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# CHAPTER II
## THE PROTAGONISTS: THE UNITED STATES AND FRANCE

### A. The United States View of the Atlantic Community: The Grand Design

Problems which may be structural in origin ultimately emerge as policy issues. Thus within the Atlantic Alliance controversy has grown about the future organization of NATO and the relative roles of its members. The chief protagonists have been the United States and France. Now debating the wisdom of negotiating with the Soviets, now contesting the role of nuclear weapons, always disputing the future organization of Europe and the structure of the Alliance, the two countries have sometimes acted as if each had a psychological need to use the other as a foil.

Each side has developed elaborate theories of the evil designs of its opponent. French spokesmen have charged that a primary goal of United States policy is to keep its hands free for some super-Yalta--a strictly bilateral settlement between the United States and the Soviet Union. American commentators have dismissed French policy as reflecting nothing but outdated nationalism and the illusion of grandeur of a bitter man who cannot forget past slights, real or fancied. French critics have accused the United States of seeking to maintain its dominant position by disguising its aspirations behind high-sounding words about an Atlantic community whose practical consequence will be to dissolve Europe's identity. Leading Americans have replied by emphasizing the futility of seeking to base policy on past glory and they have accused De Gaulle of trying to identify European unity with French hegemony.

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The ironical aspect of the dispute is that both protagonists profess the same objectives. France and the United States avow the goal of European unity. Both insist that their policy will lead to closer Atlantic cooperation. Each side argues that its policy will cause the Communist dictatorships to become more tractable in the long run and thus return the Soviet Union to the community of nations.

It could be thought, then, that the dispute is primarily one of tactics. In fact, the controversy goes deeper. At issue are two conflicting conceptions of international order, two different views of the historical process, two variant visions of the future. What gives the controversy its tragic quality is that each approach might have succeeded but for the existence of the other. Each side has the power to prevent the other from realizing its objective. Neither can achieve its own without the cooperation of the other--France even less than the United States. Any discussion of Atlantic policy must therefore begin by tracing the conflicting views of the United States and France.

American policy toward Europe in the post-war period has been remarkably consistent. Greatly influenced by such wise Europeans as Jean Monnet and Robert Schumann, in fact often following their lead, four post-war American administrations have supported movements toward European integration. In the early days of the Marshall Plan, the United States urged that a European organization allocate American economic aid among the individual European countries. It strongly pressed the European Defense Community which would have brought about an integrated European army. When the French Parliament hesitated to ratify that treaty--to which, of course, the United States was not a party--Secretary Dulles threatened an "agonizing reappraisal" of American foreign policy.

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Four arguments were generally advanced on behalf of a federated Europe: to end Europe's internecine wars, to provide a counterweight to the U.S.S.R., to bind Germany indissolubly to the West and to provide an adequate partner for the United States.² American pronouncements always equated a united Europe with full integration on the basis of supranational institutions. Anything less was not considered to be unity.

Prominent among the factors producing the preference for supranational institutions was the conviction that the American experience was directly applicable to Europe. "The United States of America, with its balance of power and Federal-State division, is the unique political experiment in federation, about which we are proud and self-conscious," said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Schaetzel. "We believe that our system works. It is a natural human reaction to believe that it might also work for other people."

² See for example, Douglas MacArthur II, Ambassador to Belgium, "The New Europe--Its Challenge and Its Opportunities for the United States," address to Young Presidents' Organization, Inc., Phoenix, Arizona, April 9, 1962, DOSB, Vol. XLVI, No. 1192 (April 30, 1962), p. 711.

³ J. Robert Schaetzel, "The United States and the Common Market," speech to 1962 Summer Institute of the Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada, August 18, 1962, DOSB, Vol. XLVII, No. 1210 (September 3, 1962), p. 351. See also Christian Herter, *Toward an Atlantic Community*, Harper & Row for the Council on Foreign Relations, N.Y. & Evanston: 1963, pp. 55-6.

