Lexington: Lexington Books,
1987), p. 173.
11 Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson,
13 October 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XII, pp. 260–1; David N. Schwartz, NATO’s
Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1983), p. 182.
12 Position Paper, Part 1, Permanent Nuclear Planning Arrangements, December 1966
Meeting, Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS) 1978/425; Buteux,
Nuclear Consultation, pp. 58–9; Robert Jordan, Political Leadership in NATO: A
Study in Multinational Diplomacy (Boulder: Westview, 1979), pp. 233–6.
13 Final Communiqué, NPG Meeting, 28–29 September 1967, 1949–74, Textes des
communiqués finals des sessions ministérielles du conseil de l’atlantique nord, du
comité des plans de défense et du groupe des plans nucléaires (Brussels: NATO
Information Service, 1974), pp. 201–2.
14 Virgilio Ilari, Le Forze Armate tra politica e potere, 1943–1976 (Firenze: Vallecchi,
1978), pp. 93, 108.
15 L’ambasciatore d’Italia a Vienna al Ministro degli Esteri, sen Medici, 30 August
1968, Roberto Ducci (Roma: Servizio Storico e documentazione, Ministero Affari
Esteri, n.d.), p. 130.
16 George Bunn, Charles N. Van Doren, and David Fischer, Options and Opportunities:
The NPT Extension Conference of 1995, PPNN Study 2 (Southampton: The Mount-
batten Centre for International Studies, 1991), p. 4.
17 Egidio Ortona, Anni d’America (Bologna: Societˆ Editrice Il Mulino, 1984–89), vol.
III, p. 48. Telephone Call from Department of State to American Embassy Rome,
133734, 8 February 1967, USNA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969,
Box 1729, DEF 18–6 2/1/67.
18 On these two points, see in particular Ortona, Anni d’America, vol. III, pp. 47–53,
95–9.
19 Telegram from the Embassy in Germany to the Department of State, 26 April 1967,
FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XII, 267–70.
20 Airgram A-47 from Rome (Reinhardt) to the Department of State, 14 July 1967,
“Annual Policy Assessment,” USNA, Central Foreign Policy Files (CFPF),
1967–1969, Political and Defense, Box 2238.
21 See Moro’s thoughtful comments to Ambassador Ortona in late 1967, in Ortona, Anni
d’America, vol. III, p. 55.
22 Leopoldo Nuti, “The Center-Left Government in Italy and the Escalation of the
Vietnam War,” in America’s War and the World: Vietnam in International and Com-
parative Perspectives, ed. Andreas W. Daum, Lloyd C. Gardner, and Wilfried Maus-
bach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 259–78.
23 Memorandum for Reilly, Office of the Vice President, 15 August 1967, “The Vice
President’s Appointment with the Italian Ambassador Egidio Ortona,” USNA, CFPF,
1967–69, Political and Defense, Box 2238.
216 Leopoldo Nuti
24 Pietro Nenni, Gli anni del centro-sinistra: Diari, 1957–1966 (Milan: SugarCo, 1982),
pp. 512–14. For the US version of the conversation between Nenni and Harriman, see
Memorandum of Conversation, 18 February 1965, DDRS, 1975/5592.
25 Pietro Nenni, I conti con la storia: Diari, 1967–1971 (Milan: Sugarco, 1983), entry of
31 March 1967. A less forceful presentation of Nenni’s point can be found in
Telegram 5110 from Rome to the Secretary of State, 1 April 1967, USNA, RG 59,
Box 438, VP’s trip to Europe, vol. III, Memos of Conversations.
26 Pietro Nenni, I conti con la storia, entry of 21 March 1967.
27 Memorandum of Conversation, 24 May 1965, USNA, RG 59, Conference Files, Box
379, Visit of FM Fanfani.
28 Brosio Journal, 2 March 1966, Archivio Einaudi, Turin, Papers of Manlio Brosio.
29 On MARIGOLD, see George Herring, ed., The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War:
The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers (Austin: Texas University Press,
1983), pp. 210–370; FRUS, 1964–68, vol. IV. From the Italian angle, the story has been
told by one of the members of D’Orlandi’s staff. See Mario Sica, Marigold non fior“: Il
contributo italiano alla pace in Vietnam (Firenze: Ponte alle Grazie, 1991).
30 This section of the chapter is largely based on my previous essay “Italy and the
French Withdrawal from NATO in 1966”, in La France et l’OTAN, ed. Frederic
Bozo, Pierre Melandri, et Maurice Vaisse (Paris: Colin, 1996), pp.469–88.
31 L’ambasciatore d’Italia a Vienna al Ministro degli Esteri, sen Medici, 30 August
1968, Roberto Ducci (Roma: Servizio Storico e documentazione, Ministero Affari
Esteri, n.d.), p. 129.
32 Memorandum from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attached to a letter from Saragat to
Nenni, 19 September 1965, ACS, Archivio P. Nenni, Corrispondenza con Saragat,
Giuseppe, 1944–79, Box 34, 1843.
33 Memorandum from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attached to a letter from Saragat to
Nenni, 19 September 1965, ACS, Archivio P. Nenni, Corrispondenza con Saragat,
Giuseppe, 1944–79, Box 34, 1843.
34 On the Alto-Adige crisis and its historical roots, see Mario Toscano, Storia diplomat-
ica della questione dell’Alto Adige (Bari: Laterza, 1967); Mario Toscano and George
A. Carbone, eds, Alto Adige South Tyrol: Italy’s Frontier with the German World
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975). See also Federico Scarano, “La
Germania di Adenauer e la questione dell’Alto Adige,” in Rivista di diritto pubblico e
scienze politiche 10, no. 3 (2000), pp. 349–94.
35 Mario Luciolli to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Fanfani), 16 September 1966,
Mario Luciolli (Roma: Ministero Affari Esteri, Servizio Storico e Documentazione),
pp. 103–7.
36 For a confirmation of the proximity of the two governments, see the report of the con-
versations between Malfatti and Wilson in early April 1965: Memorandum by Franco
Malfatti, Diplomatic Adviser to the President of the Republic, 8 April 1965, ACS,
Archivio P. Nenni, Corrispondenza con Malfatti, Franco, 1944–77, Box 31, 1547.
37 For the trilateral negotiations, see Gregory F. Treverton, The Dollar Drain and Amer-
ican Forces in Germany: Managing the Political Economies of Alliance (Athens:
Ohio State University Press, 1978); Diane B. Kunz, “Cold War Dollar Diplomacy:
The Other Side of Containment;” Thomas A. Schwarz, “Victories and Defeats in the
Long Twilight Struggle: The United States and Western Europe in the 1960s,” both in
The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade: American Foreign Relations During the
1960s, ed. Diane B. Kunz (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).
38 Memorandum of Conversation, 30 December 1965, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp.
299–300; Telegram from the US Mission to NATO and European Regional Organi-
zation (ERO), 22 October 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, pp. 485–7; see also
NATO Ministerial Meeting, Paris, December 1966, Position Papers, Bilateral Papers,
and Background Papers; Bilateral Paper, Italy, 3 December 1966, both in DDRS,
1978/425A.
 A decade of delusions and disappointments 217
39 Note preparatorie del Ministero degli Affari Esteri per la visita in Gran Bretagna del
Vice-Presidente del Consiglio P. Nenni, ACS, Archivio P. Nenni, Serie governo, Box
114, 2381.
40 On 7 March, however, the American embassy in Rome gave Moro a copy of Presid-
ent Johnson’s reply to de Gaulle’s memorandum, thus informing him of the French
initiative before Italy had been officially notified. Moro’s early speech at the Senate
on 8 March, therefore, may already be regarded as an early reply to the French
decision. See Corriere della Sera, 11 March 1966.
41 Corriere della Sera, 12 March 1966.
42 Verbali delle riunioni del Consiglio dei Ministri, 16 March 1966, ACS. See also
Nenni’s own recollection of the debate in P. Nenni, Gli anni del centro-sinistra, pp.
611–12.
43 Corriere della Sera, 27 March 1966.
44 Verbali del Consiglio dei Ministri, 31 May 1966, ACS; see also P. Nenni, Gli anni
del centro-sinistra, pp. 635–6, entry of 31 May.
45 It might be worth noting that during the summer, the Italian Government – after
giving it some consideration – eventually refused the request of George Bidault,
rumored to be connected with the anti-Gaullist terrorists of the OAS, to be granted
asylum in Italy; see P. Nenni, Gli anni del centro-sinistra, pp. 646–7.
46 Telegram from Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of State, 6 June 1966,
FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XII, pp. 254–7.
47 NATO Ministerial Meeting, Paris, December 1966, Position Papers, Bilateral Papers,
and Background Papers; Draft Defense Planning Committee Communiqué, 8 Decem-
ber 1966, both in DDRS, 1978/425A.
48 Airgram A-972 from Rome (Ackley) to the Department of State, 28 March 1968,
“Annual US Policy Assessment,” USNA, CPFP 1967–1969, Political and Defense,
Box 2238.
49 See Bruna Bagnato, “NATO in the mid-Sixties: The View of Secretary General
Manlio Brosio,” in Transatlantic Relations at Stake: Aspects of NATO History,
1956–75, ed. Christian Nuenlist and Anna Locher (Zurich: Forschungsstelle für
Sicherheitspolitik, 2006).
50 John Chipman, (ed.), NATO’s Southern Allies: Internal and External Challenges
(London: Routledge, 1988), p. 18.
51 See, for instance, Ortona, Anni d’America, vol. III, pp. 3–4.
52 When NATO drafted a Mediterranean study, for instance, the Italian Government
took a rather cautious attitude towards it. See, Airgram A-972 from Rome (Ackley) to
the Department of State, 28 March 1968, “Annual US Policy Assessment,” USNA,
CPFP 1967–69, Political and Defense, Box 2238.
53 Airgram A-47 from Rome (Reinhardt) to the State Department, 14 July 1967.
54 Ortona, Anni d’America, vol. III, p. 28.
55 Airgram A-47 from Rome (Reinhardt) to the State Department, 14 July 1967.
56 Pietro Nenni, I conti con la storia, p. 222.
57 See the declaration of Italian President Saragat to Pietro Nenni in P. Nenni, I conti
con la storia, p. 213.
58 Ortona, Anni d’America, vol. III, pp. 112–16.
59 L’ambasciatore d’Italia a Vienna al Ministro degli Esteri, sen Medici, 30 August
1968, Roberto Ducci, cit., pp. 127–8.
Part VI
Conclusion
13 NATO’s transformation in the
1960s and the ensuing political
order in Europe
Andreas Wenger

