Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XV, Germany and Berlin

153. Telegram From the Mission in Berlin to the Department of State¹

Berlin, June 14, 1966.

1160. Department pass Bonn 991 immediate from Berlin.² Reference: Department telegram 3392.³ Department eyes only Secretary; Bonn eyes only Sutterlin from Ambassador McGhee.

1. I can understand your surprise and concern that Chancellor Erhard would attribute to you a statement in your meeting with him held on June 9th which you did not in fact make. The almost verbatim minutes of this meeting which I sent you clearly indicate that you made no statement on the level of US forces or the relationship between this level and German offset payments. Despite this the official transcript of Chancellor Erhard’s press conference June 10 states as follows: “I specifically received yesterday in my talk with the American Secretary of State the assurance that the presence of the American troops in Europe, and particularly in Germany, is in itself an obligation and task which cannot be directly linked to German purchases of weapons in America—no matter how desirable such purchases naturally are, particularly in light of the burdens which the US must bear because of the war in Viet-Nam.”

2. The substance of this statement was reported to the Department on June 10 (Embtel 4095)⁴ and it is this statement which was quoted by the New York Times article of June 11. This article was carried by the European Saturday-Sunday edition under a Reuters byline rather than Tom Hamilton’s. In my own background briefing after your meeting I made it clear to the American press, particularly in response to questions by Hamilton, that the troop level issue had not arisen; no one raised the question of linkage and I did not volunteer it. Hamilton’s story of the 9th was well within the guidance and did not attribute to you the remarks referred to by Erhard.

3. I can offer no explanation for Erhard’s action except that he and his government have consistently sought to put the best face possible on the question of troop levels and any possible linkage with the offset. Since you have consistently been quoted as denying that there would be any substantial reduction in US forces (your press conference of May 27)⁵ and have not confirmed the offset linkage either when approached by Amb Knappstein in Washington or when the question was raised by the Chancellor in your meeting of June 9, the Chancellor apparently felt that he was at least expressing your views in quoting what you in fact did not say at that time. This is of course not cricket, however, I don’t believe it results from any Machiavellian type of gamesmanship on the Chancellor’s part. He values his relationship with the US and particularly with Pres. Johnson and with you too highly for this. He does, however, have a problem which arises from the constant spate of news stories emanating from Washington threatening troop withdrawal of various counts including a proportional withdrawal if the offset is not made. It has become generally known that Sec McNamara made such a statement to Von Hassel during their recent meeting, though this has never been confirmed by any other high US official or publicly by McNamara even in his statement of June 11th.⁶ The closest thing to an official denial is that reported by Under SecDef Vance in his background press conference June 9. (USCINCEUR 092105Z)⁷

4. Quite frankly, I don’t think that anything can be done about this issue until we can come up with one US policy on the offset. It is not credible that there be a separate McNamara policy on such an important issue. On the other hand, the fact that McNamara has such an attitude continues to boil up in the German press, creating embarrassment for the German Government and handicapping us in the excution of our overall policy here.

In fact, the McNamara statement of June 11 is precisely what the Chancellor asked that we not do, i.e. continue to air the question in public—which assures that it will be reverberating in the press here just as the Germans start their critical bilateral talks with the French on the troop issue.

5. It is one thing to put strong pressure on the German Government to meet the offset privately, which in the past has been reasonably effective. The President should of course do this when he sees the Chancellor in July or August, although I would hope that he would, as in the past, stop short of threats of proportionate reduction if the offset is not met. It is quite a separate thing, however, to make threatening or critical public statements focusing on what is, from the German standpoint, such a vital issue. McNamara’s statement of June 11, although it does not contain the direct threat of proportional withdrawal, certainly falls into this category—particularly the statement “I never consider the termination clause until we are ready to invoke it.” You can be assured that this statement, which has no relevance to the offset issue as I understand it, will be with us for some time. The lead article in Die Welt today, which is being reported separately is “McNamara’s heavy hand.”

6. As regards the level of US forces here, I believe that we should all stick with your statement of May 27 to the effect that “Our forces will remain there as long as they are needed and wanted” and that—“We do not anticipate withdrawing any major units from NATO.” We should not, I believe, elaborate on this or give any impression of impending change—unless or until a final decision for such change is made.

Calhoun

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 6 US. Secret; Immediate; Nodis. No time of transmission is on the source text; the telegram was received at 3:06 p.m.
2. A note at the end of the source text indicates that the telegram was not sent to Bonn.
3. Telegram 3392 to Berlin, June 12, expressed concern with press misreporting of pledges allegedly made by Secretary Rusk to Erhard. (Ibid.)
4. Not found.
5. For text, see Department of State Bulletin, June 13, 1966, pp. 918–925.
6. For text, see Public Statements of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, 1966, vol. 7, p. 2363.
7. Not found.