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A similar note was struck by President Kennedy in 1962:

The debate now raging in Europe echoes on a grand scale the
debates which took place in this country between 1783 and 1789.
Small states are sometimes fearful of big ones. Big states are
suspicious for historical reasons of one another. Some statesman
cling to traditional forms--others clamor for new ones. And
every eye is on the hostile powers who are never far away. All
this reminds us of our own organic deliberations.⁴

The incentive to urge the American model was especially great
because the nation-state, according to American spokesmen, had become
obsolete. Walt Rostow, Chairman of the Policy Planning Council of the
State Department, argued:

> "...the major historic lesson of the Second World War; namely, that in the world of the second half of the 20th century the individual nation-states of Europe could only execute effectively a major role on the world scene if they were to unite. The arena of world affairs had widened out to embrace the whole of the planet; and the technology of effective power had outstripped the scale of the old states of Europe."

To be sure, the American attitude was very ambivalent: It
exalted the nation-state in emerging areas and looked to nationalism in
Eastern Europe as a counterweight to Soviet Russia, but it denied its
validity in Western Europe where the concept had originated. Nor has
the United States been quite so ready to apply its lessons of the obsolescence
of the nation-state to itself. Nevertheless, the passion of the American
view was not reduced by what might, at first blush, seem like an inconsistency.

4 John F. Kennedy, "Trade and the Atlantic Partnership," remarks to Conference on Trade Policy at Washington, D.C., May 17, 1962, _DOSB_, Vol. XLVI, No. 1197 (June 4, 1962), p. 907.

5
W.W. Rostow, "The Atlantic Community: An American View," speech
to Belgo-American Association, Brussels, May 9, 1963, _DOSB_ Vol. XLVIII,
No. 1249 (June 3, 1963), p. 856.

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There is no evidence that any serious consideration was given to
whether a partnership among equals was really likely to operate as smoothly
or mechanically as official pronouncements suggested. Occasionally the
question was posed hypothetically only to be rejected. McGeorge Bundy
explained the dominant view as follows: "...in the end our confidence
in Europe rests on deeper and more solid political grounds. These peoples
are our cousins by history and culture, by language and religion."
Considering the record of internecine wars of these "cousins" some questions
might have been raised about how well-founded such confidence really was.

The notion that there was a harmony of interests between the United
States and Europe remained unquestioned. Dean Rusk was expressing the
conviction of three post-war administrations when he said:

> In 1947 the American Government decided that it would link the
> recovery of Europe to efforts at European unification. We chose
> quite consciously not to play a balance-of-power game with the
> nations of Europe but to build toward a strong partnership in
> the affairs of the West.⁷

6

McGeorge Bundy, "Policy for the Western Alliance--Berlin and After,"
speech to Economic Club of Chicago, December 6, 1961, DOSB, Vol. XLVI, No.
1185 (March 12, 1962), p. 423.

7

Dean Rusk, "Some Issues of Contemporary History," speech to the
American Historical Association, Washington, D.C., December 30, 1961, DOSB,
Vol. XLVI, No. 1177 (January 15, 1962), p. 86.

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As the years went by one particular form of European organization
came to be identified with the substantive policy which a united Europe
was likely to carry out. In the American view, an "integrated" Europe
would be "outward looking"; a less cohesive Europe would be parochial.
A supranational Europe would become a partner to the United States; a
Europe organized along different lines would remain a burden or perhaps
turn into a rival. In short, an integrated Europe was essential to complete
the "Grand Design." This was expressed by Under Secretary of State Ball:

> As we have felt the increasing weight of the burdens and
> responsibilities of leadership--increased geometrically by the
> existence of a real and present danger from Communist ambitions
> --we have wished, sometimes wistfully, for a closer and stronger
> Atlantic partnership. Yet a strong partnership must almost by
> definition mean a collaboration of equals. When one partner
> possesses over 50 percent of the resources of an enterprise and
> the balance is distributed among 16 or 17 others, the relationship
> is unlikely to work very well. And so long as Europe remained
> fragmented, so long as it consisted merely of nations small by
> modern standards, the potentials for true partnership were always
> limited.⁸

This too was the theme of President Kennedy in his speech at the Paulskirche
in Frankfurt in 1963:

> It is only a fully cohesive Europe that can protect us all
> against fragmentation of the alliance. Only such a Europe
> will permit full reciprocity of treatment across the ocean,
> in facing the Atlantic agenda. With only such a Europe can
> we have a full give-and-take between equals, an equal sharing
> of responsibilities, and an equal level of sacrifice. ⁹

8

George Ball, "Toward an Atlantic Partnership," speech to the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, February 6, 1962, DOSB, Vol. XLVI, No. 1184 (March 5, 1962) p. 366.

