Eisenhower Library, Whitman file
Memorandum of Discussion at the 187th Meeting of the National Security Council, March 4, 1954
[Here follow numbered items 1–6 in which the Council discussed significant world developments, the status of programs, the Soviet Bloc, South Asia, Laos, and Stassen’s trip to the Far East.]
7. Assurances to the French in Connection With the European Defense Community (NSC Action No. 1048–b1)
Mr. Cutler pointed out that no paper had yet been received with respect to this problem, but that he understood that Secretary Smith was prepared to discuss the matter.
Secretary Smith said that there was no question whatever in the mind of the State Department but that it was necessary to give some further assurances to the French, and that the State Department had already drafted a statement containing such assurances.2 He was not clear, however, whether the Defense Department, which had been instructed to join in the preparation of this draft statement, had completed its scrutiny of the State draft or, indeed, whether the Defense Department was in agreement with State that further assurances should now be given to the French.
Secretary Wilson answered that Secretary Smith’s latter point was the fact. The Department of Defense, he said, did not believe that it would do any good to provide further assurances to the French in order to induce them to ratify the EDC.
Turning to Secretary Smith, the President inquired, somewhat irascibly, whether Secretary Smith’s references to the stern necessity of further assurances to the French were really true. Must we [Page 887] go on forever coddling the French? We have stationed forces in Western Europe, we have constructed bases, and lots of other things. How much more must we do?
Secretary Smith replied that although he had not personally been at the Bermuda Conference,3 the Secretary of State and the others who had been there had plainly foreseen that the EDC situation was reaching the crisis stage and that if EDC was to be ratified by the French this would have to be done by the Laniel Government. Accordingly, we had between now and March 12 to give Laniel what he says he requires to secure ratification. There was very slight prospect that any successor government to Laniel’s would ratify EDC. According to Laniel, there were three more assurances needed by his government. First, that the U.S. and the U.K. would live up to their commitments to maintain troops on the continent. Secondly, that we would not exercise our option at the end of the first twenty years to withdraw from NATO. In this instance there was French anxiety over the so-called “new look” in U.S. strategy.4 The third point was a U.S. commitment to continue strengthening the Atlantic community.
With respect to the draft statement prepared by the State Department, Secretary Smith assured the Council that there was in this statement very little in the way of additional commitments by the United States to the French. It was mostly a rehash of older assurances. Nevertheless, Secretary Smith was absolutely certain in his own mind that unless we could provide such a statement, Laniel would fail to secure ratification of EDC. If we did, he believed there was a reasonable chance that Laniel would win.
Secretary Smith then turned to Mr. Bowie and asked if he had further comments. Mr. Bowie repeated the view expressed by Secretary Smith, and reiterated the assurance that the present statement contained very little by way of new assurances. He believed, however, that it would assist in overcoming doubts which had recently been spreading in France over our intentions with respect to the stationing of U.S. forces in Europe.
Secretary Smith then referred to Ambassador Bruce’s view that these new assurances really constituted nothing more than an effort “to get timid men to overcome their own uncertainties.” Accordingly, concluded Secretary Smith, if the National Security Council could now decide the basic question whether or not to give the French the assurances they sought, the Departments of State and Defense could very quickly iron out the differences in language between them. He asked Secretary Kyes to confirm this opinion.
[Page 888]Secretary Kyes,5 however, stood up and stated with great emphasis that he took a radically different view of the whole problem. His recent two weeks in France had convinced him that the French Socialists would back EDC, and he was accordingly quite confident that no further assurances need be given. He said that he feared that we might find ourselves in a bad crosscurrent at the forthcoming Geneva Conference, and he feared we would presently reach the point of being mere whipping boys for the French. Certainly, he predicted, we will never get anywhere on EDC by appeasing the French, and if we do so we are very likely to destroy the usefulness of the “new look” in U.S. military strategy. According to Secretary Kyes, the time was now at hand to warn the French to get ahead and ratify EDC or else we would pull out our forces from Europe.
