IV - II - 7

into being. On April 27, Under Secretary Ball laid down four criteria for the multilateral force: (a) there must be many participants; (b) the force must not be based predominately in one country; (c) the components must be unavail- able for withdrawal because of mixed manning; (d) the decision-making must be collective. He went on to describe the MLF in glowing terms:

> The kind of multilateral force I have described has much to commend it. Not only is it the best means of dealing with the nuclear problem in the present political framework; it is also a means of promoting gradual and constructive evolution within that framework. The multilateral force would offer the great advantage of a further opportunity to work toward greater unity in Europe and closer partnership between Europe and the United States.

During 1963, the multilateral force became the main focus of American NATO policy. The original posture of responding to European wishes was abandoned. American spokesmen ever more insistently urged the MLF as a major contribution to restoring Allied cohesion--indeed as the principal available step.

Thus, on October 27, Secretary Rusk speaking in Frankfurt said:

> Such a multilateral missile fleet would be militarily effective. Its accurate and well-protected missiles would be counted toward the total needs of Western deterrence.

George W. Ball, "The Nuclear Deterrent and the Atlantic Alliance," speech April 27, 1963, DOSB, May 13, 1963, XLVIII, 1246, p. 739.

V - 12

The kind of multilateral force I have described has much to commend it. Not only is it the best means of dealing with the nuclear problem in the present political framework; it is also a means of promoting gradual and constructive evolution within that framework. The multilateral force would offer the great advantage of a further opportunity to work toward greater unity in Europe and closer partnership between Europe and the United States.²

> It would strengthen Atlantic partnership by binding the United States and Europe in an inextricable nuclear tie. The missiles and warheads would be jointly owned and controlled; they could not be unilaterally withdrawn.

> And it would strengthen European cohesion by providing the presently non-nuclear powers an opportunity to share in ownership, manning, and control of a powerful nuclear force on the same basis as other members of that force.¹

¹ Dean Rusk, "Toward a New Dimension in Atlantic Partnership," speech at Frankfurt on October 27, 1963, DOSB, November 11, 1963, XLIX, 1272, p. 730.

[Y]

IV - II - 8

This was supplemented by a flood of emissaries--official, semi-official and unofficial--pressing the MLF on our European allies with whatever argument seemed best suited to the particular circumstances. Salesmanship has on occasion superseded sober analysis, but the MLF has been advocated with arguments

In the face of this onslaught the initial reserve of at least some of our allies melted. After a brief period of hesitation, the government of the Federal Republic agreed to the scheme. While its original motive may well have been to prove its continued loyalty to the American alliance after the shock of the Franco-German Treaty, the Federal Republic has in the interval become soan become so much as that many senior United States of Europe, we know, believe that Germany's stability depends on the survival of the MLF. In Greece, nearly as enthusiastic an advocate of the MLF as the United States.

Turkey and Italy have agreed in principle to participate. Britain and the Netherlands are joining the other countries in a demonstration of mixed manning.

France has refused any degree of participation.

IV - II - 10

the Federal Republic and the United States will each contribute forty per cent
leaving twenty per cent to be divided among the five or six other participants.)
The control system has not yet been decided, but it seems certain that an exe-
cutive body comprising the total membership will make decisions--at least
initially on the basis of unanimity. The present time-table calls for signing
a treaty on the MLF by the end of 1964, with ratification taking place sometime
during 1965,

So much United States prestige has been invested in the MLF by now that
a judgement of its merits becomes extremely difficult. Any responsible assess-
ment must take into account that a collapse of the project at this stage will
almost surely impair the leadership position of the United States within NATO.
Nevertheless a judgment of the merits of the MLF is essential. For the MLF
will not be the end but the beginning of a process which we should enter with
our eyes open. This is all the more necessary because the MLF has been ad-
vocated by its enthusiasts with arguments so extravagant and sometimes so con-
tradictory that American policy may suffer from the unfulfillable expectations
of its allies for years to come. It would be unfortunate if a scheme made so

IV - II - 18

nuclear stockpiles in Germany, for a guarantee that these would not be withdrawn without the consent of NATO and for a degree of unspecified joint control over weapons fired from German soil.¹ But Strauss' concern was primarily with control of tactical nuclear weapons already in the NATO stockpiles and of a range not suitable for a retaliatory strategy.

Some advocates of the MLF argue that even if German desires did not exist, they would surely have developed. According to this school of thought, it was against all reason to expect Germany to be forever content with second-class status in the nuclear field. But is this really true?

Was Germany really likely to develop its own nuclear program simply because France had done so? Was the French effort--begun by de Gaulle's predecessors--in fact inspired by the example of Great Britain? Or is it not more likely that the experience of Suez was a more powerful catalyst for the French nuclear program than speeches in the House of Commons?

What gave France a greater incentive to enter the nuclear field, the

¹ See, for example, *The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung*, April 21, 1962.

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Federal Republic will constitute a powerful claim in the debate about
control which is inevitable.

In the inter-allied debate which the MLF is certain to start, the
United States may be haunted for years to come by the inconsistencies with
as advocated
which it has presented the case for the MLF. To the Federal Republic, the
MLF has been represented as a device to give non-nuclear countries an
increased participation in nuclear matters. To Soviet and European
But in answering European and

critics, as has been advocated, as if an already
Soviet arguments that the MLF is a guise for nuclear proliferation, United

States spokesmen have been at pains to point out that the MLF, if anything,
if anything,
decreases the role of its members in the decision to go to nuclear war.

Thus Gerard C. Smith, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for the
MLF, said on April 22, 1964:

Any wartime decision to fire the missiles would be by multi-
lateral agreement rather than by bilateral agreement as in the
case of these earlier strategic missiles. The MLF will thus
increase the number of states with fingers on the safety catch,
rather than on the nuclear trigger. (Emphasis added.) There would
be no risk of compromise of weapons design data under MLF. Multi-
lateral custodial procedures would assure that individual countries
had no greater access to information about how to design and
manufacture weapons than at present under the NATO Atomic Stockpile.¹

¹ Gerard C. Smith, "The Nuclear Defense of Europe," speech on April 22, 1964, DOSB, May 18, 1964, L, 1299, p. 785.

IV - II - 24

Can it be seriously supposed that our allies will make a major
financial contribution to the MLF for a period of ten years simply to
perpetuate the present state of affairs? If there is a German demand for
nuclear weapons is it likely to be satisfied by multiplying safety catches?
Is it not simply storing up trouble for the future to advertise the MLF as a
major departure in nuclear sharing, while announcing at the same time that the
United States would retain present custodial procedures in undiluted form?

The facts about control of the MLF seem to be as follows: No country
which is presently unable to go to nuclear war will be able to do so as a
result of the MLF. No country able to go to nuclear war can be prevented
from going to nuclear war as a result of the MLF. No country can be made to
enter nuclear war as a result of the MLF.

The nature of this problem becomes clearer if we examine the nuclear
forces which will exist in NATO after the MLF comes into being. Three
different kinds of nuclear forces will exist. (a) National nuclear forces--
like SAC, the British Bomber Command and the French force de frappe when
it come into being. These would remain under exclusive national control.