Introduction
During the Cold War, stability in Europe was based on deterrence. This explains
why the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) imprinted itself on the
European consciousness primarily as a powerful military structure. From its
foundation in 1949 on, however, the Atlantic alliance fulfilled important polit-
ical functions that went well beyond the challenges of deterrence. NATO had
been conceived as a means of preventing the expansion of Soviet political influ-
ence in an economically weak Europe. Protecting Western Europe from a return
of the old European game of power politics, the alliance was thought to ensure
the pro-Western orientation of the West German and Italian governments.
NATO membership signaled a commitment to a community of values and inter-
ests, as the preamble of the North Atlantic Treaty makes clear: “They [the
parties to the treaty] are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage
and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, indi-
vidual liberty and the rule of law.”1 For those present at its creation in 1949,
NATO was as much about the defense of values as about the defense of
territory.2
NATO’s first transformation from a tool of political reassurance into a defen-
sive alliance with an integrated military force under centralized command
resulted from a dramatic turn in the early Cold War. Western threat perceptions
changed as a result of the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. North
Korea’s aggression was perceived as proof of communist expansionism by
means of military force, and Western observers wondered whether military
aggression could also be expected along the German border. The challenges of
the Cold War seemed to move away from the political to the military arena. This
led the United States and its allies to review their strategies, accelerate the
buildup of their forces, expand and integrate NATO’s military and political
structures, and accept West Germany’s rearmament.3
The Washington treaty defined the organizational structures and procedures
of the alliance only rudimentarily. Reflecting a pragmatic Anglo-Saxon political
culture, NATO was provided with a high level of institutional flexibility. Thus,
in December 1950, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed the first
222 Andreas Wenger
Supreme Allied Commander to Europe (SACEUR), and the alliance’s command
structure was divided into three major regional commands. The Lisbon Force
goals, adopted in February 1952, called for the establishment of 96 NATO divi-
sions by 1954. However, it soon became clear that a forward defense was credi-
ble only if NATO compensated for its numerical inferiority vis-à-vis the Soviet
Union by adopting the technical superiority of US nuclear power. Along with
military integration in 1952, the post of a secretary-general, an international sec-
retariat, and a permanent North Atlantic Council (NAC) were created. Strategic
considerations, however, overrode political principle in the early Cold War:
within two years, Greece and Turkey – of great strategic interest, if of a rather
questionable democratic nature – joined the alliance.
NATO’s second transformation from the integrated military alliance of the
1950s, dominated militarily and politically by the United States, into the more
political and participatory alliance of the late 1960s is the overarching theme of
this book. This chapter discusses some of the book’s major findings, placing
these into the larger context of three distinct phases of NATO’s second trans-
formation. Part I shows how the changing military balance and a growing desire
for political détente – both of which were crystallized in French President
Charles de Gaulle’s challenge to the raison d’être of the alliance – forced NATO
into a transitional phase by 1958. The Gaullist challenge amounted to a double
crisis within the alliance: on the one hand, the growing vulnerability of the
United States to Soviet nuclear attack discredited the credibility of military
NATO. As a result, increasingly fierce debates about strategy and political
control over (nuclear) decision making marked the end of NATO’s first decade.
On the other hand, the growing desire for détente in the context of the Berlin
crisis and the ensuing debate about the German question called the political
legitimacy of NATO into question. As a result, two fundamentally different
political visions of Europe’s future had emerged in Paris and Washington by
1963.
Part II analyzes how NATO dealt with France’s dissent and managed to
isolate Paris in the period from 1963 to 1966. De Gaulle’s argument that US
forces in Europe, as a symbol of US hegemony, had to leave Europe before the
historic process of détente could proceed was rejected by a broad coalition
within and around NATO’s institutions. Yet as the conviction took hold that any
European settlement would require the continuing support of the United States
through the alliance, NATO member states came to realize that domestic polit-
ical and social forces in their societies made a transformation of NATO’s form
and function unavoidable. The challenges of détente, nuclear control, and
burden sharing were increasingly framed as national as opposed to alliance
problems in domestic debates. Clearly, NATO was in need of a new balance
between its military and political functions that would reintegrate the diverging
perceptions of security among its members.4
Part III shows how NATO, as a result of the trilateral talks and the Harmel
exercise, strengthened its political functions and transformed its institutional
structures in the period from 1966 to 1968. The essence of NATO’s second
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 223
transformation was political: NATO’s new two-pillar security policy – military
security and a policy of détente – together with its new force-planning and
nuclear-consultation machinery allowed it to shift the issues of a European set-
tlement and of arms control away from the bilateral Soviet-US “little détente” of
1963 and place these issues into the broader context of the European détente of
the 1970s. In short, the transformation of NATO in the 1960s was instrumental
to the multilateralization of détente.5

NATO and the Gaullist challenge, 1958–63

In 1958, the French president informed the US leadership that France could “no
longer consider that NATO in its present form [met] the conditions of security of
the free world.”6 De Gaulle demanded that NATO be reorganized to accommodate
France’s status as a great power. He proposed that NATO be run by a trilateral
directorate, which should decide on strategic plans and on the use of nuclear
weapons. When his demand was rejected by the allies, de Gaulle began a step-by-
step withdrawal of France’s naval and air forces from NATO’s integrated com-
mands in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. By the 1960s, the consensus among
NATO members on US leadership of military NATO had dissolved.
The Gaullist challenge went right to the heart of the political legitimacy of
the alliance. By the end of its first decade, NATO had entered a phase of trans-
ition in which structural forces – proliferating nuclear capabilities, economic
growth in Western Europe and Japan, and growing assertiveness in the global
south – brought about the diffusion of political power from Washington and
Moscow to the most influential allies. As a result, discord would unavoidably
deepen within the postwar alliances, as policy makers across the Atlantic began
to think in terms of national rather than alliance interests. All this suggested to
de Gaulle that the Europeans had to assume Europe’s political leadership outside
of NATO’s integrated structures, which were dominated by the United States.7

The credibility crisis of “military NATO”

The launching, on 4 October 1957, of the first Soviet satellite Sputnik chal-
lenged the credibility of the US nuclear guarantee to its European NATO allies,
resulting in pressure for control over nuclear forces not only from London and
Paris, but also – causing particular concern in Moscow – from Bonn. To miti-
gate European demands for a nuclear role, Washington, under President Dwight
D. Eisenhower, adopted a policy of nuclear sharing. It offered the allies addi-
tional stockpiles of tactical nuclear warheads and secured placements of US
intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Italy and Turkey under
SACEUR’s direct control and in Britain under dual control, thus providing
NATO with limited influence over nuclear weapons with targets beyond the bat-
tlefield. It is now generally accepted by historians that US oversight and control
of its Europe-based nuclear weapons earmarked for allied use was nominal only
towards the end of Eisenhower’s presidency.8
224 Andreas Wenger
Eisenhower’s successor approached the strategic dilemma of the decreasing
credibility of the US security guarantee fundamentally differently from his pre-
decessor – with wide-ranging repercussions for the debate about NATO strategy
and decision making. In the context of growing tension around the divided city
of Berlin, the incoming Kennedy administration rejected massive retaliation,
which it considered as lacking credibility as a deterrent to limited aggression.
Instead, the administration emphasized the deterrent value of a buildup of con-
ventional forces that could enforce a pause during an attack, thus attempting to
shift the responsibility for crossing the nuclear threshold to the adversary. The
counterpart of this essentially political strategy of risk manipulation was an
emphasis on central control to ensure crisis stability. The new administration
feared that local use of tactical nuclear weapons would rapidly escalate into
general war. As a consequence, the United States, under President Kennedy,
began to install electro-mechanical locks on all short-range nuclear weapons and
decided that it would be desirable if the European allies would “phase out of the
nuclear deterrent business.”9
During the 1950s, the British had pushed for a top-down re-evaluation of
NATO’s political directive. The Berlin crisis, by contrast, provided the Kennedy
administration with an opportunity to advance its new strategic ideas bottom-up
from the level of operational planning. As long as the tensions around Berlin
were running high, the allies recognized the importance of achieving a compro-
mise on Berlin contingency plans. However, once US Secretary of Defense
Robert S. McNamara set out to filter the United States’ new strategic thinking
into NATO’s strategic concept in his famous Athens address in May 1962, it
became immediately clear that a consensus on a new military strategy could not
be achieved in the absence of a common vision for Europe’s political future.
Paris interpreted McNamara’s warning that “weak nuclear capabilities, oper-
ating independently, are expensive, prone to obsolescence, and lacking in credi-
bility as a deterrent” as a direct attack on France’s nuclear weapons program.10 If
de Gaulle needed confirmation that the United States would never share nuclear
control, McNamara had just provided it. In times of crisis, France believed, it
would be informed retrospectively of US decisions, rather than consulted in
advance – as happened during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. In
reality, US NATO policy was very much in flux in late 1962: Kennedy’s will-
ingness to give the British a number of Polaris missiles and place these under
British national control, which he expressed at the Nassau meeting in December
1962, signaled a readiness in the White House and the Pentagon to move away
from the policy adopted in early 1961 and move to a system of national forces
assigned to NATO and based on US, British, and French national forces.11 This,
however, was anathema to the supporters of the centrally controlled Multilateral
Force (MLF) in the State Department. In the end, de Gaulle decided the matter
when he rejected the Polaris offer and expressed disinterest in the renewal of the
MLF discussions in January 1963.
While Washington, London, and Bonn were prepared to compromise on
NATO’s strategic concept, Paris refused to move away from the “trip-wire”
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 225
approach. In November 1963, France threatened to veto the further development
of NATO’s strategic guidance, and by 1964, NATO’s force planning exercise
had come to a standstill. Force planning could not be a substitute for strategy.
And no compromise on strategy could be reached before the allies had found a
solution to the fundamental political differences regarding NATO’s political
role.

The legitimacy crisis of “political NATO”

During the period from 1958 to 1963, the perception that NATO could no longer
serve as a legitimate forum for political consultation was driven by two key
political issues: first, Khrushchev’s Berlin ultimatum forced the allies to deal
with the German question and the future of East–West relations at a time of
emerging détente. Second, the British push to join the European Economic
Community (EEC) went hand-in-hand with a debate about the future of Euro-
pean integration. The political implications of these issues went well beyond
considerations of security and defense. Ultimately, they could not be separated
from the debate about the political and economic structures that should govern a
new European order. Thus, by 1963, two fundamentally different visions for the
future of Europe in a globalizing world had emerged.
Khrushchev’s Berlin ultimatum split the allies into two groups: the Anglo-
Saxon powers and the Scandinavian countries were prepared to move toward a
more flexible détente policy that would allow the West to simultaneously move
ahead on the German question and on the broader issues of European security.
Conversely, the FRG and France flatly refused to negotiate while Berlin was still
under threat. Bonn, supported by Paris, opposed any discussion of broader Euro-
pean security issues as long as Germany remained divided. Washington, in turn,
recognized that the smaller allies were concerned about a lack of consultation by
the four Western powers and was prepared to carry the Berlin and Germany
negotiations into NATO. Paris, however, wanted to keep the issues outside of
NATO, thereby gaining leverage to sustain a continental European position. As
a consequence, the political aspects of Berlin planning were only selectively dis-
cussed in NATO.12
President Kennedy accepted the Berlin wall as a reality that would facilitate a
Berlin settlement based on the status quo. Over the summer of 1961, the United
States was moving towards a more flexible negotiating position. Kennedy
decided to focus on the “three fundamentals of freedom for Berlin, free access,
and a western presence” while shifting “substantially towards acceptance of the
GDR, the Oder-Neisse line, a non-aggression pact, and even the idea of two
peace treaties.”13 During a series of bilateral Soviet-US negotiations in early
1962, the main elements of a modus vivendi for the two superpowers in Europe
emerged, centering on the future status of Germany and on the nuclear question.
However, allied opposition and a series of decisions in Washington to accelerate
the arms buildup, aimed primarily at reassuring the allies, quickly began to
erode whatever chances had existed for a negotiated superpower settlement.
226 Andreas Wenger
The new US stance on Berlin negotiations was anathema to Bonn and Paris
and made the continental European allies wonder whether the Soviet nuclear
strength had inspired the sudden US interest in Berlin negotiations and in a con-
ventional option for NATO. Since the late 1950s, the West German chancellor,
Konrad Adenauer, had feared what he considered British weakness. His worries
grew, once he realized where Kennedy’s negotiation posture was moving to.
Fearing a superpower deal over Germany’s head, he set out to sabotage
Kennedy’s modus vivendi approach during the so-called “leak crisis” of 1962.
He was able to get away with this because de Gaulle opposed a détente during
Kennedy’s presidency and thought it necessary to contain German power by
tying Germany closely to Paris. And here is where the Berlin and détente issues
link up with the issue of European integration and Britain’s membership appli-
cation to the Common Market: in return for an uncompromising stand on Berlin
negotiations, Adenauer was willing to move closer to a conception of Europe
that was built around the two big continental European powers.14
The West European economies had regained their strength in the 1950s. Once
the Common Market was established, the financial relations between the United
States and the West European countries began to develop clearly in favor of the
latter. The Kennedy administration, however, perceived European integration
primarily as a means to strengthen the double containment of the Soviet Union
and the FRG. Kennedy viewed British EEC membership as a key factor that
would allow the realization of his grand design of a unified Western Europe
tightly bound economically and militarily to the United States. The political
benefits of a Europe that included Britain over a Europe that was built on a
Franco-German axis would outweigh the financial disadvantages for the United
States of an expanded Common Market. Yet Kennedy never fully understood
the tension between the US commitment to a system of multilateral trade liberal-
ization and the domestic social and economic dynamics of the Common Market.
Moreover, his administration never faced up to the question of whether its vision
of an expanded Atlantic partnership allowed for an independent European
nuclear option.15
De Gaulle opposed a British EEC membership for economic and political
reasons. A French veto would minimize British and maximize French political
influence over the FRG. The British “Trojan horse” would transform the EEC to
a point at which the continental countries would be absorbed into a “colossal
Atlantic community dependent on America and under American control.”16 This
France would not permit – the political leadership in Europe was in the first
place the responsibility of the Europeans. Thus, by 1963, it had become clear
that the Gaullist challenge went right to the heart of the raison d’être of an
Atlantic Community, as laid down in the 1949 treaty.

