Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western European Security, Volume V, Part 1

740.5/7–753

Draft of Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant) to the Secretary of State ¹

top secret

Washington, July 7, 1953.

Subject:

• Serious Situation in North Atlantic Council

As you know from Mr. Draper’s oral report, Lord Ismay’s memorandum recently submitted to the Council² and telegraphic reports from Ambassador Hughes since his arrival in Paris, there has developed in the past two months an extremely disquieting sense of depression and concern among the members of the Council. There are numerous reasons for this. Some relate to minor actions or inactions of the US in the Council. Individually they are unimportant but in the aggregate they have an exaggerated importance in our partners’ eyes. Another reason I attribute to a certain degree of success achieved by the so-called Soviet peace offensive³ on European public opinion which in turn has been reflected in elections and governmental attitudes. In the last analysis, however, I believe that the malaise in the Council is the reflection of a growing loss of confidence in Europe in American leadership.

In the realm of the Council itself, our partners have been concerned by (1) the reorganization of SRE which they tend mistakenly to construe as reflecting a loss of US interest in NATO, (2) the delay in appointing Ambassador Draper’s successor and the fact that at the time of his appointment he was unknown as a public figure, and (3)⁴ our inability in the current Annual Review exercise to take a clear position of leadership because certain basic decisions have not yet been made in Washington.

I suspect these difficulties attributed to us are compounded by Lord Ismay’s weariness and the fact that his Deputy, Van Vredenburch, lapses increasingly into cynical discouragement. Moreover recent changes in Council membership have been in an unhappy direction. Sir Christopher Steel, in my judgment, has no talent superior to the departing UK member, Sir Derick Hoyer Millar, who at best is a cautious old line British diplomat. The change in the Greek representation several months back was greatly for the worse, and now Dana Wilgress replaces Arnold Heeney for Canada. Wilgress is a first class man but he was the original Canadian member on the Council of Deputies and one of the purposes of the Lisbon reorganization was sharply to raise the level of Council representation.

There are certain things in this circumscribed area which we can and will do to improve the tone and content of the Council’s activity. Specifically I urge:

(1) That we intensively survey the field for Lord Ismay’s successor. Privately he has informed us that he desires to retire not later than next April. I think we must come up with a first class candidate. For a variety of reasons, including the history of the office, I think he should be a Britisher or a Canadian. Sir Oliver Franks and Mike Pearson come to mind as candidates.

(2) That we consciously enlarge our policy of encouraging political discussions of substance in the Council and that we provide Ambassador Hughes with the wherewithal to take a leading part in such discussions. A full report on Bermuda as contemplated is a good case in point.⁵

(3) That we explore promptly with the Congress and with our allies, particularly the Canadians who have consistently emphasized the importance of the non-military aspects of the Treaty, the possibility of developing a parliamentary association with the Council. I should like authority to explore this general subject in a tentative and preliminary way with the European Subcommittees of the Senate Foreign Relations and the House Foreign Affairs Committees.

(4) That we be alert to every opportunity to sustain and increase the prestige of the Council and the International Staff. We must look for opportunities, such as the invitation of Lord Ismay to Bermuda.⁶

(5) That through the NSC or in direct discussions with Secretary Wilson and Governor Stassen the necessary decisions are reached and authority granted to communicate them to the Council on basic problems related to our participation in the current Annual Review. This involves, for example, estimates on our own defense budgets, end item deliveries, defense support, if any, and US Force plans for the calendar years 1954 and 1955 at the least.⁷

Turning to the second basic root of the trouble, which appears to me to be continental reactions to recent Soviet activities, we discover such effects as the Danish position now taken publicly on foreign troops on Danish soil, the growth in Austria of a desire to seek a neutral status and the decline in enthusiasm generally for the EDC. I think the answer to the Soviet “peace offensive” lies in our actions and future assertion of positive leadership. I don’t think it can be combatted by a psychological or propaganda counter offensive. In any event I believe our media for conducting any such counter offensive are crippled by the fairly wide discrediting in European eyes of our Voice of America and USIE activities as a result of Congressional investigations, reduction in budgets, manifold changes in top personnel and confusion created by the series of directives on library books.

