a 1 Iew completed rev State Dept 4 0042 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T008266000500010042-4 WARNING This Document contains information a ecting the Na- iional Defense of the United States within the mean- ing of Title 18 Sections 793 and 194 of the us Code as amended Its transmission or revelation of its contents In or receipt by an unauthorized person is prohibited by Iaw The reproduction of this form is prohibited Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 1 3 by 3 25X1 OCI No 1167a 66 CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY Office of Current Intelligence 2 April 1966 INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM The NATO Crisis in its Political Setting Summary 1 No crisis of major policy has been more heralded than the one which has now come to a head in NATO Since De Gaulle returned to power in 1958 and especially since the end of the Algerian war he has said every few months that he intended to effect a major reconstitution of the Alliance Yet now that the crisis has come it has had its surprising aspects and what precisely the issues are all about 1et alone how they will be ultimately resolved - is far from clear Despite the show of unanimity which other NATO members have been able to sustain important differences of opinion exist within and among them and each now faces an appalling long list of decisions to be taken on issues which are vital to its national interestr 2 That the Alliance is now caught with no consensus on how to deal with the crisis is under- standable In the first place NATO has symbolized the US relationship to Western Europe for 17 years and as a military enterprise it has been highly successful In the eyes of many of its members the original reasons for the establishment of NATO re- main valid and they see no reason now for any change In the second place despite some seven years of cal culated build up De Gaulle has left his position still shrouded in ambiguity He has kept open a wide range of possible courses of action it is not clear precisely what he wants or what he will settle for nor is it known what he will do if he is frustrated 25X1 SE CRE Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00820A000500010042-4 SECRET Third while the crisis has taken on the aspect of a US-France confrontation neither country alone will determine the outcome In the last few weeks London has often taken the lead The basic issue may in fact be France s relations with West Germany and the settlement of this issue may hinge on trends within the Erhard government Finally this is surely only the beginning of the crisis and one which ultimately involves not only NATO but a much broader range of questionsm-the balance of power in Western Europe its future organization US relations with Europe across the spectrum and Western EuropeVS relations with the Soviet bloc The Case for NATO 3 Perhaps a major difficulty of the moment is the theology with which each side may be tempted to View the crisis De Gaulle alleges he is fighting against Alliance integration which is the equivalent of subordination Aside from the fact that De Gaulle has never behaved like one subordinated integration has had no great impact on national control over nam tional forces in peacetime and was for example no obstacle at all to France s conduct of the war in Algeria De Gaulle also alleges that Alliance ties may drag Europe into wars of US making In fact we have found it utterly impossible on the one hand to obtain any commitment of European military ferces to the war in South Vietnam and on the other it is one of De Gaullels favorite boasts that France was among the first to take a stand at the US side in the Cuban missile crisis De Gaulle has likewise held that the American doctrine of flexible response deprives Europe of a nuclear guarantee This howm ever does not prevent him from also holding that there is no longer any real threat of war in Europe and he has proceeded to take NATO apart in full knowl edge that the US nuclear umbrella makes it safe for him to do so 4 But the insistence that NATO is effective only because it is Atlantic multilateral and inte- grated may likewise be less than the complete story In actuality important aspects of US defense rela 0 tions with Western Europe have remained bilateralmman historic example of this was the cancellation in 1963 of the joint development with Britain of the m2 SECRET Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 Skybolt missile and the subsequent offer of Polaris to sustain the British deterrent Vital aspects of the Alliance which could perhaps be multilateralized and integrated have not been instead of a thorough going NATO common weapons program for example vigor ous national competition has often been the case Whatever the political value of the multilateral mutual defense commitment in the North Atlantic Treaty everyone knows that the real guarantee of Europe's security is the unilateral recognition by '7 the US that its security forbids the acquisition of Western Europe's industrial machine by the Soviet Union Moreover while the issue has on occasion been portrayed as Gaullist innovation as opposed to US stand pattism the US has on two notable oc casions been the innovator in 1954 when we ardently supported the European Defense Community in order to obtain a commitment of German manpower to NATO and in the last few years when we have sought through the multilateral