THE NATO CRISIS IN ITS POLITICAL SETTING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00826A000500010042-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 4, 2007
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: April 2, 1966
• Content Type: IM

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State Dept. review completed
April 1966'
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This Document contains information affecting the Na-
tional Defense of the United States. within the mean-
ing of Title 18, Sections 793 and 794, of the U.S. Code, as
amended. Its transmission or revelation of its contents
to or receipt by an unauthorized person is prohibited
by law. The reproduction of this form is prohibited.
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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
--let 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 interest.
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.
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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
questions--the balance of power in Western Europe,
its future organization, US relations with Europe
across the spectrum, and. Western Europe's 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 na-
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 farces to
the war in South Vietnam, and on the other, it is
one of De Gaulle's 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, how-
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-
tions with Western Europe have remained bilateral-man
historic example of this was the cancellation in
1963 of the joint development with Britain of the
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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
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:
(a) It provides in the first place a neces-
sary margin of military safety. Many who would agree
with e Gaul e`tt e i eThood 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 missing---nearly
disastrously so--in 1914 and 1940.
(b) The North Atlantic Treaty and its or-
ganization also provide Europe an assurance of US
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support which is politically and psychologically
necessary. The auks argue -'Mat n 'Europe s
IasiTwo wars 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.
(c) 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. I is inconceiva T 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 agreements--under 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 NATO, Almost with one
voice, the other Alliance members have noted that an
isolated France would leave Germany the major power
on the Continent---unless 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
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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 tactics--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 "reforms"? There are
also the questions raised by his reassurance that he
intends France to remain a member of the North 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 re-
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
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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-
pat ion.?
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 decision.s
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.-
dition.s 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 SACEUR's 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.
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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 NATO's 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
requirements--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 temptations--merely 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 anti-
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
idea has not been taken up. Another has also played
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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 the 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.
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 US; lacking participation in the
European communities, Britain also sees NATO as a
point of contact between the UK and Europe; and,
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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 UK's 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 anti-American 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
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had talked about the need to reconstitute the Alliance
more along partnership lines. The Moro government is
strongly pro-NATO, 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 14-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
up--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:
(a) 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
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may intervene--on our side. So far at 1-east, 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.
(b) 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?
(c) Is it possible that De Gaulle is now
working--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.
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(d) 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.
(e) 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.
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