9

John F. Kennedy, Address at the Paulskirche, Frankfurt, Germany, June 25, 1963, DOSB, Vol. XLIX, No. 1256 (July 22, 1963), p. 122.

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Partnership presupposed equality of strength; the United States
would concede to a strong and integrated Europe responsibilities withheld
from a coalition of nation-states. Thus Presidents Kennedy and Johnson,
as well as Secretary Rusk, have hinted that the United States was prepared
to grant to a united Europe the nuclear autonomy which it had resisted
giving individual allies--even though many of the arguments made against the
national nuclear forces would seem to apply as strongly to a European nuclear
force.

Although United States spokesmen extolled the virtues of partnership
with a united Europe, they were rather vague about its nature. George
McGhee, then Under-secretary of State, spoke of a "tightly integrated
Europe" and a "somewhat looser Atlantic association." He described common
tasks in aiding underdeveloped nations and in defending the frontiers of
freedom, but he did not spell out the content of these objectives or how
the partnership was going to function in practice. There was an implication
that the partnership would apply to a sharing of the burdens but that the
goals would remain those set by the United States during its period of
dominance--not indeed because we wished to perpetuate our hegemony but
because a decade and a half of unchallenged leadership had accustomed
American leaders to believe that their views inevitably reflected the
general interest.

The American view, for all its idealism, has ignored those factors
which made the American experience unique. The American federal union was
formed on a new continent by states sharing a common historical experience.
The American colonies had jointly fought a war to achieve their freedom.

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They were roughly of the same size. They had no tradition of sovereignty in the conduct of foreign relations. Their peoples were of similar cultural background and spoke the same language.

The situation in Europe differs fundamentally. Every European state is the product of many centuries of a history in which a sense of national identity was often linked to what distinguished a nation from its neighbors. Independence for many European states required a long process of struggle against the domination of other European nations. In other words, the countries of Europe were formed in a manner which emphasized national peculiarities. In Europe, moreover, the conduct of foreign policy and the assumption of responsibility for national defense have been considered among the key attributes of sovereignty. An attempt to abolish the European nation-states, or to reduce their role drastically, represents a much more profound wrench with the past than the establishment of the United States of America did two centuries earlier.

The present-day attitudes of the European states toward the supranational forms of unity are as different as their histories. Smaller countries with a habit of dependence find supranational institutions easier to accept than those which were once major powers. Italy, where the nation-state was never really consolidated, and the Federal Republic of Germany, whose sense of identity was smashed in the war, are less reluctant to be amalgamated in a supranational entity than France or Britain, the countries in Europe with the longest history as great powers.

The relative weakness of the nation-state in Europe in the post-war period had been due partly to Europe's economic weakness and its fear of invasion from the East. But economic

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has recovery tended to reduce Europe's receptivity to America's political has
maxims. This coincided with the belief that the Soviet threat was
ending--a development also fostered by American policy.

These factors might have been counterbalanced had Europe wished
to play the global role envisaged for it by the "Grand Design." But
the process of decolonization has sharply reduced Europe's interest in
extra-European affairs. And for a European role, the nation-state is
not so obsolete as is sometimes alleged. If European countries are
willing to confine their foreign policy to Europe, those joint efforts
that modern conditions require are mostly technical or economic in nature.
These may be left to experts--perhaps even supranational commissions
of experts. But they do not require the supranational political
institutions favored by the United States.

Finally, the assumption that economic integration would inevitably
lead to political unity and that institutions in the economic field could
be transplanted into the political arena has been proved overoptimistic.
In the economic field, problems are primarily technical. Within each
European government, there has been a well-established tradition of
entrusting these matters either to the automatic operation of a market
economy or to a group of experts. A foreign policy by its very nature
involves issues of prestige and power, which are much less suitable for
compromise. Nor is it self-evident that supranational bodies of experts
would necessarily conduct a more "outward looking" policy than established
political leaders. The behavior of the Common Market Commission with

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respect both to Britain's entry into Europe and the Kennedy Round would seem to indicate the opposite.

