323. Memorandum from Klein to Bundy, May 101
SUBJECT
- Redeployment of U.S. Forces in Europe
Last Saturday the Department of State was asked by Defense to concur in a proposed reduction of USAREUR strength—a move scheduled to take place in July, August and September of this year—by 15,600 spaces. Unlike the last withdrawal from Europe, this one would affect combat strength.
Defense’s rationale is that these units were put in Europe “on a temporary basis” during the 1961 Berlin emergency and are not part of “our NATO commitment”; the action is “acceptable from the viewpoint of our combat posture both in Europe and worldwide”; and the net result would be a significant gold flow savings, estimated at $4.7 million!
Three days earlier Defense proposed the reorganization of the Berlin garrison—a reorganization which would result in the reduction of our forces in that city by 700 men.
These separate actions may not be part of a single plan. (The Berlin exercise could be a separate and distinct operation.) But the fact is, the several major projects in train are closely interrelated in that the net effect could be a major redeployment and/or withdrawal of our forces from Europe.
There is a balance of payments exercise, in the context of which the Secretary of Defense has undertaken to produce substantial dollar savings. There is also an Army reorganization exercise to modernize and strengthen the forces. This, of course, ultimately has to affect Berlin. However, the situation there has some special aspects in that the Army, for sometime now, has been looking for ways and means to withdraw the Augmentation Battle Group put there in August 1961. It is not that these troops are less usefully employed in Berlin than they would be in West Germany or the United States. But the Army finds the Berlin arrangements administratively untidy, and is reluctant to have 1,500 men added to the sizeable force already bottled up in the exclave.
[Typeset Page 1440]Over and above all this, there is the Palm Beach exercise with its focus on conventional force contributions—which has as its basic premise the proposition that unless the Europeans contribute in a more meaningful way to NATO’s conventional strength, the United States will reexamine its own commitments with a view to reducing its conventional force contribution.
[Facsimile Page 2]As I understand the situation, the Secretary of State was asked to produce a political judgment in the context of the balance of payments exercise. One fact that stands out, however, is that certain projects are already under way in Defense in advance of any discussions with the Secretary of State. And to avoid some of the obvious pitfalls of this kind of an arrangement, I would urge strongly an early meeting of the two Secretaries with the President to discuss the issues in their broadest context, and to do so before too much fat is in the fire.
We have succeeded in putting a hold on the Berlin operation, with Defense now looking to some action in early September.
The Department still has under consideration the proposed 15,000 man withdrawal from USAREUR.
But the major problems are still ahead of us and some hard discussions are needed in which the Department should be given the opportunity to make its position known. For even if the judgment is made that financial and military considerations are over-riding, the Department of State should have the opportunity to come up with ideas on timing and the political context in which the military moves might be made.
To state it quite crudely, this is what we seem to be about at this juncture. We are calling for the creation of the MLF, with the proviso that the contributions to the conventional forces will not be reduced. But then we go on to say, either you put more into the conventional pot, and support our strategy, or we’ll pull back and support your strategy. And then before the Europeans can respond, we go on to the or of the either-or condition, and come out looking like good Gaullists.
In short, there are very significant political problems here which must be raised and considered; it is better to look at them now rather than later, when it will be considerably more difficult to pick up the political pieces.
- “Redeployment of U.S. Forces in Europe.” Secret. 2 pp. Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Balance of Payments and Gold, 6/62–9/63, Box 292.↩