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# CHAPTER IV - NATO'S Nuclear Dilemma

## I. Background

The Franco-German treaty of collaboration was interpreted in Washington as a means by which France might establish its hegemony in Europe and as a precursor of nuclear collaboration between France and Germany. After a brief period in which Washington's outrage seemed to be directed equally at Bonn and at Paris, an assiduous wooing of the Federal Republic began. American policymakers decided that in order to contain the French challenge it was necessary to isolate France within Europe. The Administration

chose the problem of nuclear control for the main thrust of its effort. France, clear about her independent status, seemed to be partly because the French challenge had been presented most explicitly in the United States by an alternative act, the nuclear plan made independent of nuclear deterrence, and partly because this seemed to be the most effective way

to dispose of the twin specters of a German national nuclear program and Franco-German collaboration in the nuclear field.

The nuclear issue had been before NATO almost since its beginning.

It became particularly acute when the New Look defense policy of the Eisenshower Administration caused NATO to rely increasingly on nuclear

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available when needed. What is more important--they began to demand specific guarantees specifying the circumstances in which NATO's nuclear arsenal would be used. In other words, our allies began to ask for a share in the political control of nuclear strategy.

When the issue of counteracting the Soviet MRBM's first came up in the last year of the 1960s, the initial tendency in Washington was to go along with a proposal of SACEUR (then General Norstad) to replace his tactical aircraft with medium range missiles. The proposal envisaged the installation of a mobile land-based version of the Polaris missile in Europe under the double-veto system, which required the approval of both the host country and the United States before it could be fired. Upon further consideration, the Eisenhower Administration concluded that such a deployment was unwise.

It was argued that a large number of missiles constantly moving on European roads might disquiet the populations and thus encourage neutrality. The double-veto system was believed to provide inadequate safeguards against the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Germany.

Accordingly, a State Department study group headed by Professor Bowie proposed that NATO's MRBM requirement be met by Polaris missiles.

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installed on ships (in the early version, submarines). These ships were
to be jointly owned, operated and financed by the participants and remain
under SACEUR's control at all times. To prevent the withdrawal of
national contingents, each ship was to be manned by crews of mixed
nationality. Each participant was to have a veto. The multilateral
scheme was submitted to the NATO Council by Secretary of State Herter
in December 1960 for study. A final decision was delayed until the new
Administration could assess the problem.

The Kennedy Administration turned with characteristic energy to
a reconsideration of NATO strategy. It concluded that NATO had placed too
much emphasis on nuclear weapons. It was much more sceptical than the
Eisenhower Administration had been about the significance of tactical
nuclear weapons. It stressed the role of conventional forces. As for
strategic nuclear weapons, the new Administration was committed, as
the Eisenhower Administration never had been, to a degree of unitary control
over all of the nuclear weapons of the Alliance which in practice meant
American control. Accordingly, the multilateral force was cold-shouldered
in the beginning of the Kennedy Administration, because it was believed

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[N]

## II. The Multilateral Force (MLF)

Few major decisions of American foreign policy have been the result of so much ambivalence as the multilateral force, ~~fewer still~~ could have been pushed so far by so small a group of energetic and dedicated men. The plan, ~~1725~~, which emerged in February 1963 as America's principal policy to restore NATO to its original purpose, had previously been dealt with at arms length by the Kennedy Administration. After de Gaulle's challenge, it was

pushed ~~at least in part~~ because it existed, after the multilateral force had been presented to the NATO Council for study in 1960, there occurred a hiatus of several months while the new

reassessed its policy. Finally on May 17, 1961, President Kennedy gave a highly qualified endorsement of the scheme in a speech at

Ottawa: "...We look to the possibility of eventually establishing a NATO sea-borne force, which would be truly multilateral in ownership and control if this should be desired and found feasible by our allies once NATO's non-nuclear goals have been achieved."

In the course of the next year,

¹ John F. Kennedy, "The Common Aims of Canada and the United States," speech at Ottawa on May 17, 1961, DOSB, June 5, 1961, XLIV, 1145, p. 841

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Administration spokesmen invited United States allies to analyze the problem
and to come up with a satisfactory control plan.

The two conditions put forward by the United States--a prior non-nuclear
build-up and European agreement about a control plan--suggested that the
proposal could not have a very high priority. Most of America's allies doubted
the need for a conventional build-up. None could afford both to strengthen
their ground forces and to contribute to a NATO nuclear force. Moreover, none
of our allies possessed a sea-borne nuclear system. Since a command and con-
trol system for even a national nuclear force is far from a simple matter, the
probability that our allies would come up with a meaningful control system was
not great. Indeed there were many in the Administration who held the view that
the problem would be found insoluble. It was then expected that the allies
would ask the President to act as Executive Agent for the Alliance on
nuclear matters.

