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

205. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson¹

Washington, March 23, 1967, 4:45 p.m.

Mr. President:

I had a good talk with our old friend Ray Cline today, [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]. He makes the following points.

1. Kiesinger himself never believed there was much to be gotten from Paris but felt the try was necessary to convince others of the limits of that relationship. There now is more widespread understanding that Paris cannot—or will not—advance serious German interests.

2. With respect to openings to the East, the Germans are finding, as might have been predicted, that the going will be long and slow. They will not despair of this policy; but they are increasingly conscious that the problem of German unity will not be solved soon; and that there are great resistances as well as historic opportunities in playing Eastern European nationalism and assertiveness.

3. Therefore, they have pretty well come to the judgment that they must rebuild their tie to the United States as the foundation for their policy over the near and middle future.

4. Kiesinger himself—and almost certainly others such as Schroeder—knew this from the beginning but they had to reckon with the pressures from Strauss, with respect to Paris, and Wehner, with respect to the East.

5. The coalition, while tolerably close to a consensus on the above, remains extremely uneasy politically. As we know, Kiesinger is presiding over a cabinet which contains at least three major contenders for the Chancellorship in 1969. He has a great vested interest in making this coalition a success. The others have a primary interest in their own emergence by 1969 and judge the success of the coalition on whether its success will advance or detract from their candidacy.

6. Ray’s point is that we should deal with Kiesinger as a man facing an extremely delicate political problem and not as a normal political leader with an assured domestic base of power. It is his assessment that Kiesinger’s general orientation with respect to U.S. interests is good; but he is under pressures from elements in his coalition to make noises which are at best independent-sounding, and, at times, almost anti-American. The case for compassion is not sentimental, so far as U.S. interests are concerned; it is that the most probable successor to a failure of the coalition, in Ray’s view, is Strauss—not Schroeder or Brandt. In particular, Strauss appears to be picking up support by taking a nationalist line on the non-proliferation treaty; and he hopes to build from his position as Finance Minister the paternity of a new phase of German revival and prosperity.

7. Specifically, Ray recommends that you do see Kiesinger some time before he is scheduled to see de Gaulle—in June. (The Franco-German agreement requires that they meet at 6-month intervals.)²

8. [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] it is clear that Kiesin-ger found your letter to him constructive,³ but he was uncertain whether, in fact, you intended him to come by the end of May or thereabouts.⁴

Walt

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Germany, vol. 13. Secret. Annotations on the source text read: “Send to Watson,” “C[op]y sent F. Bator, 3/24/67,” and “Rec’d 5:30 p.m.”
2. de Gaulle visited Bonn July 12–13.
3. The President’s March 10 letter, which included a statement of interest in a personal meeting, is in the Johnson Library, National Security File, Special Head of State Correspondence, Germany, January 1–April 30, 1967.
4. A notation on the source text reads: “Keep options open.”