Managing dissent: NATO consensus building, 1963–66

The Cuban missile crisis catalyzed decisions in Paris and Washington that
facilitated superpower détente while increasing tension among the allies. On 14
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 227
January 1963, de Gaulle announced at a memorable press conference that France
was vetoing Britain’s admission to the Common Market and was rejecting US
Polaris missiles and France’s participation in the MLF. As if this alone was not
enough to essentially block NATO’s debate about strategy and burden sharing,
things began to look even bleaker a few days later: on 22 January 1963, Ade-
nauer came to Paris to sign a treaty of friendship with France that seemed to
indicate that a Franco-German entente was indeed taking shape. The establish-
ment of this cooperation on defense issues was cause for concern not only in
Washington but also in many European capitals that a joint Franco-German
nuclear program or a program undertaken by the EEC countries was a real possi-
bility.
In Washington, the Cuban missile crisis was perceived as an extension of the
simmering Berlin crisis, thus raising the willingness of policy makers to accept
the territorial and nuclear status quo in Europe. Taking a step back from their
focus on nuclear danger, Washington and Moscow worked with renewed vigor
for a lessening of tension. The spirit of limited bilateral cooperation was for-
malized with the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Yet from the
perspective of the United States’ NATO allies, the problem with this con-
structed Cold War settlement was that it did not allow for the lasting settlement
of disputed issues that were top priorities for Bonn, Paris, and London, respec-
tively. Without the consent of the allies, however, East–West détente could not
deepen, because the next steps, notably a non-aggression pact and a nuclear
non-proliferation treaty, would be multilateral and would require the consent of
all NATO members.17

The politics of alliance solidarity and the isolation of France

Policy makers in Washington realized that there were forces at work within both
Cold War alliances, reflecting larger domestic and social changes, which would
make the status quo unsustainable in the long term. Accepting the risk of
fragmentation within NATO, they began, together with their allies, the arduous
task of achieving a consensus on the way ahead. “The atmosphere of détente and
the assertion of more familiar nationalist impulses,” Walt W. Rostow from the
Policy Planning Staff wrote to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, “does not elimi-
nate all the areas of common interest within the West, nor does it preclude con-
tinued movement forward in joint ventures which would, in effect organize the
world of diffusing power into a world of diffused responsibility.”18
The essentially political nature of NATO manifested itself in the ways that
the alliance managed dissent when facing the Gaullist challenge. NATO’s polit-
ical functions were based on common norms and values and upheld aspects of
democracy: every member had a right to voice its opinion, and the initiatives of
the smaller allies carried considerable weight at times.19 The alliance’s institu-
tional flexibility and adaptability and its role as a hub for transnational and trans-
governmental coalitions go a long way in explaining how the alliance managed
to overcome the shock of January 1963. When de Gaulle decided to leave
228 Andreas Wenger
military NATO in 1966, the allies were able to move ahead without France and
reform the alliance.
De Gaulle had cast the FRG’s policies as determined by a choice between
France and the United States. Yet in early 1963, it was Washington that began to
make it clear in Bonn that the FRG had to make a choice. If the Germans wanted
US protection, they would have to follow the US political lead. Washington
decided to play hardball in internal German politics and pressure the FRG not to
ratify the Franco-German treaty in its present form. In essence, Washington
leveraged a transnational coalition of key individuals to isolate the German
Gaullists. Members of the transatlantic elite were instrumental in the design of a
preamble that was unilaterally added to the treaty, affirming the FRG’s continu-
ing loyalty to NATO. Transnational elite networks facilitated the Westbindung
of the FRG and legitimized US political leadership. Adenauer had badly miscal-
culated the situation and, in effect, was dismissed by his own party. Once
Ludwig Erhard had replaced Adenauer as chancellor, de Gaulle lost much of his
leverage over Bonn.20
De Gaulle and Erhard soon clashed over the US proposal of a nuclear MLF.
While the former rejected it because of its decisively transatlantic character, the
latter indicated a determination to proceed with it at all cost. The US State
Department’s key aims in the MLF project were obvious enough: to guarantee
the political integration of the FRG into the multilateral structure of the alliance,
and to guarantee US central control over all NATO nuclear forces. The MLF
proposal was useful in as much as the debate about it confirmed what the
1961–62 “Fouchet negotiations” to set up a European political union had already
brought to the fore: the Europeans did not accept de Gaulle as their spokesman.
But by 1964, it had become clear that there was no real support for the project in
the US Congress and US military. Moreover, Britain, Italy, and even the FRG
were split about the project. Many policy makers in Europe feared that support
for the MLF would be interpreted in domestic politics as opposition to détente.
By late 1964, Washington decided that there was no longer any need for the
MLF and let it sink out of sight – France was now completely isolated within
NATO.
Once it became clear that the Elysée Treaty of 1963 would not work, policy
makers in Washington perceived a potential shift of the FRG to political and
military unilateralism, raising the specter of a Soviet-German deal, as the ulti-
mate danger of de Gaulle’s challenge to NATO. De Gaulle’s policies under-
mined the central assumption of the FRG’s position in the postwar world, which
was that “Germany’s politics and policy have to be conducted within the collect-
ive NATO framework and that a separate German policy is not feasible.”21 If
NATO were to disappear, what would West Germany’s position be? Integration
into a European Union would be the second best solution but, at that time, also
the most improbable solution. European integration had suffered a dramatic
setback in January 1963. Aside from Adenauer, none of the other four EEC
members wished to follow the French lead. Conversely, not only the current
EEC countries but also applicant countries like Britain and Denmark did not
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 229
want a show-down with France. A general feeling set in that progress towards a
political union would not be possible as long as de Gaulle remained in power.
This left NATO as by far the best option for dealing with the German
problem. Emphasis on allied solidarity and unity as opposed to a direct con-
frontation with France marked the multilateral debate within NATO in 1963 and
1964. While France, aside from its critique of military NATO, remained silent
and did not advance any specific reform plans, small allies like Canada and
Belgium, anticipating the Harmel exercise of 1967, initiated a multilateral
debate about the role of NATO beyond the 1960s. NATO consultation paved the
way to a common understanding that the alliance would continue, even if France
were to leave. But at the same time, the allies were careful not to provoke the
French.22 Once de Gaulle signaled in his talks with NATO Secretary-General
Manlio Brosio that military integration was totally unacceptable to France, the
allies deferred further multilateral studies about NATO’s future until after Paris
had acted.

The changing domestic and social context and the need for NATO
reform
In the 1950s, NATO’s nuclearization had given rise to anti-nuclear weapons
protest movements in all major member states. Once the two superpowers had
accepted the status quo by 1963, the protest movements began to transform into
broader social movements that increasingly attacked the moral vacuum and stag-
nant characteristics of public institutions and governmental authority.23 Slowly,
policy makers came to realize that the changing domestic and social context –
symbolized by a step-by-step retirement of the old postwar elites – necessitated
a change in NATO’s form and functions. The perception of NATO as a power-
ful but static and conservative institution was shaped by domestic debates about
détente, nuclear control, and burden sharing. Theses debates challenged NATO
as a multilateral consultation platform and a hub for transgovernmental coali-
tions. Only if the alliance was able to integrate the widening domestic percep-
tions of security and détente among its members would it be able to sustain itself
in the long run.
The early and mid-1960s witnessed growing signs of emancipation within the
Eastern bloc and a series of détente initiatives that seemed to signal a growing
interest in the establishment of mutual economic, social, and political inter-
change across the Cold War divide. In this context, policy makers in allied coun-
tries began to fear that NATO was being perceived as an institution that froze
the geopolitical status quo. Political analysts in the United States and the FRG
began to realize that détente and German reunification would not flow top-down
from great power policy that was oriented towards the status quo. Rather, given
the diffusion of power in the world, the growing desire among Germans in both
Germanys had to be met by a policy of movement and “bridge building” that
linked the opening toward the East with the hope for reunification.
Increasingly, voices were heard that called for a strengthening of NATO’s
230 Andreas Wenger
role as an instrument of peace. NATO could not afford, so the argument ran, to
leave the field of détente propaganda to the East; it had to counter the Gaullist
allegation that France alone was concerned about Europe’s future, and it had to
take account of growing domestic interest in a lessening of tension.24 However,
these early efforts at “bridge building” soon stagnated because of domestic
policy dilemmas in Washington and Bonn. US policy makers realized that an
opening towards the East, against the backdrop of the escalating war in Vietnam,
would expose the administration to criticism from Congress that it was soft on
communism. In Bonn, Erhard’s government was under increasing domestic
pressure from the nationalist wing of his party to increase efforts toward reunifi-
cation. And as long as the Germans stuck to a position of reunification first and
foremost, the United States ran the risk of losing the initiative to de Gaulle who,
with his new economic overtures to the East, had begun to exploit the rigidity of
the West German position.
France’s objection to the dominant role of the United States in NATO’s mili-
tary structure was reflective of a wider European feeling that the balance
between national (nuclear) control and allied integration was domestically not
acceptable in the long run. At the level of domestic politics, the stationing of US
troops, the stockpiling of nuclear warheads, and the installation of nuclear
launching pads were as important as questions of strategy and doctrine. The
tightening of US custody over European-based US nuclear weapons elicited
angry responses not only from anti-nuclear protesters, but also from ardent
defenders of national sovereignty.25 Moreover, it exposed Washington to accusa-
tions from de Gaulle – who perceived NATO as a traditional defense alliance –
that the United States was running Europe like a protectorate.
If NATO wanted to prove that it was prepared to transform the culture of
great power politics, the Europeans would have to be allowed to carve out an
area of limited nuclear sovereignty. Already in the 1950s, Norway and
Denmark, exposed at the Northern flank, had decided not to allow the stationing
of US nuclear weapons on their territory.26 Conversely, the FRG, in the early
1960s, did not know the number and location of US nuclear weapons deployed
on German soil and had no knowledge of US plans for their use. This was
clearly unacceptable to some political forces in the FRG that harbored nuclear
ambitions and that used the country’s status as a nuclear protectorate as a polit-
ical tool in domestic politics. By 1963, the FRG within NATO pressed for a veto
on US use of nuclear weapons from and on German territory, including the
GDR.27
The eventual move from a hardware solution to a software solution to
NATO’s nuclear sharing problem is of great importance in the domestic political
context. A hardware solution along the lines of the MLF proposal in political
terms had the potential to accentuate domestic tension: it would draw domestic
attention to the unsolvable issue of nuclear crisis decision making, and it would
become the rallying symbol for anti-nuclear protesters and nationalist forces. A
software solution could deliver what a hardware solution could not – a clear
right to be consulted in cases of nuclear use from and on national territory –
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 231
while at the same time deflecting domestic criticism in Europe about the visible
symbols of nuclear dependence from the United States.
Domestic support for NATO also eroded under growing domestic pressure
for a reduction of defense costs. During a period of emerging détente, NATO
membership seemed to translate into unnecessarily high defense expenditures.
The United States, Britain, and the FRG all faced serious financial problems
by the mid-1960s. The British and US balance-of-payments deficits were at
least partially driven by a dollar loss caused by the maintenance of large
forces in Germany. Since 1961, the FRG compensated its US and British
allies for their expenses by buying its military hardware from them. But the
offset negotiations also became more difficult because of economic and finan-
cial matters that were dealt with outside the national security context. Britain
and France quickened the pace of colonial disengagement, thereby ridding
themselves of costly colonial liabilities. The ECC countries pondered the
financial consequences of a common agricultural policy. And the United
States complained that the Common Market was blocking measures that
would allow the United States to expand world trade without putting danger-
ous pressure on the dollar. Alliance leaders had to come to terms with the fact
that national parliaments dealt with these matters in terms of national rather
than alliance interests.
Finally, the escalating war in Vietnam gravely compromised the domestic
consensus on NATO for a whole variety of reasons. European support for fight-
ing communism in Asia collapsed as the United States started to dispatch
growing numbers of troops by the mid 1960s. Strategically, the Europeans
began to fear that Europe was no longer the number one priority of Washington
and that the United States would start to concentrate its resources outside the
NATO area. Politically, US support for a corrupt and inept government in South
Vietnam, held in power by seemingly unrestrained military escalation, damaged
the United States’ image with large parts of the European public, de-legitimizing
its leadership role in the alliance. Economically, the cost of the war resulted in
increasing Congressional pressure for a reduced US military presence in Europe.
By the mid 1960s, it had become clear that NATO’s burden sharing problems
needed a solution that would meet the changing domestic political requirements
of Britain, the FRG, and the United States.28