force to give Bonn an indirect access to nuclear weaponry 5 None of this is to suggest that there is no case for NATO but rather that the case is primarTTy a practical one It provides in the first place a neces sary margin of military safety Many who would agree with De Gaulle that the likelihood of direct Soviet aggression in Western Europe has greatly declined are far less willing than he to act so boldly on the basis of that calculation Soviet politics remain too ob- scure the nuclear standoff is too recent Khrushchev's attempt to neutralize the US deterrent is too fresh a memory and there is always the chance of a techno logical breakthrough So long as this uncertainty exists NATO remains a practical military necessity It makes it possible for the second third and fourth rate European powers to organize a collective defense far superior to their individual capabilities There is likewise something to be said for the argu ment that the integrated command and planning struc ture in NATO has supplied what was missingn nearly disastrously so in 1914 and 1940 The North Atlantic Treaty and its or ganization also provide Europe an assurance of US Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 2 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 Na V i support which is politically and necessary The Gaullists argue that in Europels the US intervened only at the eleventh hour They also hold that the North Atlantic Treaty's mutual defense commitments could not be made auto matic and categorical because of the US Constitution The US answer to this is that the American presence in Europe- and above all the integrated structure is an assurance of certain US involvement in any future war Since the Gaullists wish to dismantle this practical guarantee it is evidently of little value to them but it remains of value to others who may in fact be concerned that a US involvement else where a rebirth of US isolationism or a budget cutting orgy might leave Europe overly exposed 0 Above all the reactions of the past three weeks have demonstrated that in the circum stances which now prevail NATO remains an essential element in the political stability of Western Europe itself It is inconceivable that Europe in the 1950s could have mounted a viable defense without the re emergence of West Germany with a preponderance of power nor is it conceiVable that any one European power or any combination of powers could have been trusted to wield the nuclear deterrent which the US contributed Fear of Germany caused the agonizing over the European Defense Community and made essential the network of alternative agreements- the London and Paris which a contribution of German manpower was eventually achieved It was precisely this raw nerve which the MLF also touched upon and it has now been set loudly jangling again by De Gaulle's moves to disengage France from Almost with one voice the other Alliance members have noted that an isolated France would leave Germany the major power on the Continentmmunless the US becomes even more deeply committed in Western Europe the UK irrevocably crosses the Channel or everyone joins in effecting the demilitarization of Germany perhaps in the con text of reunification The Ambiguity of De Gaulle 6 That it is possible to conceive of such con sequences eventuating from the present crisis is in dicative not only of the essentially political character Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 2 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 0111 Jan 1 25X1 of De Gaulle s challenge but also of its obscurity For a year or more there have been authoritative leaks to the effect that De Gaulle would propose certain reforms in the Alliance and some of these leaks have been quite detailed indeed In the end of course he did not propose any reforms but merely stated What he intended France to do Presumably this is a matter of tacticsu perhaps a lesson learned from the failure to obtain the revisions in the EEC treaty which De Gaulle so clearly wanted when he launched the boycott of the Common Market in mid 1965 But does it also mean as De Gaulle suggested in his 11 March aides memoire -that he has downgraded the prospects of achieving such Hreforms There are also the questions raised by his reassurance that he intends France to remain a member of the Nerth At- lantic Treaty after April 1969 when Paris could legally announce an intention to withdraw De Gaulle is presumed to want a network of interlocking bi lateral agreements and there have been reports that when the present decisions were being considered he contemplated denouncing the treaty at this time In- stead he has said France will remain a member pro vided existing conditions do not change and will fight at the side of its allies provided an aggres sion against them is unprovoked Thus he has res tained a multilateral commitment but unilaterally weakened and reinterpreted it and kept open the option of leaving altogether if it should so suit him later on 7 There are other obscurities of perhaps more immediate practical importance Although Couve de Murville has said that France intends likewise to retain its seat on the North Atlantic Council it would not participate when military matters are under discussion The question is under what terms would it continue to sit- for what specific purposes with what security arrangements and with how great a will ingness to permit the other 14 members to proceed