Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XIII, Western Europe Region

213. Telegram From the Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Regional Organizations to the Department of State¹

Paris, October 22, 1966, 1700Z.

6006. NATUS. Subject: McCloy briefing on trilateral talks.²

1. In informal atmosphere at Cleveland residence, McCloy gave candid informal account of his mission he has been given by President and of just-concluded two days of trilateral talks in Bonn. Present were Deputy SYG Roberts of Fourteen, and PermReps except Portugal and Turkey represented by Charles, as well as State Department Counselor Bowie. French PermRep was not invited.

2. Half hour of lively interchange that followed was carried by De Staercke (Belgium), Alessandrini (Italy), and Boon (Netherlands) by now, ghost of tripartite directorate has been exorcised, but exclusion from even ad hoc temporary tripartite group is clearly underlying cause of Italian pique. Main burden of complaint was that three, however worthy their motives—and candid persuasive McCloy presentation left no room for innuendos on this score—had constituted themselves a “self-appointed group” (De Staercke’s phrase), without prior consultation, to do what all members of NATO had an interest in, and what NATO was created to do and was actively undertaking in current force planning exercise. Thus, action of three implied lack of confidence in NATO and their partners, condemned NATO force planning exercise to ineffectuality until results of trilateral talks were in hand, and all this quite unnecessarily since NATO if only it had been asked could either have done itself the job that the trilateral talks were seeking to do on an urgent basis, or could have established the group of three with a formal NATO blessing.

3. Grewe was most helpful in emphasizing that Germans could not have accepted decisive talks with US and UK on offset problems without also embracing broader issues of strategy and force levels. He challenged his colleagues to show what real alternative procedure there was to that chosen by three. Shuckburgh was more cautious, reiterating familiar UK points about need for quick conclusion of trilateral talks and for close ties between these talks and NATO work. He did, however, quietly counter Dutch argument that NAC could have done what trilateral talks are designed to do, by pointing out that UK this year has twice brought its financial and budgetary problems of troop maintenance into NAC without noticeable results either from “Callaghan study” or recent Annual Review committee study.

4. McCloy with help from Bowie good humoredly but firmly reiterated that US had launched trilateral talks to meet what it continued to feel was clear and pressing financial problem in US and UK with political overtones which ran real risk of producing extremely dangerous attrition of NATO defense posture and required extraordinary and rapid action to cope with it. They insisted that US and its partners in trilateral talks had need to clear their minds jointly and stave off possible unilateral or bilateral actions that would indeed present Alliance with fait accompli. Trilateral talks would be conducted with full opportunity for SYG to participate and SACEUR to make his voice heard, and results would be put to NATO as whole, beginning with report at December Ministerial Meeting.

5. Cleveland said he thought the comments by his colleagues on trilateral procedures (in meetings of Fourteen and at this informal session) had been clear and forceful, and had adequately registered the reaction of some of our allies, for future reference. But problem now was to get on with deciding just how work in NATO between now and December would be meshed with trilateral talks, and how results of trilateral talks would be fed into preparations for NATO’s December Ministerial Meeting. He hoped that at meeting of Fourteen on Monday and thereafter further postmortems on procedures already adopted could be held to a minimum, in favor of practical discussion of what NATO is going to do about undeniably important and urgent matters of substance.

6. Most PermReps remained silent, letting Belgian, Dutch and Italian carry dialogue. (Canadian PermRep Ritchie made one brief remark along the same line.) But after meeting Kristianson (Norway), Palamas (Greece) and Reuter (Luxembourg) indicated separately that they thoroughly agreed we have had enough catharsis, and time for some accelerated force planning was already overdue. There were many expressions of great appreciation for McCloy’s willingness to stop by Paris to conduct this briefing.

7. Comment: McCloy stop here was clearly a most valuable action. His full and detailed account of what he is doing for the President and what the trilateral talks will try to accomplish will be a reference point in future NATO discussions. He made it transparently clear that neither he nor US has any purpose other than to strengthen Alliance on basis of realistic assessment of current political-military situation and financial and budgetary possibilities.

8. Brosio will report to Fourteen October 24 and will undoubtedly introduce his resolution (Bonn 4814).³ While we should not take lead, I believe it would be wrong for us to raise any objection in principle to SYG’s resolution, and we should go along with it if others find it useful. As result of Bonn meeting, trilateral talks have set their own schedules and procedures, and Brosio’s resolution will in no way hamper us. Text on Bonn 4814 should be modified however to conform with hard-fought Bonn communique language⁴ to effect three “would report on their discussions”, rather than “convey the results of those discussions” before December Ministerial Meeting. We would plan to support Brosio’s alternative of making this a DPC resolution which would finesse question of French role in NAC on force planning.

Cleveland

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 4 NATO. Secret; Priority. Repeated to the other NATO capitals.
2. On October 11, the White House announced that the President had appointed John J. McCloy to be the U.S. representative to the trilateral (U.S., British, West German) talks that were envisioned in the Erhard-JOHNSON communique of September 27. For text of the announcement, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966, p. 1139. At meetings in Bonn October 20–21, McCloy, German State Secretary Karl Carstens, and British Minister George M. Thomson defined the organization and future work of the group and agreed to keep the NATO Council informed of the progress of their meetings. (Telegrams 4800 and 4827 from Bonn, October 20 and 21; Department of State, Central Files, FN 12 GER W) McCloy reported on the talks in telegram 4832 from Bonn, October 21. (Ibid.)
3. The telegram and the text of the resolution have not been found.
4. Transmitted in telegram 4827.