172. Letter From the Ambassador to France (Bohlen) to Secretary of State Rusk1
Dear Dean:
In the hopes that it might be useful to you in connection with the Brussels discussion, I am giving you here a very stark outline—perhaps a little too stark for telegraphic reporting—of what I believe de Gaulle generally has in mind. Bits of this have already been reported, but I am trying to set it forth in simple outline.
As you know, any analysis of De Gaulle requires a great deal of guessing, and the only thing you can hope for is that it is knowledgeable and reasonably intelligent. The following summation is based upon everything I have been able to find out, both by reading and talking, around here about De Gaulle’s policies.
De Gaulle is in a hurry because he realizes that he has not many more years of activity as President of France and therefore is telescoping, perhaps dangerously, some of the stages of a policy which I think he has had in mind for years and years. From his writing it is apparent that he always envisaged the emergence of Europe after the war as a third power center in the world to match the United States and the Soviet Union. He considers that the two military blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, at best were conceived under different circumstances, were at worst even in error at the time of their creation. He obviously takes in his public utterances the former position, but his purpose now it seems to me very clearly is a desire to destroy the “ideological blocs”, whatever cause may have been their coming into existence, because they now constitute one of the obstacles to the creation of Europe as a whole.
He had started this process by proceeding against the organization for I believe tactical, political reasons, since it has been advantageous to him domestically to present France as faithful to the alliance although withdrawing from the organization. I do not believe we should be for a minute fooled by this attempt to carry water on both shoulders. In the first place, De Gaulle in his letter to the President has seriously modified French obligations to Article V through the use of the “unprovoked” aggression formula.
Also, as you know, we have reported information from a reliable source that De Gaulle’s original intention was to denounce the treaty but was dissuaded from this step by Pompidou2 and Couve de Murville. [Page 405] There is a high degree of probability that after the elections in March, particularly if they turn out as he hopes, De Gaulle will go further and announce his determination to withdraw from the treaty in 1969. De Gaulle obviously hopes that the example he has set in regard to NATO will over a number of years be followed by similar actions in regard to the Warsaw Pact, although he must realize that the control in this instance lies completely in the hands of the Russians and that the Romanian frolics do not really have much effect on the military situation of Europe.
The real danger in my view of De Gaulle’s policy is its effect on Germany. As you know better than I do, the Germans are [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] sensitive to shifts or changes in Western attitude, and De Gaulle’s anti-German line and wooing of the Soviets has certainly not passed unnoticed in Bonn. It seems to me therefore that the real ultimate danger of his policy, if consistently pursued, would lie theoretically in the possibility of provoking another Soviet-German deal. If the Germans became discouraged by the attitude of Western support, and I must mention here my doubts as to the line used in NATO for East/West “detente”, and became convinced that everybody was rushing to ingratiate themselves with Russia, it would not be too long in my opinion before some [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] German nationalist of the type of Strauss3 began to indulge in a little secret footwork with Moscow. I am sure you will agree that one of the cardinal principles of Soviet foreign policy has always been the advantages to the Soviet Union of an arrangement with Germany.
However, on the other side I must likewise state my conviction that it lies within the power of the U.S. and our allies to prevent De Gaulle’s policy from coming into fruition. It is very doubtful if he will get much satisfaction from Moscow, and given the nature of De Gaulle he might do another switch and begin to pursue a more anti-Soviet policy.
The great fallacy in my opinion of De Gaulle’s policy is his belief that France is important in Soviet eyes. This of course is not true and I would see no problem for the Russians in ditching De Gaulle for the sake of an agreement either with Germany or the United States.
I hope you will excuse my putting this down for you, but as I say I thought it might conceivably be helpful. As you see, it involves a good deal of speculation, and I would prefer to do it in this form.
Sincerely,