The transformation of NATO, 1966–68

NATO’s 1966–67 crisis had been in the making since January 1963. De
Gaulle’s announcement on 7 March 1966 that France “wished to recover the
entire exercise of her sovereignty over her territory” and would “terminate her
participation in ‘integrated’ commands and no longer place her forces at the dis-
posal of NATO” publicly exposed the shaky credibility of military NATO.29 The
fact that de Gaulle went to Moscow only a few weeks later and took his East
European policy a step further – embarking on a rapprochement with the Soviet
Union – expanded the challenge into a crisis also of legitimacy: NATO,
232 Andreas Wenger
dominated by the United States, was not to be trusted as a forum for political
consultation regarding East–West relations and the German question.
Yet, at the same time, the general’s actions unlocked the alliance and pro-
vided an opportunity for defining a new vision for NATO at a time of détente.
During the three years after the infamous January of 1963, the allies had
expressed a general consensus that NATO should be preserved beyond 1969,
with or without France. At the same time, however, it had become clear that
NATO decision making was in need of reform and that its political functions
had to be strengthened. The great question now was how a transformation could
be achieved and whether the Germans would go along with the Anglo-Saxon
powers or drift toward political and military nationalism.30

NATO’s institutional reform: leadership by persuasion

Everyone in Washington agreed that the United States had to take the lead in
addressing NATO’s double crisis. But President Lyndon B. Johnson’s advisers
disagreed strongly about the kind of leadership the United States should provide
to the other members of the alliance. A group around George Ball and Dean
Acheson at the State Department pushed for firm leadership, a public stance and
a very hard line against de Gaulle, and close guidance of the West Germans.
Conversely, the White House staff, McNamara, and Rusk favored a quiet and
polite open chair policy towards France and a wait-and-see approach with regard
to the FRG that would not push the Germans toward a renewed MLF proposal or
an acceleration of Ostpolitik. The Europeans had a legitimate role to play in
international affairs, Dean Rusk told Ball, and he felt it “important to draw a
clear line between leadership and hegemony.”31 Against the background of the
escalating war in Vietnam, President Johnson was willing to abandon the hege-
monic leadership style of the 1950s. The United States would instead outwait de
Gaulle, exercise its leadership within NATO as primus inter pares, and opt for
greater political consultation with its allies.
Even before de Gaulle had made his move, Washington had realized that the
NATO crisis could only be overcome if Britain, the FRG, and the United States
stayed together and provided leadership to the other allies. But trilateral talks
would have to be followed by consultations with the allies. A compromise on
strategy and burden sharing would achieve its purpose only if it was properly
integrated into NATO’s strategy and defense planning mechanisms. Washington
realized that the new institutional structures had to be less hierarchical because
of the increasing salience of the FRG. Some of the smaller NATO countries
were worried about a US–British–FRG dominated military NATO without the
counterbalance of France.32 The organizational adjustment was surprisingly
smooth, and in the process, military NATO moved toward more democratic and
consultative alliance structures.
The establishment of the Nuclear Defense Affairs Committee (NDAC) and
its seven-member Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) turned out to be the critical
component of NATO’s institutional reform. The establishment of permanent
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 233
machinery for nuclear consultation provided the institutional setting for West
European input and joint nuclear learning. While McNamara’s briefings exposed
the Europeans to “the problems associated with the use of nuclear weapons,” the
Germans used the forum to persuade the allies that the initial use of tactical
nuclear weapons should be targeted deep within Warsaw Pact territory and
should not take place on German soil.33 By 1968, the NPG accepted guidelines
on the use of nuclear weapons that accommodated Bonn’s “relatively modest
request for sovereign rights in the nuclear field,” establishing the principle that
the “selective release of nuclear weapons employed from or on German soil”
would be “subject to confirmation by the FRG Government.”34
The establishment of new force-planning and nuclear-consultation machinery
at the December 1967 NATO meeting went a long way toward deflating the
“ghost of a tripartite directorate” that had marked the first informal briefings of
the 14 permanent representatives the preceding October.35 In the meantime, the
Harmel exercise had provided the opportunity for the United States, Britain, and
the FRG to filter the political results of the trilateral talks into NATO’s multilat-
eral setting. In 1963 and 1964, the initiative to study the future role of NATO
had been with the small allies. By 1967, in contrast, Secretary-General Manlio
Brosio found to his surprise that the small countries did not want to take the lead
but instead preferred to await the result of the trilateral talks.

Trilateralism: reconceptualizing security – saving military NATO

The Johnson administration reviewed existing US policies from March to
October 1966. Increasingly, policy makers in Washington became convinced
that the nuclear problem should be addressed on the basis of the principle that a
sound Atlantic nuclear policy and a sound nonproliferation agreement were
“mutually consistent and reinforcing.”36 While there were increasing signs that
the Germans would be satisfied with a software solution, the Soviets seemed
eager to conclude a nonproliferation agreement that would allow for a nuclear-
sharing scheme in NATO – provided that ownership of the warheads remained
in US custody. Moreover, in his famous speech of 7 October 1966, Johnson pro-
ceeded to reverse US policy priorities in Europe, arguing that the East–West
environment would have to be improved before the unification of Germany
could be achieved and emphasizing that the division of Europe would have to be
“healed with the consent of Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union.”37
The United States had accepted that bridge building as a precondition of reunifi-
cation would be perceived in Moscow as an attempt to divide Eastern Europe,
and, therefore, US policy priorities had to be reversed.
The trilateral talks would have to establish whether the new German govern-
ment was prepared to go along with Johnson’s new position. Chancellor
Erhard’s visit to Washington in September 1966 opened a prolonged phase of
negotiations that culminated in the compromise on offset of April 1967. The fact
that Johnson broke with certain taboos in US European policies contributed to
the collapse of Erhard’s government in October and November. Ambassador
234 Andreas Wenger
McGhee reported from Bonn that “Germany had reached a watershed in its
postwar political development.”38 In fact, the government of Kurt Kiesinger,
with Willy Brandt as foreign minister, fundamentally reoriented the FRG’s East
European policies. The new West German government seemed prepared to
endorse Johnson’s choice of Ostpolitik over reunification. And at the December
1966 NATO meeting, Brandt very effectively told Rusk and McNamara that the
new government was ready to “forget ‘hardware’” as a solution to NATO’s
nuclear sharing problem.39
But whereas Brandt seemed to be prepared to accept a NPT in return for
Washington’s approval of his Ostpolitik, Kiesinger publicly accused the United
States and the Soviet Union of “atomic complicity” in putting forward the
NPT.40 Johnson, while recognizing that the NPT was posing domestic political
problems for Kiesinger in his own party, was not shy to impress upon his inter-
locutors his own domestic problems arising from increasing Congressional pres-
sure to reduce US forces in Europe. In substance, however, he sided with the
view that if the United States had to take a serious risk with domestic stability in
the FRG, it should do so “in connection with nuclear-sharing/nonproliferation,
rather than with offset and US forces in Europe.”41 It was left to a transgovern-
mental coalition of public servants to carve out a solution that would accommo-
date both the German and the US domestic political situation.
Secretary of Defense McNamara had pushed a dual-basing scheme that would
allow a reduction of US forces in Germany, while at the same time increasing the
overall efficiency of the conventional forces that had been assigned to NATO since
the early 1960s. But his plan had stalled, not only because of allied opposition, but
also because it was opposed by the US military and their supporters in Congress.
The need to rearrange NATO’s communications and transportation infrastructure –
arising from France’s withdrawal from military NATO – and Congressional pres-
sure for a reduction of the financial burden of US forces in Europe – arising from
the FRG’s inability to honor the offset payments – provided McNamara with an
opportunity to at least partially implement his scheme. The United States devised
“political warning and strategic mobility as a rationale for removing forces from
Europe without reducing NATO military capabilities.”42
Ambiguity on strategic terminology – on the concepts of political warning,
flexibility, and escalation – was a precondition for a political compromise
between the United States, Britain, and the FRG on strategy and burden sharing.
On 9 November 1966, the three countries signed an Agreed Minute on Strategy
and Forces that concluded that “existing NATO conventional forces for the
Central region are adequate in size to support a flexible response strategy.”43 The
agreement revitalized the dormant work on NATO’s strategy and paved the way
for the adoption of flexible response with the signing of MC 14/3 in December
1967. Although the allies never did agree on how long the conventional phase of
a war was likely to last, or on how the follow-on use of tactical nuclear weapons
should proceed, the political significance of the strategy was decisive in 1967:
the allies had agreed on a common strategic concept after France’s withdrawal
and had thus saved NATO’s integrated military structures.44
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 235
By the late 1960s, the arms race had become the functional substitute of war,
and at a time of détente, this meant that the political ability not to be drawn into
unilateral troop cuts was more important than the level of instantaneous military
readiness for worst-case scenarios. Johnson realized that the link between the
allies’ military and economic security could be used as an instrument of détente.
The trilateral talks brought to the fore the increasing importance of the economic
and financial dimension of alliance security. NATO was moving toward a wider
definition of security that integrated political, military, and economic power,
both in terms of intra-alliance relations and in terms of East–West relations.

The Harmel exercise: political NATO and the multilateralization of

détente in Europe
A compromise on strategy at the multilateral level was only possible once the
Harmel exercise of 1967 had produced a basic compromise on the primarily
political nature of the Soviet threat and on the political role of NATO at a time
of détente. Recalling ideas that had been put forward by Canada two years
earlier, Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel suggested a major study on the
future of the alliance in light of international developments since 1949.
Although Washington was delighted that the initiative had come from a small
European country, the key contributions were clearly made by the United States,
the FRG, and Britain. Taking note of the increased public questioning of the rel-
evancy of NATO, the study aimed at a highly visible report that would under-
score the continued relevance of NATO beyond 1969.
In a statement that would endure until the end of the Cold War, the Harmel
Report enabled the alliance to strike a new balance between its military and its
political functions.45 The report emphasized the close link between military
power and political influence. NATO’s military strength would deter aggression
and counter the political influence of Soviet military power. Building on this
fundamental principle, the Harmel exercise working groups developed four
major political functions of NATO as an instrument of peace: first, by strength-
ening multilateral political and military cooperation and consultation, NATO
should help to preserve the unity of the West. Détente came with the risk that the
Soviet Union would relax tension selectively in the hope that it would be able to
“weaken the cohesion of the Alliance, divide the states of Western Europe, and
in particular . . . isolate the Federal Republic and open up differences between
Western Europe and the US.”46 NATO and a policy of détente were not contra-
dictory, and a peaceful European settlement would require the continuing
support of the United States.
Second, by engaging in constructive forms of cooperation with the East Euro-
pean states and the Soviet Union, NATO should help to encourage the evolution,
rather than the fragmentation, of the East. Détente had to be a comprehensive
process that had to involve everybody in order to be effective. The allies recog-
nized that the Soviet Union could effectively block a European settlement, if the
West failed to accommodate Moscow’s legitimate security interests. Third,
236 Andreas Wenger
NATO should offer a forum for harmonizing bilateral with multilateral détente
initiatives. While bilateral contacts entailed the risk of a selective détente, multi-
lateral approaches might perpetuate the division of Europe. NATO would
anchor bilateral and multilateral contacts in a transparent way in the multilateral
structure of the West. Fourth, NATO should offer a forum for harmonizing
defense policies with arms control and disarmament policies. NATO should
explore the possibility of achieving lower force levels at lower costs through
arms control agreements that would limit Soviet forces as well.
During the Harmel exercise, the views of the 15 converged to a significant
degree on the substance of a political program on European security and on a
common vision of a peaceful European settlement. This left the French with
little choice but to accept the “general concept of political consultation.” In
return, however, the United States had to compromise on the establishment of
new permanent political machinery and concede that Washington did not “con-
template an ‘integrated political command structure’ in the Alliance.”47 In
essence, the Harmel exercise stabilized the results of the trilateral talks on mili-
tary NATO and anchored them in a multilateral political dialog on the future of
East–West relations and of the German question.
On matters of substance, the multilateral structures of NATO allowed the
allies to define constructive solutions to three policy dilemmas that had bedev-
iled the alliance over much of the past decade. The first dilemma was how to
square nuclear sharing with the goal of nonproliferation. A transformed NATO
was able to provide for the nuclear defense of the FRG in a way that was
acceptable to Bonn, the allies, and the Soviets. The Soviets did not oppose a
multilateralization of nuclear planning and consultation within NATO, a fact
that increased West Germany’s (and the smaller allies’) role in allied nuclear
planning but that also reduced US hegemony within the alliance. The strength-
ening of the NPG, in turn, made it easier for the Germans to accept the NPT.
In essence, the NPT internationalized the touchy question of German nuclear
control, which was of major concern to the Soviets. The signing of the NPT in
July 1968 paved the way to the breakthrough in superpower negotiations on
strategic nuclear weapons and antiballistic missile systems in the early
1970s.48
The second dilemma was whether to focus on German reunification or on an
improvement of the European environment. The enhancement of NATO’s polit-
ical role, and the recognition that Germany would determine the pace of Ostpoli-
tik, enabled a consolidation of the Central European status quo without
alienating the United States, the other allies, or the Soviet Union. The United
States worked closely with its European allies to engage the Soviet Union and
the East European countries in bilateral and multilateral exchanges, seeking over
the long run to facilitate the reunification of Europe and of Germany. This
opened the way to a European settlement that would have the continuing support
of the United States and Canada, while leaving open the promises of European
integration. Once Brandt’s Ostpolitik had led to a stabilization of the post-World
War II border in Central Europe, the Soviets were drawn into the all-European
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 237
process of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) that
was built on the normative basis of the West.
The third dilemma stemmed from the need to ensure military security without
endangering economic prosperity. The United States worked with Britain and
West Germany to forge a wider understanding of security that would facilitate a
consensus of the fourteen on strategy and burden sharing. NATO integrated a
reconceptualized notion of security – balancing defense with arms control and
disarmament issues – in its new two-pillar security strategy. NATO proposed
holding talks with the Warsaw Pact states on mutual force reductions that could
lead over time to lower defense costs. In the short term, NATO consultations on
mutual force reductions proved instrumental in containing public pressure for
sharp defense cuts, bolstering the December 1967 consensus on strategy and
force levels.

