248. Letter From Secretary of State Rusk to Senator Mike Mansfield1

Dear Senator Mansfield:

The attached memorandum contains replies to the questions raised in your letter to me on April 14, 1967.2 As you know, I shall be out of the country on April 26. I have therefore asked Mr. Katzenbach to represent the Department of State at the hearing.

In replying to your questions, I should like to make an introductory comment on allied force levels in Europe.

I start with the premise that our forces should be stationed abroad only for reasons of national security, and that they should be withdrawn only if considerations of security justify such a move. In this connection we should keep in mind that all troop withdrawals are politically sensitive signals, and their significance can be misconstrued.

The national interests of the United States continue to require a strong Atlantic Alliance, and a strong and balanced NATO force under integrated command in Europe. It would be unthinkable for us to risk the loss of Western Europe, or the loss of its independence. While the deterrent strength of NATO, and the pressure of events in the Far East, have led the Soviet Union to pursue a relatively mild course in Europe since 1962, the military strength of the Warsaw Pact Powers deployed in Eastern Europe is formidable, and rising. We can hope that the Soviet Union has come to accept the principle, at least for Europe, that unilateral change by force in the frontiers of the two systems is a danger to world peace. But in my view, we must not dismantle defenses which have been, and are, so successful until we have something more tangible than hope on which to base a policy of detente and coexistence.

Even if the change in the Soviet political posture were far greater than any of us can now predict, there would still be a need to balance Soviet military preponderance in Europe. In the hands of any Soviet Government, military preponderance could be used as political leverage in a way which could damage our many interests in cooperation with Europe.

In the nuclear age, the United States is the only NATO power with strategic resources to match Soviet military power. Strong American [Page 562] forces on the ground must be the core of a non-nuclear defense of Europe. Without such a rallying point for Allied strength in conventional forces, all the advantages of our posture of flexible response would be lost.

The presence of our forces in Europe under NATO has also contributed to the development of intra-European cooperation. Much progress has been made. But without the visible assurance of a sizeable American contingent, old frictions may revive, and Europe could become unstable once more.

Yours sincerely,

Dean Rusk
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 6 NATO. Secret.
  2. The attachment is not printed. Mansfield’s letter asked for a summary of the trilateral talks and a reply on what political and military purposes the current level of U.S. forces in Europe served. (Ibid.)