with decisions of which France disapproved Presumably the French intend to withdraw from the Standing Group NATO's military authority--but they have not said so and have referred vaguely to their offer to establish some kind of liaison between French and NATO commands What about continued French participation in NATO's early warning system on which the force de frappe is 25X1 SE ORE '1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 six EiiW dependent -and the air defense ground environment system the equally vital and largest of the NATO infrastructure projects 'Would De Gaulle be willing to bargain French airspace in return for such partic pation 8 An especially crucial question is the future of the French forces in West Germany which De Gaulle says he is disposed to keep there under the pro visions of the London and Paris agreements of 1954 These are the agreements which formally terminated the occupation of West Germany but gave the three Western powers certain residual powers admitted Germany to the Western European Union and paved the way for its accession to NATO under provisions controlling its rearmament Bonn takes the position that these agreements are of one part with decisions taken at the same time making NATO the executor of parts of the WEU arrangements and committing to NATO the forces created under the WEU Thus if the French wish their forces to remain in West Germany but withdraw them from commitment to NATO then new agreements will have to be negotiated and new con ditions decided Among these might be some commit ment to a forward defense agreement to joint peace time planning for these forces with SACEUR and a guarantee that they would come under com mand in wartime 9 Whether and under what conditions it would be desirable for the French to remain in West Germany is debatable and there are many arguments pro and con In general those who believe it should be made as difficult for the French to remain as possible suggest that these forces have little military value that De Gaulle is claiming special privileges for them which would rapidly be claimed by others and which he is unwilling to accord the Germans in France and that the negotiation of special arrangements with France would tend to dilute Germany s coopera tion with its other NATO partners Those who feel it should be made possible for the French to stay argue that their forces however weak would have to be compensated for if withdrawn that the French might become difficult in West Berlin and aboVe all that a showdown between Bonn and Paris on the issue would wreck 20 years of effort to reconcile the two -6- 25X1 5E URL 1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 On balance most of the US missions in Europe have cautioned against bringing on such a showdown Am bassador Cleveland for example has held that since it is the objective to hold the Alliance together without France if necessary to maintain mili tary effectiveness and its sOlidarity and to avoid an irrevocable banishment of France then the Alliance should set terms in accordance with its intrinsic requirementsu avoiding either too provocative or too conciliatory a stance Then if the French withdraw it might be possible to minimize the damage or repair it after De Gaulle The Other Players 10 The consequence of all this as it was in the Common Market crisis- is that Bonn has emerged once more in a pivotal role On the one hand the situation is one which may seem to offer to Bonn enormous by playing it cool it can occupy the seats being vacated by the French in the NATO commands or at least a part of them the desire of the remaining members to strengthen the Alliance can be counted on to reopen the question of nuclear sharing- it has in fact already been reopened and time and necessity might seem likely to bring further into question the validity of the 1954 re straints on German rearmanent On the other hand however the situation must also appear to Bonn to be one in which there is still a good chance that it is the German ox which is most likely to be gored If NATO disintegrates it is German security which is in the first instance affected by doing nothing Bonn is already the butt of a new wave of antia German suspicion and France has not yet turned up its propaganda machine and if the going really gets rough Bonn must always reflect on what De Gaulle might conceivably do in Moscow next June 11 So far at least Bonn appears to be guided by a fairly realistic assessment of its primary interests- and by a healthy realization of the limita tions which restrict its assumption of any leadership role One official has suggested it is true that Bonn should perhaps take the position that the WEU agreements have already been invalidated but this ridea has not been taken up Another has also played Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 25X6 25X6 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 SECRET up the nuclear sharing theme and still others have been eager for tripartite US UK German consultations on how to deal with the crisis -despite the question able timing of raising the one issue and the delicacy of pushing the other For the most part however government and opposition alike have publicly re iterated that German interest requires an inte grated NATO that any negotiations on the French forces in Germany will be preceded by consultations with other members of the Alliance and that the main German requirement