Conclusion
The successes of the trilateral talks and the Harmel exercise had effectively
reversed the slow process of disintegration that had beset NATO since the late
1950s and that – once the world had lived through the Berlin and Cuban crises –
had come to the fore with de Gaulle’s challenge to the raison d’être of the
alliance. The Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 in effect
stabilized the political meaning of NATO’s transformation in the 1960s: the
outcome of the Czechoslovak crisis deflated exaggerated hopes for an early set-
tlement and confirmed the validity of NATO’s new two-pillar security policies;
it increased the willingness of the allies to strengthen NATO’s collective mili-
tary strength, thus stabilizing an only temporary consensus on burden sharing; it
improved the alliance’s political cohesion, including Paris; and it tied the
government of the FRG more firmly to NATO, facilitating the acceptance of US
alliance leadership.
Yet the Gaullist challenge had been a symptom rather than the real cause of
NATO’s crisis in the 1960s. As long as France resisted British membership in
the ECC and was not prepared to share control of the force de frappe with the
FRG and the other ECC members, France’s vision of a “European Europe”
lacked both legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of a large majority of the
European elite. NATO’s double crisis was reflective of wider structural eco-
nomic, social, and political changes in the international system that made the
constructed Cold War settlement of 1963 unsustainable in the long term. De
Gaulle’s realist great power rhetoric highlighted to the other allies what was
really at stake: would they collectively be able to sustain cooperative security
relations in multilateral structures at a time of emerging détente and reduced
immediacy of the military threat, on the one hand, and of the diffusion of power
and increasing pressure on US leadership within the alliance, on the other?
The essence of NATO’s second transformation was political. Starting from
the constructed yet limited peace of the early 1960s, US and West European
views gradually converged on a new European order that – while anchored in
238 Andreas Wenger
NATO’s multilateral structures – would support the evolution of Eastern Europe
and accommodate the demands of an economically more assertive Western
Europe. NATO had evolved into a forum for a politically more balanced transat-
lantic relationship, while simultaneously engaging the Soviet Union and the East
European states in talks that would lead to a wider European détente and
promote gradual change in the Eastern bloc. In short, NATO’s transformation
into a less hierarchical alliance at 14, and a more participatory alliance at 15,
was instrumental in the shift from the bilateral superpower détente of 1963 to
the multilateral détente of the 1970s.
Three key factors explain the persistence of NATO beyond 1969: first,
NATO’s political functions were based on common norms and values. NATO
had been founded as a community of values and interests, and this, over time,
had led to a political culture that allowed the smaller allies to exert considerable
influence within NATO’s structures. Second, NATO’s institutional flexibility
allowed the allies to negotiate a reappropriation of political influence in the
alliance’s decision making and consultation procedures. Trilateral leadership –
including the FRG’s limited nuclear sovereignty – had to be balanced with
increased transparency and a less hierarchical structure of the new force-plan-
ning and nuclear-consultation machinery that would also accommodate the
interests of the smaller allies. Moreover, the alliance’s new institutional structure
kept France in NATO’s political bodies, while leaving open the possibility of its
return into its military bodies. While the 14 clearly did not want a final break
with France, Paris did not want to lose the “nuisance value” of alliance member-
ship and the political influence flowing from it.
Third, over time, NATO had become a hub for transgovernmental coalitions and
transnational elite networks. In effect, NATO’s political decision making process
took on elements of the domestic political decision making process of its demo-
cratic members. Transgovernmental and transnational coalitions were particularly
relevant with regard to monitoring – and at times clearly influencing – the domestic
political process in Bonn. During the Harmel exercise, the FRG’s position on the
German problem had disappointed the allies as being rather traditional and not very
innovative. However, the allies had realized that the key problem was that the new
West German government simply could not agree on a more concrete statement of
policy. It would take Brandt’s election victory of 1969 to allow the FRG to move
ahead on Ostpolitik. In the meantime, NATO provided a forum for monitoring the
impact of the generational change of the post-World War II leadership.
Yet NATO’s transformation had its limits: the alliance’s political functions
all remained closely linked to its military strength. NATO alone would be
unable to sustain the process of détente between East and West while upholding
the unity of the West. Complementary political and economic structures would
have to evolve in the early 1970s before progress towards a new European order
could proceed. Three developments are particularly notable in this regard: first,
the fact that NATO did not establish new permanent political machinery in the
late 1960s was highly relevant in so far as it kept open the possibility of new
political machinery at the level of an expanding European community. Progress-
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 239
ing détente between Washington and Moscow – symbolized by the bilateral
Soviet-US “Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War” of June 197349 – kept
the specter of a superpower condominium very much alive in Western Europe,
in particular in the context of US weakness due to Vietnam and Watergate.
Expanding and deepening the EC as a means to tie Bonn and its Ostpolitik
firmly to the West would become a major reason for the EC countries to launch
the ambitious Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the European Political
Cooperation (EPC) projects and to agree on the first round of enlargement, with
Britain, Ireland, and Denmark joining the original six.
Second, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe process pro-
vided the EC countries with an opportunity to reconceptualize security in
accordance with their own norms, serving as a catalyst for the EPC.50 As a non-
military actor, the EC nine found it easier to act as a community of values and to
confront the East with a series of principles governing relations between Euro-
pean countries that reflected a broader notion of security and that added the
security of individuals as a complementary factor to the security of states.
Within NATO, the balance of values and strategic interests had to accommodate
the political interests of allied “democracies” like Greece, Turkey, and Portugal
and the political interests of a superpower focused on trilateral diplomacy with
China and the Soviet Union regarding the future geopolitical balance in Asia. At
the same time, NATO consultation and solidarity remained a key factor in
keeping the West together during the Helsinki process and in reassuring the
Europeans that Washington would not go it alone.
Finally, the establishment of the G6 at the Rambouillet summit in August
1975 deflated financial and economic pressures on the US Congress to withdraw
troops.51 The establishment of the G6 structure reflected the increasing difficulty
in separating security from economics. No longer would NATO have to provide
the exclusive structure for achieving a compromise between military security
and economic prosperity. The US decision to change the fragile monetary status
quo of the Bretton Woods system and to move to a system of flexible exchange
rates disrupted the EC’s European Monetary Union project and restored US
structural power, thereby facilitating the renewal of the US commitment to
Europe. For NATO, this meant that it could focus on resisting unilateral troop
cuts by engaging in multilateral negotiations on mutual force reductions, while
leaving the governance of the global economy to other organizations.

