35. Letter From the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Tyler) to the Ambassador to the United Kingdom (Bruce)1
Dear David:
This is a Saturday morning letter stimulated in part by Bob Schaetzel’s account of his informal talk with you last Wednesday evening.2 As I understand it, you expressed very strongly your views that we ought to take our foot off the European accelerator pedal and, while making clear our position on the principles governing effective Atlantic relations, leave it to the Europeans to work out when and how they propose to organize themselves into an entity which would constitute a basis for partnership.
During those four weeks away from the fuss and fever of Washington I had the opportunity to think things over and assess in my own mind the validity and the prospect of success of some of our policies. As a result, I am more than ever convinced that we have made a very great mistake over the last three years in trying to push Europe along one particular road, in spite of the fact that the conditions for success in this venture were obviously not present, and that by exerting such pressures we were tending to justify the suspicion (exploited but not originated by deGaulle) that what the United States is really after is an Atlantic framework within which Europe will be expected to play a predetermined part within predetermined limits only. I want to make it clear to you that I believe strongly in the broad lines and the goals of our European policy as defined in the key speeches by the President and other high government spokesmen. Of these speeches, that by President Kennedy on July 4, 1962,3 is perhaps the most noteworthy. What I am objecting to and regretting is the constant effort to give this policy a specific content in the immediate future by nagging and worrying and lecturing all and sundry in Europe or over here who we felt might be useful instruments for our purpose. Such an attitude was bound to create resentment and to cast doubt on our motives. Since our efforts were obviously destined not to achieve the desired result, they also cast doubt on our wisdom and maturity and, by inference, tended to justify deGaulle’s thesis that America’s [Page 77] interests in the organization of the West are not necessarily the same as Europe’s.
Even now the lesson has not been learned, and there is still a lot of climbing up and down trees, and wheels spinning in a vacuum in the whole area of Atlantic relations. It is very hard indeed for some people to accept the fact that the best, indeed the only, policy which we should pursue in order to contribute to the creation of an Atlantic relationship which will serve our long-term national interests, is to leave it to the Europeans to work out the mode and manner and timing of their own organization. If they are convinced that the principles of our policy (interdependence and partnership) are in their long-term interests, they will so comport themselves as to create the conditions which such a mutual policy requires for its success. If they are not convinced of this, harrying them, telling them they ought to be, and excommunicating those who are not sufficiently responsive in our view, is certainly not going to make them change their minds. Moreover, the moralizing note of reprobation which is sounded from this side of the Atlantic with regard to those attitudes in the field of European unity which displease us is simply poison to our purpose and interest.
I am not advocating a negative policy with regard to our European relations. As you know, this is the area to which I am most attached and in which I believe deeply. I do plead, however, for distinguishing between the formulation of policies with goals and objectives which can be expected to appeal to Europeans and thus stimulate them in their own way and in their own time to advance in our direction, and the attempt to bring about and accelerate this process by appearing to arrogate to ourselves the wisdom and the right of definition as to how this should be achieved.
I think we will have a great chance after the election to recast the role of the United States in European eyes and thus to liberate and encourage renewed, and hopefully productive, efforts by Europeans to move in the direction of greater political unity. However, for this to happen, there will have to be basic agreement and understanding within the executive branch of the government, not only in our goals, but on the nature of the approach required to promote them. Equally important, and perhaps even more difficult: there will have to be agreement and understanding on what efforts, attitudes and tactics are not merely wasteful, but unhelpful. It may well be that this will be the most difficult of all.
I would appreciate it if you would keep the foregoing confidential. I am not showing it to anyone in my office.
Betsy and I look forward very much to seeing you again in December, and send you all much love.
Yours ever,
[Here follows a handwritten postscript of a personal nature.]
- Source: Department of State, Bruce Diaries: Lot 64 D 327. Secret; Personal for the Ambassador.↩
- Bruce recorded that following a dinner on September 16, he, Schaetzel, Popper, and other U.S. officials discussed future U.S. policy in Europe. The Ambassador believed “that the present temper in Washington is in favor of action for action’s sake.” No other record of this discussion has been found. (Ibid.)↩
- For text of this speech, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962, pp. 537–539.↩