DÆDALUS

Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

7 Linden Street, Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02188
Telephone: 868-7600 Ext. 431 and 482

14 October 1964

Professor Henry A. Kissinger
Harvard University
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Henry:

I have read with great interest the first three chapters of your manuscript and I have fairly abundant comments to make. Let me say right off that I think it is well written and that I have no serious criticisms to make of style or presentation. My greatest concern has been to reflect on the argument in the paper and it is of that that I shall write.

First, in your Chapter 1, it is most important that you give more explanation of why the Suez expedition was such an unmitigated catastrophe. You realize, of course, that this view is not at all widely shared and that your asserting it in the way that you do will come as some shock to many of your readers. You must be prepared to explain why American policy was misguided in this very crucial instance and why the effects of our policy were so important for our allies.

I am not certain that you ever explain why the United States characterizes (or caricatures) De Gaulle in the way that it does. What makes it natural for American diplomats and newspapermen to represent him in the rather simple way that they do? Have you ever considered whether this representation is not analagous to the way in which Churchill was characterized by certain "anti-imperialists"? My great concern is that you should explain why it is easy for us to put so much blame on De Gaulle and what deficiencies in our thinking this attitude reflects.

You emphasize rather repeatedly in one part (p. 49, etc.) the precariousness of Europe's recovery. I don't think that the recovery is so precarious; it is simply that we cannot foresee what the stability of European governments in the year 1970 will be. But then, are we any better informed on what the stability of the Soviet government in that year will be or the American or the Chinese? You must not make the European situation seem more fluid than our own. In any case, I think you exaggerate the precariousness of the situation. If they fall away from their association with us, it will be as much because of what we do as what they do. You never say this explicitly and yet I am persuaded that it is more than half the truth.

I find your Chapter 2 very workmanlike, but since almost all the material in this chapter has appeared in articles that you have written before, it is not at all new for me. I think that the exposition is clear and that you make fairly complex issues

Professor Henry A. Kissinger

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14 October 1964

sufficiently simple so that they would be understood by the layman. I really have no
strong feelings about this chapter, which does not mean that I do not care for it but only
that there really is very little that I can see that you need to do about it.

It is of Chapter 3 that I wish to speak more fully. I think your organization
here is excellent and that it makes very good sense for you to divide the chapter as you do,
touching American relations with Great Britain, France and Germany separately. My
only criticism here is that I am struck with the extent to which you make all these relations
depend on the personalities of the leaders involved. There is remarkably little in these
chapters about political parties, economic interests, historical traditions, etc. etc. I
feel that in this chapter more than in any of the others you have the opportunity to put the
present situation in a frame which will take cognizance of something other than the
personalities of the antagonists. Yet you do not do so. You always go back to talking
about what De Gaulle thinks of McNamara's plans. I would urge you to consider whether
a depersonalization to some extent is not absolutely mandatory. I think it is. I will
expand my comments to you if you wish me to but I think that you see the direction in
which they ought to lead you.

With all best wishes.

SRG/nw
Enclosure

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, INC.

THE HAROLD PRATT HOUSE 58 EAST 68TH STREET
NEW YORK 21, N. Y.
LEhigh 5-3300

HAROLD VAN B. CLEVELAND
Director, Atlantic Policy Studies Program

November 5, 1964

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
Harvard University
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Henry:

This letter contains a few comments on your Chapter II The Strategic
Debate. In general, I find the chapter very well done. There are marginal
notes and suggested changes of language in the attached draft. A few other
comments follow.

Page II-4. The phrase "rigidity of our European allies" is not clear.
The text should indicate rigidity as to what.

Page II-13. Tactical Nuclear Weapons. The flow of the argument on
tactical nuclear weapons is not altogether clear. The material is all there
but seems to need a little rearranging. I have tried my hand at it and the
result is shown in the enclosed, for what it may be worth to you.

Page II-16. The discussion of conventional defense would be clearer if you sharpened the distinction between two ideas: one is the question of the strategic desirability of having a capability for conventional defense; the second is the question of confining the European contribution to conventional forces. It does not necessarily follow, because a conventional buildup is considered by the U.S. to be essential, that it has to consist primarily of European forces -- especially since it is the Americans rather than the Europeans who desire to broaden the range of options, although domestic political limitations would probably make any further U.S. conventional contribution in Europe out of the question, at least in present circumstances.

Page II-20. The last sentence in the first full paragraph of this page
may be out of place. It interrupts the flow of the argument between this
and the following paragraph.