is nondiscrimination 25x6 12 If on the one hand Bonn has moved with notable caution London has on the other seemed engaged in an atypical display of hawkism in defense of the Alliance Immediately after De Gaulle's letters of 7 March the British proposed a foreign ministers' meeting to draft a declaration of support for NATO and when the others were skeptical of such a gather ing the British were instrumental in pushing the declaration through rump sessions of the NATO repre sentatives in Paris This display of energy has caused some amazement and even occasional resentment on the Continent but the reasons for it are fairly obvious Basically the British are the stand patters par excellence so far as the Alliance is concerned they do not want it to change London sees NATO as the necessary vehicle for continued US involvement in Europe and therefore an element of stability it also sees NATO as a means of extending Britain s influence in Europe because of its special relationship to the lacking participation in the European communities Britain also sees NATO as a point of contact between the UK and Europe and 5E UK '1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09104 QLA-BDP79T00826A000500010042-4 513cm 1 3 These are the basic considerations for London which together with the electoral campaign the long standing suspicion of De Gaulle which has animated the British Embassy in Paris and Britain s continued embarrassment over its exclusion from the EEC -add up to the eager and spirited defense of NATO which has so far come from London 13 But reservations as to the precise iden- tity of US and British views regarding every aspect of the crisis of the Alliance and how it should be handled may still be in order In his press confer ence on 15 March Heath took the view that after 20 years it was unrealistic to expect the Alliance to remain precisely the same that it is time now to redress the balance between the US and Europe in NATO and that rather than bellyache the other members should sit down with the French and work out a new NATO structure The embassy in London believes that Heath may have been carried away to a certain extent by election fever but he has often in the past emphasized that the future is in Europe and not in the Atlantic framework Moreover within the Con servative Party there are a number of others Thorneycroft is one who are activated by a more clearly Gaullist spirit which includes a strong ad mixture of antinAmerican feeling As for Labor the desire for disarmament and distrust of Germany are real and lively feelings Those feelings will be acutely sensitive to any indelicacy of German di plomacy they will be even less likely than before the crisis to see any advantage in a hardware solution to nuclear sharing If Paris shows any signs of wavering London may see greater advantage in prag- matic arrangements to keep the French tied in some way to NATO than in standing on theology In this connection London may be wont to recall how it saved the situation after the collapse of the EDC 14 What generalization can be made about the other 11 members Only that they all approved the draft declaration in support of NATO that the decla ration probably reflects a kind of generality of support for the Alliance that there are nonetheless important differences of View among them and that support of the declaration now does not indicate where each country will stand as the crisis drags on Canada remains sensitive to its Quebec problem but even before the present crisis the Pearson government SE CRE Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 25X1 Approved ForuRelease 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 7 had talked about the need to reconstitute the Alliance more along partnership lines The Moro government is strongly but Italy is also an EEC partner of France distrust of German aspirations is fairly wide spread and there is a Gaullist faction in Rome The Italian Army is of course concerned that a withdrawal of France from the Alliance would isolate it from di rect contact with the NATO establishment in northern Europe In the Benelux countries the Dutch are sturdy Luxembourg has high hopes of hosting some of the mili tary headquarters which are ousted from France and Belgium -with its new center right government- is some what an unknown quantity In Scandinavia distrust of German preeminence ties with Britain and a latent interest in a purely Scandinavian defense arrangement may be considerations for the future but the new Norwegian Government has apparently been surprised by the extent of parliamentary support for NATO it has discovered On the southern flank Portugal eventually approved the l4 nation declaration but publicly dis sociated itself from its spirit and will in the future be at best a sensitive and critical participant in any common front against De Gaulle Nor as a result of the Cyprus diSpute is there any white heat of devotion to NATO as such in either Greece or Turkey although it is doubtful that either has any other place to go Keys to the Scripture 15 On balance it would therefore appear that we face in NATO a crisis of indeterminate length and uncertain outcome- and one which has the potential for changing in a massive way the whole European out look The great obstacles to understanding it let alone predicting its outcome are the great number of interlocking variables the theology which has built upm-and the absence so to