Notes
1 The North Atlantic Treaty, Washington, DC, 4 April 1949, www.nato.int/docu/basic-
txt/treaty.htm.
2 See Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New
York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1969); George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1983).
3 See Lawrence S. Kaplan, NATO Divided, NATO United: The Evolution of an Alliance
(Westport: Praeger, 2004); Gustav Schmidt (ed.), A History of NATO: The First Fifty
Years, vols 1–3 (Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2001).
240 Andreas Wenger
4 On the intersection between diplomatic history and social movements, see Andreas
Wenger and Jeremi Suri, “At the Crossroads of Diplomatic and Social History: The
Nuclear Revolution, Dissent, and Détente,” Cold War History 1, no. 3 (April 2001),
pp. 1–42. On NATO’s détente debates, see Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist,
“What Role for NATO? Conflicting Western Perceptions of Détente, 1963–65,”
Journal of Transatlantic Studies 2, no. 2 (2004), pp. 185–208.
5 On NATO’s transformation, see Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s
Transformation and the Multilateralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold
War Studies 6, no. 1 (Winter 2004), pp. 22–74.
6 De Gaulle to Eisenhower, 17 September 1958, Foreign Relations of the United States
(FRUS), 1958–60, vol. VII (part 2), pp. 81–3.
7 On de Gaulle’s challenge to NATO see: Frédéric Bozo, Deux strategies pour l’Eu-
rope: de Gaulle, les Etats-Unis et l’alliance atlantique, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon et
Fondation Charles de Gaulle, 1996); Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique
étrangère du général de Gaulle, 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998).
8 See, for example, Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the Euro-
pean Settlement, 1945–63 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp.
194–200.
9 “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future,” March 1961, John F. Kennedy
Library, Boston Massachusetts (JFKL), National Security Files (NSF), Box 220.
10 Remarks by McNamara, NATO Ministerial Meeting, 5 May 1962, National Security
Archive, George Washington University, Washington, DC (NSA), Nuclear History
Box 14.
11 See Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, 367–79.
12 See the chapter of Christian Nuenlist in this volume and Christian Nuenlist, “Eisen-
hower, Kennedy, and Political Cooperation in NATO: Western Reactions to
Khrushchev’s Foreign Policy, 1955–63” (Ph.D thesis, University of Zurich, 2005).
13 Bundy to Kennedy, “Issues to be Settled with General Clay,” 28 August 1961, NSA,
Berlin Crisis 1958–62 (BC), Microfiche collection no. 2415.
14 See, for example, Christof Münger, Die Berliner Mauer, Kennedy und die Kubakrise:
Die westliche Allianz in der Zerreissprobe, 1961–1963 (Paderborn: Schöningh,
2003); Andreas Wenger, “Kennedy, Chruschtschow und das gemeinsame Interesse
der Supermächte am Status quo in Europa,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 46,
no. 1 (1998), pp. 69–99.
15 See Chapter 6 in this volume.
16 Press conference, 14 January 1963, in Charles de Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 4
(Paris: Plon, 1970), p. 69.
17 On the limits of the little détente of 1963, see Wenger and Suri, “At the Crossroads,”
pp. 7–18 and Chapters 5 and 6 in this volume.
18 Rostow to Rusk, “State of the World,” 17 September 1963, US National Archives,
College Park MD (USNA), RG 59, Records of the Policy Planning Council, 1963–64,
Entry 5041, Lot 70D199, Box 256, USSR.
19 See Chapters 2 and 7 in this volume.
20 See Chapter 4 in this volume.
21 Memorandum, “Possible Effects of the NATO Crisis on German Foreign and
Domestic Politics”, Undated, NSA, Non Proliferation Policy (NNP), Microfiche col-
lection no. 713.
22 See Chapter 7 in this volume and Anna Locher, “Crisis – What Crisis? The Debate on
the Future of NATO, 1963–66” (Ph.D thesis, University of Zurich, 2006).
23 See Chapters 2 and 8 in this volume.
24 See Chapters 11 and 12 in this volume.
25 See Chapters 8 and 10 in this volume.
26 See Kjell Ing Bjerga and Kjetil Skogrand, “Securing Small-state Interests: Norway in
NATO,” in War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East
 NATO’s transformation in the 1960s 241
and the West, ed. Vojtech Mastny, Sven Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger (London:
Routledge, 2006), pp. 218–40.
27 See Beatrice Heuser, “Alliance of Democracies and Nuclear Deterrence,” in War
Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East and the West,
ed. Vojtech Mastny, Sven Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger (London: Routledge,
2006), pp. 193–218.
28 See Chapter 12 in this volume and Lawrence S. Kaplan, “McNamara, Vietnam, and
the Defense of Europe,” in War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Percep-
tions in the East and the West, ed. Vojtech Mastny, Sven Holtsmark, and Andreas
Wenger (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 286–301.
29 Letter From President de Gaulle to President Johnson, 7 March 1966, FRUS,
1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 325.
30 The section on the 1966–68 NATO crisis is largely based on an earlier article in
Journal of Cold War Studies, see Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity”; Helga Haften-
dorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1996); Frédéric Bozo, “Détente versus Alliance: France, the United States and
the Politics of the Harmel Report (1964–1968),” Contemporary European History 7,
no. 3 (1998), pp. 343–60.
31 Rusk to Bundy, 26 January 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, TX (LBJL),
NSF, Country Files, Eastern Europe, Box 162, no. 24.
32 See Chapters 9 and 12 in this volume.
33 McNamara and Rusk to Johnson, 28 May 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 402.
34 Rusk and Clifford to Johnson, 16 March 1968, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 679.
35 US Mission to NATO to Department of State (DoS), 22 October 1966, FRUS,
1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 485.
36 Johnson to Wilson, Undated, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 317.
37 Lyndon B. Johnson, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 1963–1964
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1966 [II]), p. 1128.
38 McGhee to DoS, “Implications of a New German Government For US Policy,” 2
November 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XV, p. 227.
39 Rusk to DoS, 16 December 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 517; Record of
Meeting With President Johnson, 17 December 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p.
522.
40 Rostow to Johnson, Undated, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 538.
41 Bator to Johnson, 11 August 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 446.
42 Fairley to Kohler, “NATO Strategy,” 1 December 1967, Parallel History Project on
NATO and the Warsaw Pact (PHP), www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm.
43 McCloy to Johnson, 21 November 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII, p. 497; Agreed
Minute on Strategy and Forces, 9 November 1966, ibid., p. 563.
44 On the strategy debate, see Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution; Jane E.
Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response: NATO’s Debate over Strategy in the
1960s (New York: St. Martins Press, 1988); Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britain, France
and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (London:
Macmillan, 1997).
45 Final Harmel Report, East–West Relations Détente and a European Settlement,
NATO Archives, www.nato.int/archives/harmel/harmel01.htm. For analyses, see
Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity”, pp. 59–68; Helga Haftendorn, “Entstehung und
Bedeutung des Harmel-Berichts der NATO von 1967,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeit-
geschichte 40, 2 (April 1992), pp. 169–220.
46 Sub-Group I Draft Report, Subject of Discussion on 18/19 September 1967, NATO
Archives, NISCA 4/10/4/1, Item 27, see PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/
coll_Harmel.htm.
47 DoS to US Posts in NATO Capitals, 16 November 1967, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. XIII,
pp. 640, ibid., pp. 637–9.
242 Andreas Wenger
48 See Chapter 10 in this volume.
49 For the text of the agreement, see www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/5186.htm.
50 For the rise of the EPC and the role of the EC countries in the CSCE process, see
Daniel Möckli, Trilateral Leadership: Heath, Brandt, Pompidou and the Rise and
Decline of European Political Cooperation, 1969–1974 (Ph.D thesis, University of
Zurich, 2005); Daniel Möckli, “The EC-Nine, the CSCE, and the Changing Pattern of
European Security,” in At the Roots of European Security: The Early Helsinki
Process Revisited, 1965–1975, ed. Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, and Christian
Nuenlist (forthcoming in 2007).
51 See Duccio Basosi, “Helsinki and Rambouillet: Security and Economic Matters at
State,” 1972–75,” in At the Roots of European Security: The Early Helsinki Process
Revisited, 1965–1975, ed. Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, and Christian Nuenlist
(forthcoming in 2007).
Index

Acheson, Dean 56, 58–9, 75, 76, 232 arms race 132, 235
Acheson Report 53, 75, 82 Asia 4, 239; see also individual countries
Action Committee for the United States of Atlantic Community 94, 226
Europe 55 Atlantic nuclear force: see ANF
Adenauer, Konrad: Campaign against Atlanticists 135
Atomic Death 133; dismissed 228; de atomic, biological and chemical weapons
Gaulle 4, 20, 33, 163; Kennedy 226; 163
Khrushchev 70; Macmillan 94; MLF Austria 208, 213, 214
150; nuclear capability 60, 163–5,
169–70, 225, 230; Ostpolitik 98; policy Ball, George: Bilderberg meetings 6, 52;
of strength 133, 137; resigned 99; Cannes meeting 56;
reunification 32; security policies 138; European–American relations report 51;
Stikker 110; US 80, 92; see also Elysée de Gaulle 57, 117; Independence Day
Treaty speech 55; MLF 57, 151; NATO
AFMED (Allied Forces Mediterranean) 211 leadership 232; Warsaw Pact 119;
Africa 40, 67 Wilson 153
AFSOUTH 211 Bange, Oliver 8–9
Agreed Minute on Strategy and Forces 234 Barber, Arthur W. 184–6, 187, 189, 191
Aktionskomitee Wahret die Freiheit 44 Barzel, Rainer 163–5
Algeria 211 Bator, Francis M. 157, 165, 166
Algerian War 95, 140, 141 Baumel, Jacques 56–7, 58, 59
Allied Forces Mediterranean (AFMED) Belgium 77–80, 109, 110, 115, 121
211 Berlin 6–7, 79; Eisenhower 53, 70, 90;
Allied Naval Forces South (NAVSOUTH) Kennedy 77, 93, 101, 224; Khrushchev
211 31, 32, 67, 68–9, 70, 225; Kissinger 15;
Alphand, Hervé 92, 112 Macmillan 33, 94; NATO’s role 4, 6,
Andropov, Yuri Vladimirovich 170 20, 40, 69, 76–9, 132; North Atlantic
ANF (Atlantic nuclear force) 150, 152, Council 69, 77; psychological warfare
153–4, 157, 172 32–6; Stikker 77–8; superpower détente
Anglo-American commitment 21–3, 167 80; US/France 7, 89–90
Angola 194 Berlin Declaration 69
Annual Political Appraisal 115 Berlin Wall 77–8, 90, 92
anti-Americanism 131 Bernhard, Prince 50–1, 54–5, 57
anti-communism 21–2, 41, 90–1, 196 Beuker, Hans 44
anti-Gaullist feeling 59, 60–1 USS Biddle 203
anti-nuclear weapons protest movements bilateralism 8–9, 69–70, 82, 173, 239
8, 131, 132–3, 137–9, 229 Bilderberg Group 6, 50–2, 135; 1961
appeasement 140 meeting 52–5; 1962 meeting 55–6; 1963
Arabs/Israelis 211–12 meeting 56–8; 1964 meeting 58–60
244 Index
Birrenbach, Kurt 56, 163–5 Clay, Lucius D. 90
Black Sea Fleet 211 Cleveland, Harlan 174, 175, 191
Bohlen, Charles 117 CND (Campaign for Nuclear
Böker, Alexander 72 Disarmament) 133, 135–6, 137
Bonnemaison, Antoine 41, 42 Cold War: British foreign policy 136;
Bourdet, Claude 134 deterrence 221; ending 71; Geneva
Boyesen, Jens M. 80 Summit 143; Harmel report 26; NATO
Brandt, Willy: Brezhnev 170; Europe, 3, 18
Eastern 234; NPT 176, 234; Ostpolitik colonial disengagement 231
26, 99, 171–2, 176, 236–7, 238; SPD Committee of Three report 67
23, 27, 45, 163, 171–2 Common Agricultural Policy 207–8
Brentano, Heinrich von 33, 71 Common Market: see European Economic
Bretton Woods 239 Community
Brezhnev, Leonid 170 Communist Party of Britain 135
Britain: anti-nuclear weapons protest Communist Party of France 133–4, 137,
movements 132–3; balance-of-payments 141
231; Berlin 69; CND 133; colonial Communist Party of Italy 212
disengagement 231; détente 71, 80; EEC Communist Party of the Soviet Union
55–6, 89, 93, 97, 101–2, 108, 149–50, (CPSU) 168, 170
166, 207, 225, 226, 228–9; foreign communist radio broadcasting 40
policy/Cold War 136; de Gaulle 4, 55–6, Conference on Security and Cooperation
68, 94, 108; independence in concert in Europe (CSCE) 27, 173, 176, 237,
134, 142; NATO 74, 110, 134–5; 239
nuclear disarmament 142; security consensus building 11, 19–20, 226–31
134–7; US relations 55–6; see also Conservative Government 134–5
Conservative Party; Labour Party Couve de Murville, Maurice: Carstens
Brosio, Manlio 117; de Gaulle 7, 229; 169; Denmark 195; Kennedy 79, 114;
international factors 119; NATO 11, 74, NATO’s future 116–17; Rusk 81,
118, 121, 176; NPT 173; trilateral talks 111–12; Spaak 116
233; Vietnam War 207 CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet
Brown, George 167, 168 Union) 168, 170
Bruce, David 33, 154 CSCE: see Conference on Security and
Bundesnachrichtendienst 42 Cooperation in Europe
Bundy, McGeorge 52, 57, 59, 60, 97 Cuban missile crisis 132, 134; Kennedy
Burgess, W. Randolph 73 101, 203; Khrushchev 96–7, 203;
BVD (Dutch intelligence) 41, 42 NATO’s role 4; superpower détente 80,
82, 226–7; US/France relations 96–7, 227
Camp David 31, 33, 70–1 Cyprus 211
Campaign against Atomic Death 133, 137, Cyrankiewicz, Józef 169
138 Czechoslovakia 24, 25, 201, 212–13, 237
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: see
CND Denmark: Barber 185–6, 189, 191; Berlin
Canada: Berlin 69, 77–9; détente 69, 71–2, 79; Couve de Murville 195; détente 80,
80; de Gaulle 68; multilateralism 115, 183, 186–7, 191–2, 194, 197; domestic
117–18; NATO 68, 72, 116, 119; policies 189–90; EEC 197, 228–9;
psychological defense 35, 36 Foreign Policy Committee meeting 195;
Cannes meeting 56–8 Harmel exercise 195, 196–7; NATO 9,
Carstens, Karl 164, 169 183–4, 186–7, 189–91, 190–1, 194–5;
CDU-CSU 163–5, 171–2 referendum possibility 196; security
CDU-SDP 44 policy 183–4, 198; US 184–5, 230
China 213 détente: CPSU 170; Denmark 183, 186–7,
Christian Democratic Union 44, 163–5, 191–2, 194, 197; East–West dialogue
171–2 99; Eisenhower 69–70, 165; France
Christian Democrats (Italy) 203, 205–6 117–19; Gaullism 6–7; Hækkerup
 Index 245
187–8; Harmel exercise 235–7; Harmel European Atomic Energy Community: see
report 17; Italy 201–5; Johnson 81, Euratom
165–6; Kennedy 82–3, 100–1; European Bureau 94
Khrushchev 4, 6, 82; Kissinger 170; European Common Market: see European
NATO 9, 69, 71–2, 78–80, 81–2; Nixon Economic Community
16–17; Soviet Union 81, 169–71; European Defense Community 110
superpowers 80, 82, 226–7 European Economic Community: Britain
Deutsch, Karl 5 55–6, 89, 93, 97, 101–2, 108, 149–50,
Dobrynin, Anatoly 170 166, 207, 225, 226, 228–9; Denmark
dollar/franc 95–6 197, 228–9; “empty chair crisis” 207–8;
double containment strategy 98 origins 226; see also individual
Dubček Government 212 countries
Ducci, Roberto 203, 204, 207, 213 European March for Disarmament 39
Dufhues, Josef Hermann 164 European Political Cooperation 239
Dulles, John Foster 32, 53 European–American relations report 51