Page II-30. The word "must" in the third line from the bottom of this
page may be too strong. The logic of the discussion here is strategic.
Strategic logic, however sound, is not all there is to U.S.-European military
relationship. Its logical conclusions may be upset by political and psycho-
logical factors which point in the opposite direction. If, for example, the
Europeans come increasingly to feel that a Soviet attack is unlikely, they

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may feel quite secure and willing to rely on a U.S. guarantee which has become,
in terms of abstract strategic analysis, much less credible. Likewise, if the
Europeans conclude that a continuing U.S. military presence in Europe and Germany
is necessary to maintain Europe's political stability, they may hesitate to
draw the conclusion to which the Soviet secondstrike capability would lead, if
strategic considerations were uppermost in their minds. The same general
comment applies also to the tone of the last two sentences of the incomplete
first paragraph on Page II-31. The most that can fairly be said on the basis
of strategic reasoning, in abstraction from Europe's perception of the Soviet
threat and from other political and psychological factors, is the possibilities
you point to in these two sentences may occur. Strategic analysis cannot
demonstrate that these possibilities are bound to occur.

Page II-41. I have much the same question about the last sentence on this page. In effect, it treats a difficulty in the realm of strategic logic (incompatible ideas) as though it were, in the long run at least, bound to be resolved in the world of facts. But the world of facts includes a lot of non-strategic factors which may create a stable overall equilibrium in which strategic contradictions are not resolved. This has been NATO's history from the beginning.

Similarly on Page II-42, the word "incompatible" involves the same methodological question. To put it another way, the alternatives stated may be too stark. It is possible that these political and psychological incompatibilities will work themselves out in reality either to produce an effective sharing of nuclear sovereignty or to produce a high degree of European military autonomy. But it is also possible that this will not happen, because factors not included in the analysis are more powerful, such as a reduced fear of Soviet attack or a European desire for political reasons to retain the American military presence. These dimensions and uncertainties of the situation may be obscured by the starkness of the alternatives stated.

Page II-46. The connection between this discussion of counterforce strategy (which begins at the bottom of this page) and the question of independent European nuclear weapons is not made clear until the reader reaches the first full paragraph on Page II-49. Perhaps you could introduce this discussion by stating that the European allies have not been convinced enough that a counterforce strategy is realistic or in Europe's interest to make it an effective argument against independent nuclear forces.

I have a few comments on (incomplete) Chapter V but I'll hold them until
you send me the rest of it.

All the best.

HvBC:ec

Enclosures

V - 2

and confusion may be overlooked. It may be tempting to treat allies
as factors of a security arrangement and to forget that their ultimate
contribution depends on many intangibles of political will. In the
day-to-day press of events we may lose sight of the fact that we need
sound general criteria for measuring political progress in the developing
countries.

In all these areas the academician can be useful if he defines his
role modestly. He must not pretend that he has panaceas which the
short-sighted men in office have failed to discover, for the easy solutions
have all been found. Our remaining problems are obdurate because they
are complex. The intellectual can forewarn against the fragmentation
of policy by calling attention to the inner relationship of events. He
can supply perspective to government leaders who are overwhelmed by
day-to-day details and are unable to give their full attention to the
deeper pattern. Above all, he can insist constantly that no answer will
be better than the question which invites it. In a time which is obsessed
with answers, this alone would justify the existence of an institution
such as The School for Advanced International Studies.

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so insisting we are furthering our own military and political interests at
the expense of our European allies. This can be said without leaving the
implication that the dilemma could be resolved to the satisfaction of all
parties if only the United States would come down off its high sovereignty
horse.

Another general point. The term "sovereignty", or the phrase "yielding"
or "sharing sovereignty" appears many times in this and other chapters.
Sometimes "sovereignty" seems to be used somewhat poetically as a synonym
for freedom of action. At other times it seems to mean the absence of supra-
national authority. The risk is that the reader may believe you are talking
about supranational authority, or its absence, when you may mean the presence
or absence of intergovernmental agreements or consultation, by which _de facto_
freedom of action is reduced, while formal sovereignty is not affected. I
expect it would be useful to use the terms "yielding" or "sharing sovereignty"
only when something supranational is meant.

Page IV-6. The thought in the last sentence on this page is a little
compressed. You might want to add an explanation of why the management of
political crises becomes more significant in conditions of nuclear "parity",
especially with many tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.