But whatever the structure, origin or degree of European integration--whether it was the Europe of De Gaulle or the Europe of Monnet--one question could not be postponed indefinitely: What kind of policy would a united Europe pursue? The assumption that a united Europe and the United States would inevitably pursue parallel policies and have similar views about appropriate tactics runs counter to historical experience. A separate identity has usually been established by opposition to a dominant power: The European sense of identity is unlikely to be an exception to this general rule--its motive force could well be to insist on a specifically European view of the world. This is all the more true because a European sense of identity can no longer be nourished by fear of the U.S.S.R. The Soviet threat is thought to be diminishing. Even if the reality of this threat were accepted, it would provide an incentive for American assistance and thus lead to an Atlantic, not a European, conception. In short, a united Europe is not likely to share insisting on our burdens without a major voice in the political direction of the Atlantic world--which is another way of saying that it will challenge American hegemony in Atlantic affairs. This may well be a price worth paying for European unity; but ~~American policy has suffered~~ from an unwillingness to recognize that there was a price to be paid.

Had it not been for General de Gaulle, these problems might have remained dormant for many years. But his emergence as President of France

10

For an elaboration of these points see below, Chapter VIII.

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precipitated a fundamental change in the United States-European dialogue. Deliberately, often cynically, exploiting the ambiguities and ambivalences of the American conception, President de Gaulle has proclaimed a completely different view of Atlantic partnership and European unity. This has produced a bitter, often personal, reaction among those who had considered the previous formula as the only possible one. But outraged pride is not a good guide to policymaking. European-American relations will never again be the same as they were before De Gaulle's press conference of January 14, 1963, which excluded Britain from the Common Market and marked a watershed in European-American relations. Waiting for his disappearance is not a policy but an evasion. It, therefore, becomes essential to try to assess without rancor the policies of the French President.

B. *The Illusionist: De Gaulle's Challenge to the "Grand Design"*

If an international system could be designed with the symmetry of a geometric axiom, the primary concern of allies would be the requirements of the common undertaking. Their efforts would be regulated by criteria of over-all efficiency and on the basis of a division of labor. But such a perfect symmetry is the illusion of Utopians--or of island powers.

Historically aloof and geographically isolated, such nations consider that the main function of foreign policy is to remedy the peril which has caused them to commit themselves to a joint enterprise. Secure in their identity, they expect their allies to find fulfillment in being components of an over-all design. Such was the attitude of Great Britain toward the Continent during the Napoleonic wars.

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A society whose sense of identity is highly developed may find it psychologically easier to deal with the problem of change than a society unsure of itself. Change does not threaten the meaning of existence for a cohesive society as it does for a society wracked by self-doubt. For a cohesive society adaptation becomes a matter of prudent calculation; it is seen as an essentially technical problem. A society which has suffered severe shocks is less flexible. It must balance the benefits of a new set of international arrangements against the dangers of possible moral disintegration. Before it can decide what it wishes to become, it has to rediscover what it is. France has had this problem since the end of the First World War.

Few countries have experienced the travail which France has suffered since it lost much of its young generation in World War I. Victorious in 1918, France knew better than any of its allies how close to defeat it had been. Inchoately, the survivors of that catastrophe felt that France could not stand another trial like the one just surmounted. Deprived of its youth, fearful of its defeated antagonist, feeling misunderstood by its allies, France experienced the inter-war period as an almost uninterrupted succession of frustrations. Domestically, the Third Republic witnessed mounting governmental instability. In foreign policy, France was torn between its premonitions and its sense of impotence. Nothing could have expressed France's sense of insecurity better than the fact that at a moment when its army was the largest in Europe and Germany's was limited by treaty to 100,000 men France began to build the Maginot Line. What made the action all the more poignant was that the Treaty of Versailles had specifically prohibited Germany from stationing military forces in the

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Rhineland. But an attack on France presupposed the remilitarization of that area. In other words, at the height of its victory France felt so insecure that it did not think itself able to prevent the breach of the peace treaty by its disarmed enemy and constructed a defensive line for that contingency.

As if paralyzed by seeing her fears come true, France stood by while Germany rearmed and proceeded to abrogate one after another of the restrictions put on it by the Treaty of Versailles. The French collapse of 1940 was as much moral as military. Even though France emerged among the victors of World War II, its leaders were aware, despite all rhetoric and perhaps because of it, that France had been saved largely through the efforts of others. Once more, peace brought no respite. Instead, the Fourth Republic experienced the same governmental instability as the Third, and in addition it had to go through the searing process of decolonization. Humiliated in 1940, the French army had barely been reconstituted when it was obliged to engage in nearly two decades of frustrating colonial wars, each of which ended in defeat.