When this did not happen, the United States in 1962 continued its
gingerly approach to the multilateral force. In September 1962, the President's
Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, spoke hedgingly

of a multilateral <u>European</u> force.

It would also be wrong to suppose that the reluctance which
we feel with respect to individual, ineffective, and uninte-
grated forces would be extended automatically to a European
force, genuinely unified and multilateral, and effectively
integrated with our own necessarily predominant strength in
the whole nuclear defense of the alliance. Any possible ar-
rangements for assistance and cooperation would, of course,
require full consultation and approval by all appropriate
agencies of our Government

The speech said nothing about what the United States understood by "multilateral,"
"unified" or "integrated."

A month later Under Secretary of State Ball returned to the theme of
a NATO nuclear force. He insisted that it was militarily unnecessary and he
continued to stress the priority placed by the Kennedy Administration on the
build-up of conventional forces. But he added:

From a strictly military standpoint, we do not feel that
the alliance has an urgent need for a European nuclear
contribution. But, should other NATO nations so desire,
we are ready to give serious consideration to the creation
of a genuinely multilateral medium-range ballistic missile
force fully coordinated with the other deterrent forces of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

McGeorge Bundy, "Building the Atlantic Partnership: Some Lessons from the Past," speech on September 3, 1962, <u>DOSB</u>, October 22, 1962, LXVII, 1217, p. 604-5.

George W. Ball, "NATO and the Cuban Crisis," speech on November 16, 1962, DOSB, December 3, 1962, XLVII, 1223, p. 835.

In the following weeks an American briefing team toured Europe explaining the American concept of a multilateral force, including the provision for crews of mixed nationality. They did not elicit a significant European response.

In December, Secretary Rusk spoke vaguely of a force "not . . . so heavily dependent upon the United States alone." But he stressed that it was up to the Europeans to formulate a concrete proposal:

> We also have expressed our willingness, if our ally wish to do so, to consider a multilateral nuclear force which would not be so heavily dependent upon the United States alone. Now, we have not ourselves put forward a precise plan in this regard. This is something that our friends across the Atlantic would presumably wish to do if they conclude what it is they would like to propose in this field.

At the regular NATO ministerial conference in December 1962, the United States took no initiative with respect to the NATO multilateral force. A week later at Nassau the United States and Great Britain made two decisions: to subscribe part of their national nuclear forces to NATO and to create a NATO multilateral force:

> Returning to Polaris the President and the Prime Minister agreed that the purpose of their two governments with respect to the provision of Polaris missiles must be the development of a multilateral NATO nuclear force in the closest consultation with other NATO allies. They will use their best endeavors to this end.

Dean Rusk, News Conference on December 10, 1962, DOSB, December 31, 1962, XLVII, 1227, p. 995.

Text of the Communique, DOSB, January 14, 1963, XLVIII, 1229, p. 44.

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One of the many confusions in the Nassau Agreement concerned the meaning of this clause: Did multilateral mean the assignment of national contingents to a NATO force as Great Britain argued? Or did it involve a commitment to the creation of a mixed-manned force as the United States urged? For a few weeks after the Nassau Agreement the term multilateral was in fact used interchangeably for either arrangement. An effort was made to create what was finally called an Inter-Allied Force drawn from national contingents. It foundered in the face of French hostility and the increasing American commitments to the MLF.

This sequence of events suggest that until de Gaulle's press conference on January 14, 1963, the multilateral force was far from a high priority goal of American foreign policy. In the face of indifference at the highest level, it had in fact been kept alive in the government only by a very small group of enthusiasts who, in the words of one acute observer, engaged in "a public relations campaign to gain official, political and academic support of an energy and ruthlessness unknown since Harriet Beecher Stowe . . ."

Alastair Buchan, "Is this NATO Crisis Necessary?" *The New Republic*, August 8, 1964.

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Whatever the hesitations of the Kennedy Administration, they were resolved after de Gaulle's press conference of January 14, 1963. On January 21, 1963, Secretary Rusk said in a television interview that the United States would proceed with the NATO multilateral force even without France (though he did not make clear whether he was using multilateral in the American or the British sense). ¹

On February 9, the Legal Counsellor of the State Department, Abraham Chayes, explicitly advanced the multilateral force as an alternative route to the "grand design" which de Gaulle had sought to block with his veto of Britain's entry into the Common Market. ²

By March 1963, the United States had dropped the conditions of a non-nuclear build-up and of a prior European agreement to a control plan. Indeed, it was now argued that a final decision on the control problem should await the actual creation of the multilateral force. Ambassador Livingston Merchant was assigned to carry out the negotiations to bring the multilateral force

1 Dean Rusk, "Today Show," January 21, 1963, DOSB, February 1963, XLVIII, 1223, p.

2 Abraham Chayes, "European Integration and American Foreign Policy," February 9, 1963, DOSB, March 4, 1963, XLVIII, 1236, p. 321.