speak of keys to the scripture Instead there are key questions to which there are as yet no satisfactory answers among them Will we be dealing with the same kind of government in France when all these questions are answered as we are now when they are raised The Brit ish have been eager to have the Alliance take a firm stand at least in part because of their belief that there is latent opposition to De Gaulle which will be brought to the fore There is also the View that if we string out the negotiations long enough the Lord -10- SE ORE '1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-EDP79T00829A000500010042-4 SE ORE 1 may intervene on our side So far at least effec tive opposition to De Gaulle has yet to materialize in France the parliamentary elections are still a year away and even an anti-Gaullist majority would not necessarily be a united opposition But the fact remains that De Gaulle is an old man that Gaullism is De Gaulle to a very considerable extent that he mistook prior to the December elections how much pro European sentiment there was in France and that he may now have made the same mistake with NATO But assuming the world is stuck with De Gaulle for the foreseeable future is he still working toward some alternative to NATO or is his aim merely to destroy what now exists In the early 1960s De Gaulle advocated a system for coordinating the foreign and defense policies of the six Common Market countries and when he failed to obtain their consent he tried to animate the project by beginning bilater ally with the Germans Does he still believe there is a chance of reviving this conception of a European de fense arrangement out of the chaotic conditions he will have created in the Alliance or is he willing to settle now merely for the disengagement neutralization and or isolation of France Is it possible that De Gaulle is now workinga primarily out of fear of eventual German hegemony on the Continent -toward a definitive settle ment of the German question a settlement which he would hope would keep Germany permanently subor- dinated Many consider it paradoxical that given the signs of De Gaulle's growing animus toward Bonn he would seek to destroy both the European and Atlantic arrangements which were designed to keep the Germans in tow But with the talk of nuclear sharing in NATO the supranational aspirations of the European community and the EEC's agricultural common market still in trouble De Gaulle might conceivably suspect that these postwar arrangements would keep the French more in check than they would the Germans Compared with this prospect so at variance with De Gaulle's insist ence on French independence and preeminence several things might look preferable to him everyone once more agitated about the Germans Washington more wedded to Bonn and therefore more in control of it or con ceivably even German reunification -provided this could be bought with demilitarization SECRET Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 Approved For @ease 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 SECRET r A If as seems likely there can be no permanent settlement of the future of the Alliance apart from some settlement of the future organization of Europe there is also the question of what im pact the present crisis will have in that direction The Common Market has just emerged from the other De Gaulle inspired crisis which demonstrated if anything that all six of its members would be loath to see the EEC go But it is hard to imagine how the six can remain at harmony on the economic- political questions involved in the EEC while they are completely at odds on the question of their mutual defense There is here again the key question of Britain's future role However unlikely the prospect might now seem if the Wilson government should announce suddenly an intention to sign the EEC treaty forthwith not only would there be a completely new situation in Europe but there would be one in NATO as well Finally it must be wondered how Moscow will ultimately view these gyrations in the West So far at least Moscow is obviously pleased that there is trouble Soviet officials and propaganda have hinted at the possibility of a French Soviet non aggression pact and Ambassador Zorin has suggested that in the wake of NATO's disappearance the Warsaw Pact might disappear as well On the other hand the Russians can scarcely view with equanimity any risk of unleashing the Germans and they must know that without general acquiescence there is unlikely to be any settlement of either the European security or German reunification questions Hence the view that De Gaulle may be less interesting to Moscow in June than he might have been but hence also the concern his trip will arouse This may in fact be the main import of the present crisis that it may compel us all to face up shortly to questions which heretofore seemed likely to demand answers at the earliest some years from now -12- 25X1 SECRET Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 Approved Foriglease 2007 09 04 I CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 25X1 25X1 Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 11- - - 5721' 2- Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA- DP79T00826A000500010042-4 x0 6 Next 1 Page s In Document Denied 2 g Approved For Release 2007 09 04 CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4 This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu