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‘…but what to do about the Germans?’ Nuclear Diplomacy and the Role of NATO as an Instrument of Peaceful Change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2008
Extract
Indeed, much of the tension in relations between Paris and Washington, Paris and Bonn, and Bonn and London is that none of Germany's former enemies and present allies want to be left behind when the moment comes to make a new European order with the Russians. The Germans do not wish to be left out either…. The basis of the problem…is what to do about the Germans….
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References
1 James George (European Division) to the Under-Secretary, Department of External Affairs (DEA), ‘A Policy Planning Paper on Relations between Canada and Europe’, paras 46, 39, in: DEA, file Ottawa 20-1-2-STAFFEUR-8, 10 Nov. 1965.
2 John McCloy to Gilpatric, 8 Jan. 1965, cf. Schertz, 323/4.
3 NSC 160/1, 17 Aug. 1953, ‘A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary on United States Position with respect to Germany’.
4 In the 1960s, American presidents were advised to opt for the FRG and neglect French opposition, Schertz, 238–46. Similar situations existed in 1951 or in 1953/4, mostly based on the assumption that the US–UK–FRG triangle was the core of NATO anyway; the preoccupation of French policy with Vietnam (1950–4) and Algeria (1956–62) reduced the ‘value’ of France to NATO to the provision of a Hinterland; however, NATO's political ‘nerve-centre’ was in Paris.
5 McCloy to President L. B. Johnson, 9 Feb. 1967, cited by Schertz, 324; for the context see Schmidt, Gustav, ‘Die Labour-Regierung, die Bundesrepublik und Europa – “The American Connection”, 1964–1967’, in idem., ed., Groβbritannien und Europa – Groβbritannien in Europa (Bochum: Universitätsverlag Brockmeyer, 1989), 291–314.Google Scholar
6 W. W. Rostow to McGeorge Bundy, 7 Aug. 1961, cited in Schertz, 127; Adenauer made similar remarks in the autumn of 1952, May 1955, cf. my article in Contemporary European History, Vol. 3 no. 1 (March 1994).
7 Report by Acheson, ‘A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future’, March 1961, cited in Schertz, 87. Schertz' claim to be the first scholar to use these records is a bit strange; among others, 1 incorporated the records in my May 1988 lecture, published in 1989 (cf. n. 5).
8 Schertz, 286 ff.
9 Eisenhower, , 16 Oct. 1959, cited in Winand, 209.Google Scholar
10 Dulles, 6 Nov. 1959, cited in ibid., 208.
11 NSC 160/1 (Aug. 1953), cf. nn. 5 and 6; cf. ‘Basic National Security Policy Paper’, 26 March 1962: ‘Increasing German absorption in the affairs of that (European) community is the best safeguard against a recrudescence of exaggerated nationalism in German life and policy, and against the remote possibility that the West Germans may seek reunification through a deal with the USSR,’ Schertz, 161.
12 The most visible incidence is the ‘Year of Europe’ episode, cf. Cromwell, ch. 6; ‘A Moment of Truth…’: ‘Now the Europeans cannot have it both ways…we are either going to go along on both the security and the economic and political fronts or we will go separately…. We are not going to be faced with a situation where the Nine countries of Europe gang up against the U.S. – the U.S. which is their guarantee for their security. That we cannot have.’ President Nixon, 15 March 1974, cited in Cromwell, 92.
13 ‘The Strategic Concept of the Nuclear Deterrent’, Canadian assessment paper, 26 March 1955, Public Archives of Canada, RG 25, Interim box 90/91–008, Vol. 30, file DEA 50030-E-1–40. Paul H. Nitze argued that arms control negotiations would affect détente between the blocs and in Central Europe, cf. Steinhoff/Pommerin, 76, 99, 114 ff. The US was interested in arms control as a means of disengaging the US from overseas bases and of inducing the allies in the regions to do more – through increasing conventional forces – to improve their defence situation.
14 ‘Miniaturised’ atomic weapons were introduced into American, British and Canadian forces as the existing core of NATO's conventional defence from 1953; SACEUR Norstad always pressed for ‘meshing’ nuclear stockpiles and weaponry in conventional forces; SACEUR had agreed to the nuclearisation on the proviso that the Germans met the target – 12 divisions/ 500,000 personnel – on schedule, i.e. that nuclearisation was no substitute for sufficient land and air forces.
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25 Steinhoff/Pommerin, 37, 72 ff.
26 The Bonn Government, especially F. J. Strauβ, were against including nuclear options in the contingency planning during the Berlin crisis; Schertz, 98, 107–11, 117.Google Scholar
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29 Dittgen, 231; cf. Steinhoff/Pommerin, 167, Steinhoff report, April 1962.