Easter Marches of Atomic Weapons Falin, Valentin 172

Opponents 133, 137–8 Fanfani, Amintore 204, 206–7, 210
Economic and Monetary Union 239 Fenoaltea, Sergio 206, 208
economic policy 7 Finland 44
Eden, Anthony 21–2 Finletter, Thomas 76, 80, 108–9, 152
Eden Plan 135 Foreign Affairs 15, 54, 108
EEC: see European Economic Community foreign policy 38, 61, 136
Eighteen Nations Disarmament Fornari, Giovanni 209
Conference (ENDC) 174 Foster, Bill 166, 174
Einthoven, Louis 41–2 Fouchet plan 207
Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Berlin 33, 69–70, Four-Power Working Group 33
90; de Gaulle 73; détente policy 69–70, France: Algerian war 95, 140, 141; anti-
165; Eden 21–2; European–American nuclear weapons protest movements
relations report 51; Khrushchev 31, 70; 132–3; colonial disengagement 231;
MLF 149; NATO 68, 82; nuclear Fouchet plan 207; FRG 140, 188–9;
sharing 223; political consultations 7; gold reserves 95; Italy 208; military
SACEUR 222; Soviet threat 18; withdrawal from NATO 7, 91, 107–8,
Sprague 38; tripartite directorate 68 113, 114, 120, 157, 172, 185, 188–9,
elite networks 6, 11, 50, 61; see also 198, 209, 222, 227–8, 231; MLF 228;
Bilderberg Group NATO 4, 92–3, 140, 224–5; nuclear
Elysée Treaty 20, 56, 62n23, 97–8, 109, capability 54, 91, 92, 134, 140–1, 168;
112, 228 opportunism 169; peace movement
Encounter journal 135 133–4, 140, 141; psychological action
ENDC (Eighteen Nations Disarmament 36, 38; SPD 172; Stikker 83, 114; US 7,
Conference) 174 89–90, 101–2, 118, 230; see also de
Erhard, Ludwig: foreign policy 162; de Gaulle; Gaullism
Gaulle 99–100, 117, 228; government Franco-German rapprochement 92, 93,
collapse 233; MLF 151, 152; NATO 20 227, 228
Erler, Fritz 54 Franco-German treaties 20, 56, 97–8; see
Euratom (European Atomic Energy also Elysée Treaty
Community) 168, 174, 175, 205 French Atlantic Fleet 113
Europe, Eastern 6, 36, 234, 235–6, 238; French Communist Party (PCF) 133–4,
see also individual countries 137, 141
Europe, West: Anglo-American FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) 5, 6,
commitment 21–3; shared identity 5, 37, 188–9; anti-nuclear protest
23–4; US troops 21, 71, 234; see also movements 132–3, 137–9; Bilderberg
European Economic Community; Group 52; CDU 44; CND 135–6;
individual countries détente 71, 79–81; Federal Foreign
246 Index
FRG continued Gehlen, Reinhard 45
Office 164; France 140, 188–9; de General Agreement Trade and Tariffs
Gaulle 228; IAEA 175; Kissinger 39; (GATT) 96, 112, 115
MLF 228; NATO 139, 236; North Geneva Conference 143, 190
Atlantic Treaty 18; NPG 155, 175; NPT German Democratic Republic: see GDR
162–3, 164–5, 236; nuclear capabilities Germany: see Berlin; FRG; GDR
60, 163–5, 169–70, 225, 230; nuclear Gerstenmaier, Eugen 163–5
deterrence 164–5; nuclear disarmament Geyer, Rolf 44
142; nuclear sharing 148, 153; gold reserves 95
Ostpolitik 236–7; psychological warfare González Márquez, Felipe 27
31, 45; reunification 32–3, 236; Soviet Grandville, Jean de la 111
Union 170–1; SPD 23, 27, 45, 52, 133, Greece 37–8, 222, 239
163, 171–2; US pressure 173; see also Grewe, Wilhelm 80, 175, 176
Berlin Gromyko, Andrei 166, 170, 187
Fromont-Meurice, Henri 36 Grote, Nicolaus von 42
Fulbright, William 58 Gruenther, Alfred M. 51
Fuller, Leon 67 Guichard, Olivier 54

G6 239 Hækkerup, Per 190; appointed 184;