I come then to what I consider the crux of the crisis in the North Atlantic alliance of which the disturbance in the circle of the Council is but a reflection. I believe that many influential Europeans believe that we have lost confidence if not interest in Europe and its defensibility if war should come. I think they also believe that if we have not in fact secretly changed our estimate of the risk of war we have decided to take the calculated risk of a much smaller defense effort ourselves to enable a balancing of the budget and reduced level of sacrifice through taxes. In European eyes this interpretation can be in large part understood. They see us substantially reducing our own defense budget and acquiescing without serious protest in stretch-outs and reductions in their own defense budgets. They read our emphasis on EDC as an obsession for German troops from which they draw the deduction that without German troops the continent cannot be defended. They are gnawingly disturbed by the implications of peripheral strategy in our base negotiations with Spain.⁸ They consider us increasingly preoccupied with problems in the Far East, with our attention on Europe correspondingly decreased.

Over and beyond this they are on clear notice that economic aid per se is in its last year and that there will be set a very nearby term, even to end item aid.

This brings us to what for me is the deep underlying dilemma of the military arrangements on which NATO rests. We have the following variables or factors in the situation. There is (1) a strategic plan which calls for the forward strategy of defending, in event of an attack, as far east in Germany as possible; (2) an accepted estimate of Soviet military capabilities certified to by the Military Committee which comprises the Chiefs of Staff of each treaty member; (3) an estimate of Soviet intentions which in essence holds that the Soviets are implacably hostile to Western civilization and uninhibited by any moral restraints; and (4) a statement certified to by all the Chiefs of Staff of the alliance of the minimum air, ground and sea forces required to contain the first Soviet onslaught. This is embedded in MC 26/2⁹ and confirmed in MRC 12.¹⁰ The SHAPE study to be completed this month of requirements taking into account unconventional weapons, according to my information, is unlikely to show any reduction in this military bill.

The alliance, despite an effort which has entailed the tripling of our allies’ defense budgets in the space of three years, is only about halfway toward these goals. With our explicit approval and our own example the total effort is leveling off at approximately present figures.

Now up until about a year ago there was a genuine hope in the alliance that the military requirements could be met over a period of years if not on the time table of original plans. This confidence I believe was based on two things, one a fact and the other a hope. The fact was that up until about a year ago there was a steady upward trend in European production. With the exception of Germany this has now leveled off and most European economists are now more fearful of an economic recession than they are hopeful of a resumption of the recovery trend that set in in 1946 and was notably assisted from 1948 through 1951 by the Marshall Plan. The second factor was the more or less inarticulate hope that the burden would be more equitably shared. This euphemism in European minds meant that the United States (and in modest degree Canada and Belgium) would notably increase its aid to the continental NATO members. From time to time this hope found expression in such proposals as Van Zeeland’s idea of a common defense budget and the so-called Alphand Paper of last September.¹¹ That hope I believe has been effectively blasted and the Europeans are in the process still of absorbing and analyzing the shock.

The shock is intensified by the fear (which I think is most strongly held by the British) that they are going to get neither trade nor aid. The difficulties over the renewal of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, the slowness of our response to the Butler proposals of February¹² and all the little evidences which can be construed as a rising tide of protectionism, such as the Chief Joseph Dam business, the wool report, the effort to change the composition of the Tariff Commission, etc., have combined to rob them of the hope of earning enough dollars to maintain their economies and participate in a system of expanding multilateral trade.

It is against this background, in my judgment, that we must face the military or strategic dilemma of NATO and deal with it by assertive leadership before there develops a general public conclusion on the part of our continental allies that their present military effort, which is borne at a very considerable sacrifice, is inadequate to provide an effective defense; that it can never rise to an acceptable level and hence that it constitutes a provocation and not a protection. Neutralism and appeasement are at the end of this logical road.