The President replied that this was certainly one area in which he felt that he could speak with the authority of experience. He noted that we had met one severe test when we had prevailed on the French to initial the EDC plan. That had taken six months, said the President, of the hardest work he had ever done. As for Ambassador Bruce, continued the President, he was one of the most loyal of our officials and perhaps the shrewdest judge of the French character he had ever met. The President said he wholeheartedly agreed with Bruce’s statement that we were trying to get timid men to overcome their own doubts. There were far too many Frenchmen who genuinely despaired of ever building an adequate defense of Western Europe against the Soviets. In the face of this fact, any threat by the United States to remove its forces from Europe would have absolutely no effect in securing ratification of EDC. Accordingly, the President said he disagreed completely with Secretary Kyes’ view. The President confessed that he was very worried about this constant addition to the assurances we were providing the French. He admitted that we could not keep United States ground forces indefinitely stationed all over the world. He expressed irritation over French demands that we compel Adenauer to settle the Saar question by recourse to threats. We must remember that the French had proposed the EDC plan to save France and not the United States. We must certainly find firm ground in our relationship with France and stand on it. Despite all these qualifications, however, the President stated that he had no objection to reiterating again our past assurances to France.
Secretary Smith said that this matter was so controversial and so absolutely critical that it was perhaps best that he should read the draft statement prepared in the State Department. He then proceeded to read the greater part of the statement, pointing out from time to [Page 889] time the sources of the major assurances to indicate that in nearly every respect they were a rehash of old commitments.
At the conclusion of Secretary Smith’s reading of the statement, Secretary Humphrey observed that the first of the assurances to the French, namely, to maintain in Europe such U.S. forces as are necessary and appropriate to defend the North Atlantic area against attack, was really the guts of the problem. What, precisely, did this assurance mean?
Secretary Smith said that before answering Secretary Humphrey’s question, he desired to read a portion of the Concurrent Resolution by the Congress in 1951, since the two statements were almost identical.
Governor Stassen commented that what was worrying the French were all kinds of rumors and tales about the new look strategy adopted by the United States, and that if a restatement along the lines proposed by Secretary Smith would serve to discount these stories, it was very important that further assurances be given, even if they were not new.
The President said that he agreed that much as it irritated him, some kind of reassurance to the French was plainly necessary. He directed, therefore, that the new assurance be firmly based on the Congressional Resolution, which should itself be requoted.
Secretary Humphrey, however, reverted to his question as to the meaning of the Resolution. Who, he asked, decides how many U.S. troops shall be stationed in Europe and for how long a period?
Secretary Smith pointed out that this decision rested solely with the President of the United States. Once the Congress authorizes the President to station U. S. forces abroad, it is for the President to determine where they go and how long they stay.
The President commented that we must never allow ourselves to forget that in stationing U.S. forces abroad we are defending ourselves and not merely the French. Our front line now runs east of the Rhine; our commitment in Europe boils down to doing whatever our national security interests dictate. Certainly, said the President, he had no slight idea of reducing the number of our forces in Europe in the next two years. The European nations are not yet ready to take up the slack.
Secretary Wilson said that what concerned him was the great cost of keeping these American divisions in Europe indefinitely. We had gone to the assistance of the French and bailed them out in the course of two world wars, and as for himself, said Secretary Wilson, he was sick and tired of seeing the United States pulling France’s chestnuts out of the fire.
The President counseled Secretary Wilson not to try this argument on a Frenchman, for the Frenchman would reply that on the contrary, [Page 890] France had held the fort while the United States was making up its mind and getting ready to save its own skin.
Secretary Smith then proposed that once the Departments of State and Defense had agreed on the wording of the assurances, it would be desirable for the President to call in the Congressional leaders of the two parties and explain the matter to them. The actual public release of the statement should be determined by the Secretary of State, so that its release would have the maximum possible effect on the French.
The President said he was not sure that it was not the obligation of the Secretary of State to meet with the Congressmen, but that he was willing to do so.
The National Security Council:
- a.
- Discussed a proposed statement on the subject as read by the Acting Secretary of State at the meeting.
- b.
- Agreed that assurances should be given to the French and other EDC nations, along the lines of the proposed statement, essentially reaffirming previous assurances given by the United States, in connection with the European Defense Community, as to the retention of U.S. forces in Europe and continued U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
- c.
- Noted that the Secretaries of State and Defense would prepare for the President’s consideration a statement of such assurances.
Note: The actions in b and c above subsequently transmitted to the Secretaries of State and Defense for implementation.