Gaddis, John Lewis 8 collective solidarity in NATO 189;
Gaitskell, Hugh 51 détente 187–8; foreign policy 186; de
Gaitskell Plan 135 Gaulle 188
Garibaldi 203 Hall, Stuart 136
GATT (General Agreement Trade and Hallstein doctrine 20
Tariffs) 96, 112, 115 Harlech, Lord 151
de Gaulle, Charles: Adenauer 4, 20, 33, Harmel, Pierre 157, 175, 192, 235
163; Ball 57, 117; Britain 94, 149–50; Harmel exercise: Denmark 195, 196–7;
Britain/EEC 4, 55–6, 94, 108; Brosio 7, détente 235–7; Italy 209–10; Johnson
229; criticized 210; double containment 175; reconstruction of NATO 16, 177,
strategy 98; double non 82, 97; 222–3, 235
Eisenhower 73; Erhard 99–100, 117, Harmel report: anticipated 72; Cold War
228; force de frappe 54, 92, 95, 139, 26; détente 17; Italy 210; NAC 25;
169, 237; foreign policy 38; FRG 228; NATO 192, 193, 195; political reform x,
Hækkerup 188; Italy 109, 207; Kennedy 4, 157
76, 89–90, 108, 109; Komer 75–6; Harper’s Magazine 15
Limited Test Ban Treaty 100; MLF Harriman, W. Averell 206
149–50, 224; nationalism 82; NATO Hase, Ullrich von 210
23–4, 67, 113, 222, 223–6; North Hassel, Kai-Uwe von 114, 155
Atlantic Treaty Article 13 3; NPT Healey, Denis 59, 152
168–9; Poland 169; réalités/trucs 91; Heath, Edward 58, 109
Saragat 209; Soviet Union 231–2; Spaak Helsinki 44
68, 69, 83, 109; Stikker 73, 74, 114–15; Helsinki Final Act 27
tensions 10; tripartite directorate 6–7, Herter, Christian 35, 70–1
68–9; US 15, 52; see also France, Hjorth-Nielsen, Henning 196
military withdrawal from NATO Holifield, Chet 58
Gaullism 139–41; détente 6–7; isolated Home, Alec Douglas 110
60–1; nationalism 82; NATO 91–3, 230, Hooper, R. W. J. 35, 36, 110
237; US 89–90, 91–2 Hopson, D. C. 36
Gavin, James 76 Hungarian revolt 38
GDR (German Democratic Republic):
British Labour Party 136; Kennedy 225; IAEA (International Atomic Energy
Khrushchev 39, 90; propaganda 135; Agency) 174, 175, 205
psychological warfare 31; Soviet Union Ignatieff, George 112
76–7 Indochina 140
 Index 247
Information, Special Committee on 37 226; Alphand 92; anti-communism
Information and Cultural Relations 90–1; assassinated 99; Berlin 77, 93,
Committee 37 101, 224; Bernhard, Prince 54–5; Couve
Information and Culture Committee 45 de Murville 79, 114; Cuban missile
intercontinental strategic capabilities 133 crisis 101, 203; détente 82–3, 100–1;
Interdoc network 6, 31, 41–5 double containment 98–9; European
intermediate-range ballistic missiles ideology 94–5; French military
(IRBMs) 202, 223 withdrawal 113; de Gaulle 76, 89–90,
Inter-ministerial Working Group for 108, 109; GDR 225; inauguration 52;
Psychological Defence 37 Khrushchev 76–7; NATO 68, 82;
International Atomic Energy Agency: see nuclear weapons 149, 224; Polaris 55;
IAEA political consultations 7; Soviet Union
International Information and 79–82; third force concept 15–16
Documentation Center: see Interdoc Kennedy Round, GATT 115
network Kernig, C. D. 42, 45
International Union of Students 43 Khrushchev, Nikita S.: Adenauer 70;
IRBMs (intermediate-range ballistic Berlin crisis 31, 32, 67, 68–9, 225;
missiles) 202, 223 Cuban crisis 96–7, 203; détente 4, 6, 82;
Ismay, Lord 3, 51 Eisenhower 31, 70; GDR 39, 90;
Israelis 211–12 Kennedy 76–7; naval rearmament 211;
Istanbul meeting of North Atlantic Council refusing disarmament talks 35; Stikker
72 77; Wilson 167
Italian Air Force 202 Kiesinger, Kurt Georg 16, 164, 168, 171,
Italian Navy 203 234
Italian Socialist Party 203, 206 Kissinger, Henry: détente 170; Europe/US
Italy: Austria 208, 214; Center-Left 208, 17; FRG 39; MLF 59; NATO 15, 23,
214; Czechoslovakian invasion 213; 26–7; NPT 25; Stikker 110; van der
détente 72, 80, 201–5; Euratom 205; Beugel 58
France 208; de Gaulle 109, 207; Harmel Knappstein, Heinrich von 109
exercise 209–10; IAEA 205; IRBMs Koerts, Pieter 44
223; Jupiter ballistic missiles 202, 203; Kohler, Foy M. 33, 193
Labour Government 208; Mediterranean Kohnstamm, Max 55, 59
213–14; MLF 203; NATO 74, 78, 201; Komer, Robert 75–6
North Atlantic Treaty 212; NPG 204; Korean War 4, 19, 67, 221
NPT 174, 204–5, 212, 214; nuclear Kosygin, Aleksei 167, 174
capability 202; nuclear sharing 202, Krag, Jens Otto 186, 190, 196
206; Polaris missiles 202; terrorist Krone, Heinrich 163–5
attack 208; US 205; Vietnam War Kuchel, Thomas H. 151
205–7; Wilson 208
La Malfa, Ugo 204
Jackson, Henry 58 Labour Party of Britain 134, 135, 136,
Johnson, Lyndon B.: Barber 185; bilateral 208
talks 8–9; détente 81, 165–6; Harmel Lades, Hans 42
exercise 175; invasion of Lange, Halvard 116
Czechoslovakia 212–13; MLF 59–60, Leddy, John 152
148, 150, 155–6; national security Leusse, Pierre de 77, 119
action memorandum 345 155; NATO Limited Test Ban Treaty 8, 68, 80, 100,
16, 24, 232; NPT 234; nuclear capability 132, 141, 227
233; Ostpolitik 234; Stikker 114–15 Lisbon Force 222
Jupiter ballistic missiles 202, 203 Luns, Joseph 58, 110–11, 116
Luxemburg 109
Kaplan, Lawrence 25, 157
Kennan, George 21, 23, 138 McCloy, John 56, 58
Kennedy, John F.: Acheson 75; Adenauer McGhee, George 52, 58, 63n31, 172, 234
248 Index
Macmillan, Harold: Adenauer 94; Berlin national security action memoranda 150–1,
33, 94; future of NATO 109; 155
independence in concert 134, 142; National Security Council 38
nuclear sharing 149; tripartite nationalism 82, 188, 189
directorate 68 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Macmillan Plan 135, 136 Organization) x–xi, 17, 222, 237–8; ad
McNamara, Robert S.: ANF 153; Athens hoc study groups 40–1; Africa 67; Ball
address 224; Barber 184–5; FRG 93; 232; Belgium 77–80, 109–10, 115, 121;
NATO leadership 232; NPG 8, 151–2, Britain 134–5; Canada 116, 119;
155, 173, 203–4; nuclear capability 148, Denmark 9, 183–4, 186–7, 189–91,
233; Special Committee 119–20 194–5; détente 9, 81–2; Eisenhower 68,
Malta 211 82; France 4, 92–3, 140, 224–5; French
Mansfield, Mike 22 military withdrawal 7, 91, 107–8, 113,
Mansholt, Sicco 58 114, 120, 140–1, 157, 172, 185, 188–9,
Margerie, Roland de 113 198, 209, 222, 227–8, 231; FRG 139,
Maritime Air Force facility 25 236; future threatened 110–11, 116–17;
Markscheffel, Günter 172 de Gaulle 23–4, 67, 113, 222, 223–6;
Marshall Plan 15 Gaullism 91–3, 230, 237; Harmel report
Martin, Paul 81, 116, 118 192, 193; institutions 221–2, 232–3,
Mason, Sir Paul 38 238; as instrument of peace 193–5, 230;
MC 14/3 234 Italy 201; Johnson 16, 24, 232; Kennedy
MCAA (Mouvement Contre l’Armement 68, 82; Kissinger 15, 23, 26–7;
Atomique) 134 Macmillan 109; McNamara 232;
MDP (Mouvement de la Paix) 133–4 military credibility crisis 223–5, 231;
Medici, Giuseppe 212 MLF 148–9; as multilateral forum 5,
Mediterranean 210–11, 213–14 120–1; nuclear capability 97, 132–3,
Mendès-France, Pierre 89 142, 229; political cooperation 3–4, 10,
Mennes, Herman 44 70–1, 222–3, 225–6, 227–8; Soviet
Middle East 4, 211–12, 213 Union 221; US x–xi, 7, 67; Warsaw
Middleton, Drew 81 Pact 184, 237; see also NPG
Military History Research Institute, naval rearmament 211
Potsdam 5 NAVSOUTH (Allied Naval Forces South)
Mittelstaedt, Lt-Col 36 211
MLF (multilateral force): Acheson 59; NDAC (Nuclear Defense Affairs
Adenauer 150; Ball 57, 151; Bundy 59, Committee) 156, 204, 232–3
60; Erhard 151, 152; failure 172; France Nenni, Pietro 204, 206, 209–10
228; de Gaulle 224; Germany 228; Netherlands 41, 42, 109
Home/Rusk 112; Italy 203; Johnson neutrality, active 136–7
59–60, 148, 150, 155–6; Kissinger 59; neutralization proposals 138
Nassau agreement 149–50; NATO New Left 135, 136, 137
148–9; NPG 152, 156–7; Stikker 59; US New York Times 112
State Department 58 New York Times Magazine 15
Mollet, Guy 51 Nitze, Paul 52, 53–4
Monnet, Jean 55 Nixon, Richard 16–17, 24, 26, 170
Moro, Aldo 204, 205, 209, 211, 212 non-proliferation treaty (NPT) 8; Brandt
Moscow Treaty 26 176, 234; Brosio 173; CSCE 173; Ducci
Mouvement Contre l’Armement Atomique 204; Falin 172; FRG 162–3, 164–5,
(MCAA) 134 236; de Gaulle 168–9; Italy 174, 204–5,
Mouvement de la Paix (MDP) 133–4 212, 214; Johnson 234; Kissinger 25;
multilateral force: see MLF national interests 176–7; NPG 157;
multilateralism 16–17, 67, 80–1, 115, 117–18 Ostpolitik 9; Soviet Union 155–6; US
9–10, 165–6; Wilson 163, 166–8
Nassau agreement 55–6, 62n20, 97, 110, Norstad, Lauris 73, 76
149–50 North Atlantic Council 67, 111, 222;
 Index 249
Berlin 77; Council Memorandum PCF (Communist Party of France) 133–4,
C-M(61)25 40; de Staercke 109–10; 137, 141
Eisenhower 69–70; Foster 174; Harmel peace movement 133–4, 140, 141
report 25; nuclear sharing 152, 156; Pigs, Bay of 52
psychological warfare 33–4; security Poland 169, 184, 187
conference 184–5; Stikker 74; Western Polaris missiles 4, 55, 202
Four 78–9 Policy Planning Staff 81, 94
North Atlantic Treaty 4, 212, 221; Article Political Advisors Committee 37
4 34; Article 5 18, 19, 34; Article 13 3, political consultations 6–7, 70–1
108 Portugal 239
North Atlantic Treaty Organization see Prague Spring 212
NATO propaganda 6, 32, 36, 135
Norway 71, 79–80, 191, 196, 230 protest movements 8, 131, 229
nouvelle gauche 141 psychological warfare 6, 46n1; Canada 35,
NPG: see nuclear planning group 38; France 36, 38; FRG 31, 45; GDR
NPT: see non-proliferation treaty 31; North Atlantic Council 33–4; Soviet
nuclear capabilities: France 54, 91, 92, 134, Union 31
140–1, 168; FRG 60, 163–5, 169–70, Psychological Warfare Working Group
225, 230; Italy 202; Johnson 233; 32–8
McNamara 148, 233; NATO 97, 142, 229 Psywar Co-ordination Section, SHAPE 34
Nuclear Defense Affairs Committee
(NDAC) 156, 232–3 Rambouillet summit 239
nuclear deterrence 7–8, 164–5 Rapacki Plan 135, 136
nuclear disarmament 135, 142 Reinhardt, Frederick 203, 205, 212
nuclear non-proliferation 172–6; see also The Reporter 15
non-proliferation treaty (NPT) Retinger, Joseph 50–1
nuclear planning group (NPG) 8; ANF Roll, Eric 59
157; Ball 156–7; FRG 155; Italy 204; rollback policy 38
McNamara 8, 151–2, 155–7, 173, Romania 25, 212
203–4; MLF 152, 156–7; NATO 148–9, Roshchin, A. A. 174
151–7; NPT 157; setting up 16, 154–5, Rostand, Jean 134
157, 158, 232–3 Rostow, Walt Whitman 58, 75, 81, 152–3,
nuclear power 4, 15, 56–7, 149, 224 166, 227
nuclear sharing 148–51, 153, 156, 202, Rueff, Jacques 95–6
206, 223, 230–1 Rusk, Dean: Berlin 76, 78; Bilderberg 52;
Couve de Murville 81, 111–12; Danish
Oder-Neisse line 225 proposal 191; Fanfani 210; Finletter
OECD (Organization for Economic 108–9; Harmel 192; MLF 207; NATO
Cooperation and Development) 50 75, 81, 111–12, 232; Schröder 116;
Oost-West journal 43 Soviet Union 81, 113; Stikker 77; US
Organization for Economic Cooperation détente 165, 166
and Development 50
Ormsby-Gore, W. David 100–1 SACEUR (Strategic Allied Commander
Osimo Treaty 214 Europe) 110, 152, 204, 222, 223
Ostpolitik 26, 236–7; Adenauer 98; Brandt St. Castin meeting 52–5
26, 99, 171–2, 176, 236–7, 238; détente SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks)
16; Johnson 234; Kiesinger 234; NPT 9 24, 26
Owen, Henry 58 Saltsjöbaden meeting 55–6
Sandys, Duncan 135
Paix et liberté 41 Saragat, Giuseppe 204, 209, 211
Paludan, Janus 195 Schaetzel, J. Robert 59
Paques, G. 36 Schaus, Eugène 112
Paris Summit 31, 68, 72, 73 Scheel, Walter 171
Pasti, Nino 204 Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. 89
250 Index
Schmidt, Helmut 172 40–1; Adenauer 110; Berlin 77–8;
Schröder, Gerhard 81, 112, 116, 119, 155 Bilderberg meeting 58; France 83, 114;
Schuman, Maurice 115–16 de Gaulle 73, 74, 114–15; Johnson
Scott-Smith, Giles 6 114–15; Khrushchev 77; Kissinger 110;
SDECE (French intelligence) 41 MLF 59; NATO 79, 111, 113, 121, 176;
security 7, 17, 142–3, 184–5; Adenauer Rusk 77; Soviet Union 80; US 74
138; Britain 134–7; Denmark 183–4, Stone, Shepard 58
198; NATO 133, 143; trilateral talks Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)
233–5 24, 26
Seydoux, François 80, 111, 114 Strauss, Franz Josef 23, 34–5, 93, 163–5
SFIO (Socialist Party of France) 134, 141 Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers
SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Europe (SHAPE) 34, 35, 204
Powers Europe) 34, 35, 204 Suri, Jeremi 131
Shuckburgh, Sir Evelyn 151 Sweden 137
Sikorski, W. 50 Switzerland x, 137
Sino-Soviet border 24
Six Days’ War 201, 211–12 Tabor, Hans 195, 196
Social Democratic Party 23, 27, 45, 52, terrorist attack 11, 208
133, 163, 171–2 Thatcher, Margaret 166
social movements 131–2 third force concept 15–16
Socialist Party of France 134, 141 Thompson, Llewellyn 70
Socialist Party of Italy (PSI) 203, 206 Three Wise Men report x, 4, 67
SOEV 42 Trachtenberg, Marc 97
Sotgiu, Luciano 211 trilateral talks 222–3, 233–5, 236, 238
Soviet Union: Barber 187; détente 81, tripartite directorate 6–7, 54, 68–9
169–71; FRG 170–1; de Gaulle 231–2; The Troubled Partnership 15
GDR 76–7; Greece 37–8; Truman Doctrine xi
intercontinental strategic capabilities Turkey 222, 223, 239
133; invasion of Czechoslovakia 24, 25, Tyler, William 80, 112
201, 237; Kennedy 79–82; Labour Party
136; Mediterranean 210–11; NATO U-2 incident 73, 132
221; North Atlantic Treaty 4; NPT United Nations 18–19
155–6; nuclear power 15; peaceful United States of America: Adenauer 80,
coexistence 41–2; propaganda 32; 92; balance-of-payments 95, 102, 231;
psychological warfare 31; Rusk 113; Berlin crisis 7, 89–90; Britain 55–6;
Sputnik 223; Stikker 80; US 4, 190, 191, CND 135–6; Denmark 184–5, 230;
239 foreign policy/NATO 67, 119–20;
Spaak, Paul-Henri 11, 67; anti- France 7, 89–90, 101–2, 118, 230; de
communism 196; Camp David 70–1; Gaulle 15, 52; Gaullism 89–90, 91–2;
Couve de Murville 116; Foreign Affairs Italy 205; NPT 9–10, 155–6; nuclear
108; de Gaulle 68, 69, 83, 108–11; and monopoly 56–7; Policy Planning Staff
Martin 80–1; NATO 7, 39, 72, 111; 94; Soviet Union 4, 190, 191, 239;
political co-operation 7; pre-conference Stikker 74; troops in Europe 21, 71, 234
meeting 184; psychological defense
policy 35; resignation 73–4; Schuman values, shared 5, 10–11, 22–3, 27, 34–5,
115–16; tripartite directorate 68 221
SPD: see Social Democratic Party Van den Heuvel, Cees 42, 43, 44
Speidel, Hans 58 Van der Beugel, Ernst 58
Sprague, Mansfield 38 Van Kleffens, Eelco 54
Sputnik 223 Van Zeeland, Paul 51
Staercke, André de 73, 77, 78, 109–10, Verein zur Erforschung sozialpolitischer
119 Verhältnisse im Ausland e. V. 42
Stewart, Michael 184, 210 Vest, George 176
Stikker, Dirk 11; ad hoc working groups 6, Vienna summit 76–7, 174
 Index 251
Vietnam 190 Wilson, Harold 16; Atlantic nuclear force
Vietnam War: Denmark 189, 194; 150; Ball 153; FRG 166–8; Italy 208;
escalating 24, 99, 201, 230, 231, 232; Khrushchev 167; Kosygin 167–8; MLF
Europe 19; Italy 9–10, 205–7 150; NPT 163, 166–8; nuclear
Vittorelli, Paolo 59 capabilities 154
Voronov, Gennadiy I. 168 Winiewicz, Jozef 186
Wischnewski, Hans-Jürgen 172
Warsaw Pact: Ball 119; Moscow Treaty Wohlstetter, Albert 53–4
26; NATO 184, 237; nuclear weapons Wolff, Larry 24
233; Winiewicz 186; Yugoslavia 212 World Federation of Democratic Youth
Wehner, Herbert 172 43–4
Wenger, Andreas 16–17, 131 World Youth Forum 39
Wessel, Gerhard 45
Western Four 69, 71, 78–9 youth and education 40
Westrick, Ludger 58 Yugoslavia 212, 214
Williamsburg meeting 58–60
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