I believe we must tackle the dilemma by consciously changing some or all of the variables. First, as a layman I suspect that the military requirements can and should be reduced. The new Chiefs of Staff should urgently give their attention to this problem. I strongly suspect that they do not adequately take into account tactical A-weapons and that there is probably some built-in excessive margin of safety. I think our current emphasis on quality is right but that we must maintain some steady though gradual increase in numbers and units to whatever the revised certified level of requirements proves to be. Then I think the forward strategy should frankly be discussed in terms of revising it if there is not promptly a German force contribution. This might in fact be the most effective indirect argument for early ratification. Next it seems to me that the estimate of Soviet capabilities should be carefully restudied, particularly in light of the East German disturbances¹³ and their inevitable effect on Russian sensitivity to their line of communications. I would hesitate to urge adjusting our estimate of Soviet intentions as the balancing element in the equation. This can only be a guess and certainly the fundamental Soviet intentions are just as clearly written as ever Hitler’s were in Mein Kampf.

Secondly, on the basis of these studies and revisions we should take a new unprejudiced look at the future US contribution in weapons and if need be in continuing economic support for our weaker NATO partners. This study should take into account the so-called maintenance problem of supplying replacements in major items of equipments supplied by us as they become obsolescent or disappear through attrition. I would then wrap up this whole program in a NATO item and put it in the United States defense budget rather than in effect spreading it around through three titles in a global aid bill. I think it must also be put on a long-term basis to give continuity to our own planning as well as our allies’. Some device such as the four-year original authorization for the Marshall Plan might be developed.

Thirdly, I believe that the Administration must put forward a comprehensive program for liberalized trade and fight for it. The springboard presumably could be the report of the Joint Congressional and Public Commission requested by the President.

Lastly, I believe that, supported by the foregoing actions, the President and you should make crystal clear that the North Atlantic Treaty is the cornerstone of our European policy, that we consider Europe defensible if attacked and that we will do our share in making it possible for our partners to earn a self-respecting living in the world.

1. The source text bears the handwritten notation “Sec[retary] saw R[oderic] L. O’C[onnor]”. A subsequent draft of this memorandum, dated July 9, is the same in substance as the source text except for the three additional items noted in footnotes 4 and 7, below. A copy of the second draft is in file 740.5/7–953.
2. Regarding Ismay’s memorandum, see Polto 2423, June 18, p. 410 and following documents.
3. Documentation on the Soviet-sponsored peace offensive is presented in volume viii .
4. In the draft dated July 9 Merchant had added a new item 3 and changed the old item 3 to item 4. The new item 3 reads: “naming General Collins instead of Admiral Radford as General Bradley’s successor on the Standing Group.”
5. For documentation on the Bermuda Conference, see pp. 1710 ff.
6. Regarding Lord Ismay’s participation in the Bermuda Conference, see the records of the third and fourth tripartite Foreign Ministers meetings, Dec. 6, pp. 1787 and 1791 and the memorandum of conversation, Dec. 8, p. 1840.

7. In the draft dated July 9 (see footnote 1, above) two new items had been added to the five enumerated here. The first, numbered 3 reads:

   “That we utilize the Council increasingly as a means of obtaining agreed action by NATO countries on common problems. An example of successful action of this kind was the limitation on the travel of Soviet diplomats which most NATO countries agreed upon and announced as a result of proposals made and discussed in the Council.”

   Items 3, 4, and 5 in the July 7 draft were renumbered 4, 5, and 6, respectively, in the July 9 draft. The second item added in the July 9 draft was a new final item, numbered 7. It read as follows:

   “That on the military side of NATO we seek to strengthen the partnership concept by (a) intensifying our efforts to obtain ratification of the Status of Forces Agreement without reservation; (b) by reviewing urgently the possibility of sharing to a greater degree information on new weapons and military doctrine relating thereto; (c) constantly stressing the NATO-supporting aspect of US military operating rights and facilities abroad, and (d) constantly renewing our efforts to build up the role of allied officers in the principal commands which we head.”

8. Documentation on U.S. base negotiations with Spain is presented in volume vi .
9. A copy of this report, dated Apr. 24, 1953, is in the NATO Registry files in Brussels.
10. Not found in Department of State or NATO Registry files.
11. Regarding the French proposal on NATO defense problems, discussed at NAG meetings on Oct 1 and 16, 1952, see Poltos 395 and 462 and Topol 243, pp. 330–336.
12. Documentation on the British economic proposals of Feb. 10, 1953 is presented in the compilation on the United Kingdom in volume vi .
13. Documentation on the disturbances in East Germany on June 16 and 17 is presented in volume vii .