Page IV-7. The first sentence on this page might be better if you stated
the nature of the American failure more precisely as a failure to admit to
ourselves and to others that real conflicts of national security and political-
prestige interest were involved in the nuclear control question. Also, isn't
the point you are making in this paragraph not that "disputes" arose over
ear-marking and assignment, but that our efforts of this kind were evasions
of the real conflicts of interest involved and attempts to paper over the
cracks by symbolic and largely meaningless "assignments"?

Page IV-8. The material in pencilled brackets on this page seems to
be out of place. The main subject of the paragraph is the assignment of
submarines; the question of the meaning of another phrase in the communique
on a different subject does not seem pertinent at this point.

Page IV-9. In the last full paragraph on this page, the flow of the
argument would be clearer if you omitted the material in pencilled brackets,
beginning with the second sentence of this paragraph through the end of the
paragraph at the top of the next page. This would get you immediately to the
main point of the discussion: that the joint preparation of guidelines does
not satisfy the political desire of the Europeans to share in nuclear control
unless the guidelines constitute a delegation of authority. But if that were
their nature, they would become politically unfeasible for the United States,
and perhaps for other allies as well.

Page IV-10. In the same connection, the argument would be clarified
by inserting, after the first sentence of the second full paragraph on page
IV-10, the statement that participation in contingency war planning which
does not result in a formal delegation of authority to use nuclear weapons
hardly satisfies the political and psychological desires of the European allies.

October 9, 1964

The Editor
The New York Times
Times Square
New York, N.Y. 10036

Dear Sir:

May I comment on nuclear delegation and especially the Goldwater
task force, which deprecated the electronic lock on nuclear weapons. Such a lock
could facilitate, not obstruct, "battlefield nuclear weapons." The reason is
simple; it can divorce control of weapons from physical location, permitting
decentralized availability with centralized control. It is surprising that
proponents of "instant availability" have not jumped at the electronic lock as
providing just the freedom they desire.

People who promote a theater commander's candidacy for nuclear
authority would be wise to show concern, not disdain, for control of weapons and
demand, not deny, sophisticated techniques of control to prove that their interests
coincide with the President's. I can appreciate the argument, though I disagree
with it, that the Russians might be more impressed if nuclear weapons were in the
hands of a commander less prudent than the President, but alleged communication
difficulties should not be an excuse to shift authority to where it would be exercised
differently.

Control techniques are critical because proponents of nuclear delega-
tion must have in mind a limited and tightly controlled use of nuclears, in a war
that is quite unlikely to explode to the strategic level. Otherwise it is utterly
absurd to propose that the theater commander is in any position to discharge the
responsibility that might be delegated to him. Whatever the importance, from the
local commanders' point of view, of timely battlefield use of nuclears, the crucial
matters of timing, coordination, and alert status, relate to strategic bombers and
missiles, air defense, civil defense, and central intelligence. If there is any
chance that the war will quickly get out of hand--and there will be such a possibility
if nuclears are desperately needed in the European theater--the worst way to initiate
nuclear war would be by a theater commander out of touch with his own government
and its military establishment, according to local criteria that may shortly be
overwhelmed to the point of irrelevance in a larger war.

President Johnson is accused both of opposing delegation and of delegating; and I suspect President Eisenhower is right that the intimate details of the confidence the President places in a theater commander ought to be, and are, the private business of the President and that commander. I also suspect the issue of delegation does not matter much. If the President is to delegate, he will appoint a commander he trusts. His commander is unlikely to act like a boy with loose change in his pocket. With authority over nuclear goes the obligation to think about everything that would have been thought about in the White House; a responsible SACEUR will feel more like a deputy president than a troop commander, and assume the need to coordinate his decision with strategic forces, central intelligence, and diplomacy. As a citizen and as a commander he would certainly check with the President if it were possible, and it probable would be possible.

The difference is symbolic, but not unimportant. Now that the matter has become controversial, overt delegation would appear a concession to those who want nuclear decisions less inhibited, and cause changed interpretations of American policy. If Senator Goldwater is elected and retains the nuclear opinions attributed to him, an act of delegation might be unnecessary but symbolically useful to communicate his intent. President Johnson has made his intentions clear, and an announced delegation would misrepresent his policy.

Delegation itself is of minor consequence. It has become a proxy in a dispute about nuclear policy. The importance of delegation has been exaggerated by those on both sides who either hope or fear that a senior military commander could accept such authority without the lonesome responsibility that goes with it. (There may be crackpots and hardheads in high military position that we should worry about; but theirs is a fault to which even civilians who hold or aspire to high office are unfortunately not immune.)

TCS!ac