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

336. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Brussels, November 14, 1968, 10:10 a.m.

UNITED STATES DELEGATION TO THE FORTY-SECOND MINISTERIAL MEETING OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC COUNCIL

Brussels, Belgium, November 14–16, 1968

PARTICIPANTS

• United States
  • Secretary Rusk
  • Ambassador Schaetzel
  • Richard D. Vine, USEC
• Commission of the European Communities
  • Acting President, Fritz Hellwig
• Vice Presidents:
  • Lionello Levi-Sandri
  • Raymond Barre
• Commissioners:
  • Hans von der Groeben
  • Henri Rochereau
  • Guido Colonna di Paliano
  • Victor Bodson
  • Wilhelm Haferkamp

[Here follow the names of 14 additional participants from the EC Commission.]

SUBJECT

• General Tour d’ Horizon (1 of 2)

Acting President Hellwig apologized for President Rey’s absence due to long-standing official visits to the associated states. He was delighted to see this reciprocation of his, Rey’s and Deniau’s visit to Washington. He stressed the importance of regular consultations like this to discuss tough problems which could set the future pattern.

The Secretary noted that, after eight years, he wished to share some thoughts about the problems facing the next Administration. The countries of the West had allowed secondary questions to become too important while primary questions were forgotten or had receded into the background. Both sides of the Atlantic were now debating the basic questions of peace and collective security, i.e., to prevent war and organize peace.

Isolationist sentiments were increasing on both sides of the Atlantic. This was partially because the world seems in large measure safe and prosperous and many have become lazy. It is partially because of the heavy burdens borne over so long a period of time. Since 1945 the United States has suffered 350,000 casualties in collective security efforts. This is a heavy price to pay and many Americans now ask whether it should be paid.

It was thus necessary to reexamine notions of collective security; perhaps it is possible to find a better solution although he had been unable to find one himself. Otherwise one would come to a worse alternative, isolationism. It was imperative to debate these issues; they had a deadly importance. It was possible for all of us to draw the lessons from World War II; we will not have the luxury after World War III.

For the first time since 1945 what Europeans do will affect the way the American people react to problems. We have been paid the highest compliment by many in the world that the United States can always be relied upon. However, what others do will have a major effect on us.

In NATO, one asks how NATO can be strengthened after Czechoslovakia; what the Europeans decide to do will largely dictate what the U.S. does. Europe is in the presence of a miracle that it may not understand. The U.S. has 650,000 men in Southeast Asia but continues to maintain its forces in Europe. There is already considerable pressure in Congress to eliminate these forces and any U.S. Administration must be able to say that NATO friends take the issues seriously and that we are working together in comradely common effort where each pulls his own weight. If the Mansfield resolution had been voted by the Senate in June, it would have had a majority. The Soviets saved us; this pressure has been postponed but probably not indefinitely.

The Secretary’s one major regret was that the disarray in the Communist world, so obvious in China, the USSR, and in the far-reaching liberalizing tendencies in Czechoslovakia, was matched by our own disarray. If the West had been moving dynamically to a position of strength in terms of European unity and North Atlantic cohesion, with unity as a common purpose, the security threat from the Communist world would have been substantially reduced.

But now there was no movement toward European unity or to the expansion of membership in the Common Market.

The Secretary stated he could not speak for the new Administration, but he felt that Atlantic solidarity and support for NATO were not matters for anxiety. The Republican Party is committed to cohesion in the Western world and critical of disarray. The new cabinet will probably have been designated in early December and it would be easier at that time to make judgments on specific issues.

While he could not speak authoritatively on future trade policy either, it was predictable that protectionist forces would make a major effort. They have been largely fended off over the past year because of the President’s firmly held views and with help from key committees in the Congress. Historically, however, there has been a tendency for protectionists to be bolder under Republican than under Democratic Administrations. There are many understanding Republicans who appreciate the importance of this and he hoped that their influence would be decisive in a new Administration. He cited the proposed “arrangement” with the U.K., however, as an example of what would strengthen protectionist sentiment in the U.S. (See separate Memcon)²

Hellwig agreed that we concentrated too much on detail; it was critical to develop a new basic political approach to European unity. The nightmarish consequences of a failure to do so had been dramatically highlighted by Czechoslovakia. Conflicts in the past had been largely intra-European, now the possibility of conflict was largely between the US and the USSR; the Community’s role, primarily on Franco-German rapprochement. NATO remained the basis for our collective security effort, but this caused a problem with the neutrals. Europeans appreciated U.S. sensitivity in accepting commercial discrimination in order to help achieve European unity. Even economically it was possible to make a contribution to world peace through increasing trade liberalization, e.g., such great moves as the Kennedy Round. Protectionism, however, was not an exclusively American phenomenon. The pressures were strong in Europe as well. The Community recognizes the effects of integration on third countries. The Community can not be protectionist and must follow an open and liberal policy wherever possible.

Commissioner Colonna agreed that U.S.-European cooperation over the past decade had come to be taken for granted. We must now fight to maintain this cooperation, but it was difficult when one side was so much stronger than the other. The weakness was more political than economic. One could take pride in the achievements of the Kennedy Round. While this was not difficult for Germany and Benelux, protectionism in France and Italy was basically a manifestation of their economic weakness. They did not have the benefits of a continental market governed by a federal constitution. Thus both economic and political unity take time. While the U.S. had a right to be impatient, no responsible European could ignore the importance of these domestic problems. But it was necessary to understand each other’s difficulties rather than to throw these difficulties into each other’s face.

Commissioner Barre noted that Europeans tend perhaps to rely too much upon U.S. for protection without clearly understanding their own responsibilities. Neither the U.S. nor Europe could confront the world of the future if they were not closely linked in friendly cooperation. The Europeans themselves must make more of an effort to strengthen links among themselves so that they could in turn strengthen trans-Atlantic links.

But history and tradition weighed heavily in Europe and the problems of linking large and small countries in Western Europe could not be carried out except by recognizing complex realities. It was difficult, he confessed, to build Europe with Europeans. It was particularly difficult to do this with European diplomatic services which still relied upon 17th and 18th century techniques and conceptions.

The Secretary noted that, 23 years after the war, the great creative period in the West was past. Half the population was now too young to remember the stimulus of the war and was not gripped with the problems as had been the older generation. This involved the problem of rededication; either confirming old policies or finding new ones. He could not see the shape of better policies but he feared the possibilities of more disastrous ones.

Vice President Hellwig also noted the problem of the young generation. He did not think that they accepted the same premises as the older generation and it was up to Europe to work out ways and means of engaging youth in these new endeavors.

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, NATO 3 BEL(BR). Confidential. Drafted by Vine and approved in S on November 27. The meeting was held at the EEC Commission Building.
2. In this 2-page memorandum of conversation, Rusk told the Commission officials that the United States was concerned about French-German proposals to expand trade preferences by some kind of special relationship with the Common Market since they would discriminate against the United States and would not include political moves to strengthen the Community. (Ibid.)