30 Schertz, 191.
31 Dittgen, , 87 ff., refers to M. Howard's ‘Reassurance and Deterrence: Western Defense in the 1980s’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81 no. 2 (1982/1983), 312 f.Google Scholar
32 The Soviet Union took care that it remained in a position to act and move on its own, despite some growing interdependence with its partners from the early 1970s; the US Government – not least because of pressure from Congress – was bound to report the increase of the Europeans' share of contributions to NATO's collective strength.
33 Dittgen, 87 ff., 249 ff.Google Scholar
34 Ibid., 126 ff., 133 ff., 141, 146, 181 ff.
35 Ibid., 98, 102.
36 Cromwell, ch. 3.
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43 Schertz, 59, 305. I have tried to establish such a pattern of interpretation, see above n. 5.
44 Task Force Report, Dec. 1960, quoted in Schertz, 61.
45 Ibid., 204 ff.; Osterheld, 31; Hoppe, 210 ff.
46 Schertz, 96 ff.
47 Rostow to J. F. Kennedy, Dec. 1960, Schertz, 96, 124–6.
48 Osterheld, 194 ff.; Schertz, 107 ff., 250 ff., 275 ff.
49 Hoppe, 210 ff.
50 Osterheld, 118, 125.
51 Ibid., 30 ff., 36, 63, 73, 132 ff. Osterheld also elaborates that London and Washington extended credits to Moscow without asking the Kremlin to concede anything in political terms; the weakness of the Soviet Union should have been exploited by the ‘West’ to improve its overall position in the Cold War, 87, 108, 174.
52 Ibid., 125.
53 Schertz, 64 ff.
54 Ibid., 117.
55 Steinhoff/Pommerin, 50 ff., and Schertz, 64 ff., 178 ff., 250 ff., emphasise that for London, Paris and Bonn deterrence meant the threat of quick escalation.
56 From time to time France offered Bonn consultations and established bilateral staff talks; cf. Steinhoff/Pommerin, 55 ff. However, de Gaulle's cancellation of the Franco-German-Italian collaboration in 1958 undermined the chances of a NATO-European solution and prejudiced the reaction to his subsequent suggestions, Hoppe, 150, 170ff., 185 ff., 206 ff.; Osterheld, 117 ff., 140 ff., 198 ff. In 1957/9, the US had encouraged (much to the annoyance of Britain) Continental European collaboration in the production of rockets and missiles, but Washington denied supporting French national ambitions, e.g. an attempt to move towards the then highest ‘state-of-the-art’ weapon system, a land-based solid-fuel missile (‘Minuteman’ type), Steinhoff/Pommerin, 127. Sympathising with French strategic thinking, Strauß and his advisors co-operated with the French military, but de Gaulle did not permit his defence ministers and the top military echelon to enter into talks concerning the implementation of the common Franco-German interest in ‘forward defence’, Ibid., 54 ff., 109 ff., 164.
57 Schertz, 338 ff.; Hoppe, 91 ff., 220 ff.
58 Schertz, 336; similar views lay behind French strategic thinking.
59 Steinhoff/Pommerin, 37, 64 ff.
60 Schmidt, G., ‘Die sicherheitspolitischen und wirtschaftlichen Dimensionen der britischamerikanischen Beziehungen 1955–1967’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, issue 2 (1991), 107–42.Google Scholar
61 Some of the arguments were ‘sops’, e.g. that the MLF might broaden Germany's perspectives and attract Bonn's attention to world events; this should compensate Germany for the disappointment deriving from the constraints on Deutschland und Berlin-Politik. This is the reply to the argument of the critics of the MLF, namely that the scheme would offend the wartime allies while preparing the ground for Germany's return to Mitteleuropa.
62 ‘There could be no politically united Europe if one or more of its members retained a privileged nuclear status…that was sanctioned by the United States…. (I)nequality breeds resentment and encourages nationalism. Hence, [Bowie and Rostow] hoped to bring the British and the French down to the level of other European powers by emasculating these two nations of their national nuclear forces…’. Winand, 225.
63 Osterheld, 82, 108 ff., 116.
64 Schertz, 254 ff.; Hoppe, 288 ff.
65 Schertz, 273, 330; Hoppe, 184 ff., 288 ff., 350 ff.
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67 Ibid., 278–89; Osterheld, 90 ff., 216 ff.
68 On German efforts to influence the Labour Government's position and to ‘stiffen’ the back of the Johnson Administration to follow on the Erhard–Johnson agreement of June 1964 see Schertz, 278 ff.; Hoppe, 167 ff., 180 ff., 214 ff.; Osterheld, 184 ff.
69 Schertz, 316, 335 ff., 350 ff., 392 ff.; cf. nn. 5 and 6.
70 Ibid., 274.
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72 Ibid., 137–43; Hoppe, 185 ff.
73 Osterheld, 77, 126.
74 Ibid., 58.
75 Ibid., 136 ff.
76 Schertz, 453 ff.Google Scholar
77 Ibid., 330 ff.