740.5/12–1450: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bruce) to the Secretary of State
priority
3414. Eyes only for the Secretary from Bruce. We do not know of course Department’s thinking on importance and significance of Brussels meeting but from certain indications we have impression that it is regarded primarily as a meeting required under NAT procedures merely to confirm compromise agreement re German contribution worked out by deputies and Military Committee. We are increasingly of opinion that Brussels meeting will involve a good deal more than a mere pro forma confirmation of the agreement on Germany and may well open up some very fundamental questions concerning European rearmament and particularly the timing of implementation of German agreement and you should therefore be prepared for some such development.
There has recently been circulating in Paris an increased feeling of concern in regard to possible “provocation” of Soviet Union by a decision on immediate implementation of German rearmament question. We have received this in private on several occasions from officials of FonOff and it came out but not from him in Schuman’s recent debate on German question in FonAff commission of Assembly (Re-Embtel 3394 December 14 [13]),1 and had been given publicity in a Paris newsletter widely distributed in official and diplomatic channels.
Walter Lippmann’s2 articles have thus fallen on very fertile ground and have been frequently cited by French officials and private citizens. The main line of this thesis is that the Soviet Government has already put the west on notice that it does not intend to accept the rearmament of Germany and that the prospect of the eventual combination of a German army plus US air power and production might lead Russians to make some military move to break up this process before it comes to fruition. Such statements from French officials are always coupled with an expression of determination not to recede from the decision reached re Germany but there is usually implicit a certain hesitancy in regard to actually putting this decision into immediate effect. The [Page 572] danger of this attitude is clear and whenever the subject has come up we have made the obvious answer of the mortal danger of yielding to Soviet blackmail. While I do not believe that French Government can or will endeavor to go back on its agreement, I think the problem may arise when we receive the Soviet answer to our note re four-power talks.3 Should, as we must anticipate, the Soviet reply indicate a willingness to discuss all questions desired by the three powers provided that no action is taken re German rearmament in the interim, I believe we would be confronted with a sharp division of opinion between US and our other two partners, particularly French, but possibly also British.
The Communists throughout Europe are devoting a major propaganda effort to whip up popular feeling, particularly here, against the German rearmament question and while we see no grounds for believing that this question alone would cause the Russians to start World War III, nevertheless, we should recognize that they are vigorously and possibly successfully exploiting the political advantages of division and fear which this question affords.
The only purpose of this telegram is to inform you of the possibility that some variation of this subject, i. e., delay in implementation of German decision because of possible CFM, may well arise in Brussels and we should be prepared to meet it vigorously and effectively.
- Not printed.↩
- American editor, author, and special news correspondent for the New York Herald-Tribune.↩
- Documentation on the exchange of notes between the Soviet Union and the three Western Powers in November and December of 1950 is included in materials on Germany, scheduled for publication in volume iv.↩