Office of the Historian

222. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bator) to President Johnson1

Washington, August 11, 1967, 6 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Preparing for the Kiesinger Visit: Strategy and Procedure

This will be a critical meeting—not quite in a league with Glassboro,2 but close enough to call for very careful preparation. And, in my judgment, the general impression we make will be much more important to future German behavior than what we say on any of the specific issues on the table. If we seem to have no broad, coherent approach to our European relations, or if we appear disorganized and uncertain about our priorities—or if we seem unaware of the sense of drift and uncertainty in Europe—we will lose what I think is a major opportunity to condition Kiesinger’s thought and action on the full range of Atlantic issues.

The only way to be certain that we will speak with vision and with one voice is for the President to give clear marching orders. The rest of this memo sets out a strategy we might follow and a procedure whereby you could instruct us.

Strategy

Kiesinger must leave this meeting convinced that:

  • —the President has a set of firm principles in his head which govern U.S. behavior toward Europe and the Russians;
  • —those principles are broadly consistent with German interests;
  • —they will not permit America to turn its back on Germany and Europe;
  • —specifically, the U.S. is not going to scuttle the Alliance whenever the Germans do something which annoys us;
  • —in turn, when we are forced by our problems to do something the Germans don’t like, it does not mean that we are going to sue for divorce.

It follows that the President should:

1.
Lay out for Kiesinger—and draw him into a dialogue about—the basic components of our European policy:
  • —Our solid commitment to Atlantic security in the context of an evolving NATO.
  • —Our commitment to bridge building and general improvement of the East-West environment as the best way to create conditions in which [Page 559] the healing of Germany is possible (it being understood that we will take our cue from the FRG on sensitive East German issues).
  • —Our need to keep open our bilateral channel with the Russians, which reflects our special nuclear responsibilities.
  • —Our support for an increasingly coherent and effective Western Europe.
2.
On the tough, sensitive issues: the future of NATO, German unification, etc., probe in detail what is on Kiesinger’s mind.
3.
Use this kind of a conversation as the context in which to raise the currently hot issues (defense budget, troops, international money, future offset, etc.) and for getting across the general point that we both must be careful not to overload each other’s politics; that isolationism breeds isolationism.

The point of the above strategy is to avoid limiting the conversation either to the hot questions of the day, or to a broad benign exchange which ignores both current troubles and the more fundamental strains which are inevitable in our relations with Europe following the excessive dependence of the post-war period.

If Kiesinger goes away without being confident that he understands what is really important to the President—and that he can depend on us not to overkill him on day to day problems—no amount of pleading or browbeating will make him more amenable on concrete issues as they arise. For instance, without such a framework a U.S. threat to cut troops might only draw a shrug and an air of bitter resignation. On the other hand, if the President can give the Chancellor a sense of confidence that he can calculate U.S. reactions to specific problems because he understands our general priorities, we will have a much better basis on which to lean on him, and to get him to lean on his anti-Americans when we have a specific problem.

Benefits

If the strategy works, the Chancellor will leave thinking that—whatever discordant noises there may be in the background—Lyndon Johnson understands the central propositions necessary to a good, workable relation between Europe and America, and can be counted on to steer a true course despite periodic flaps. It’s quite possible that this would even show up in the newspapers. Further,

  • —it would maximize the chance that Kiesinger will try to play particular issues our way;
  • —when he cannot do what we want, he will be more careful to manage German policy so as to minimize the negative effect on us;
  • —when we must do things he doesn’t like, rather than blasting away in public, he will be more inclined to deal quietly with us, in private. Fundamentally, he will work harder to keep U.S.-German relations on an even keel.

[Page 560]

Procedure

On Monday, I would suggest you chair a strategy session with Rusk, McNamara, Fowler, Walt and myself.3 You might use that meeting to cross-examine your advisers, to instruct us on the general line, and also on the handling of the specific question of U.S. troop levels. (At Tab A4 is a memo on that one question. If you do not wish to take the time to go over it on the weekend, I will send in another copy on Monday morning, prior to a strategy meeting.)

In addition, if it would be useful, I could spend 15–20 minutes before such a meeting going over the ground in this paper with you.

I apologize for asking for your valuable time for a strategy session on Monday, but this is the only means for pulling the government together and avoiding the inevitable tendency of the rest of us to emphasize our own particular concerns in conversations with the various Germans who will be fanning out around town.

FMB

OK for Marvin to set up mtg. with Rusk, McNamara, Fowler, Rostow, Bator on Mon. afternoon

In addition, Bator and Rostow to come in for 15 min. before such a meeting5

Speak to me

  1. Source: Johnson Library, Bator Papers, Kiesinger Visit. Secret.↩
  2. Reference is to the June 23 and 25 Summit meetings between President Johnson and Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin in Glassboro, N.J. Documentation is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, volume XIV.↩
  3. According to the President’s Daily Diary, Johnson met with his senior advisers from 6:50 to 7:30 p.m. on August 14 for an “off the record” discussion of the Kiesinger visit. (Johnson Library)↩
  4. Not found.↩
  5. The President checked these first two options.↩