President de Gaulle's brutal tactics sometimes give the impression that a powerful, self-confident France has been a permanent feature of the post-war landscape. But during the war in Algeria, France was on the verge of civil war three times in the span of four years. So well has De Gaulle succeeded in his tour de force that even his critics act as if the only problem for Europe were to moderate excesses of French assertiveness; a notion which would have been inconceivable five years ago, if an unanticipated French invasion of Algiers could have been kept in mind when the three years of de Gaulle rule were over. But less than a decade has passed since a wise (and pro-Western) French author could write for a book which could be called a decade.

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...the pretention to indifference. ...is never completely absent. It attracts like nostalgia. ...At the very moment when we are torn out of our solitude, we go on dreaming of it; ...we want to stand by the wayside and watch the traffic go by. ...Our victory in 1918 cost us too dearly. Since then we have wanted to recoup; the result is we have lost everything. Strictly speaking the French nation no longer exists. She is disintegrating at this moment. She proved unable to secure her lands against invasion because she was no longer strong enough to do so alone, and because her allies were not able to come to her aid quickly enough to prevent occupations. This is why France has had such a strong inclination to declare herself neutral. Then no one would have had the right to enter her. ...We are living like a ruined landlord unwilling to seem bankrupt. ...We have not been so unhappy in France for a hundred years; our literature has not been so sad; and only because during this time we have experienced hardly anything but deceptions: the Republic in difficulties, socialism bankrupt, our wealth gone, our wars badly conducted. 11

This spiritual malaise must be understood as the essential background for President de Gaulle's policy. A certain egocentricity on our part causes us to see many of De Gaulle's actions as being primarily motivated by a desire to annoy or to humiliate us. In fact, the central concern of De Gaulle is likely to be quite different. For the greater part of his career, he has had to be an illusionist. In the face of all evidence to the contrary, he has striven to restore France's greatness by his passionate belief in it. At first he was the leader of an insignificant faction of Frenchmen casting their lot with the Allies. His primary task, as he saw it, was to re-establish the identity and the integrity of France. Churchill and Roosevelt could concentrate on the tangible goal of winning the war. To De Gaulle, the war had an intangible purpose. Victory was

11

Brice Parain, "Against the Spirit of Neutrality," Confluence, Vol. 4, No. 4 (January 1956), pp. 370-9.

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empty if it did not also restore the position, indeed the soul, of France.
Churchill and Roosevelt understandably considered this quest peripheral
to their central objective and treated De Gaulle's insistence as an
irritating interruption of more important problems.

The conflict between the pragmatic and the intangible which
started during the war has continued to this day. The United States,
blessed with stable government, its sense of identity enhanced by its
war experience, could pursue single-mindedly whatever technical schemes
its bureaucracy thought up at any given moment. To De Gaulle, governing
a country wracked by a generation of conflict and decades of frustration,
the mode of reaching a goal has been as important as the objective itself.
He judges the merit of a policy not only by technical criteria but by its
contribution to enhancing France's sense of identity.

Though De Gaulle often acts as if opposition to United States
policy were a goal in itself, his deeper purpose may well be pedagogical:
to teach his people and perhaps his Continent the habit of independence
and self-reliance. The "folie de grandeur" of which De Gaulle is so often
accused is a peculiar kind, for it is tied to a profound awareness of the
suffering and disappointments of his country. In 1960 this caused him to
speak as follows:

Once upon a time there was an old country all hemmed in by
habits and circumspection. At one time the richest, the
mightiest people among those in the center of the world stage,
after great misfortunes it came, as it were, to withdraw within
itself. While other peoples were growing around it, it remained
immobile. In an era when the power of States depended upon
their industrial might, the great sources of power were stingily
meted out to it. It had little coal. It had no petroleum.
Furthermore, its population was no longer growing as, in some

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years, it numbered fewer births than deaths. In the doubt and the bitterness which it came to have about itself as a result of this situation, political, social and religious struggles did not cease to divide it. Finally, after two world wars had decimated, ruined and torn it, many in the world were wondering whether it would succeed in getting back on its feet.¹²

De Gaulle has chosen to revitalize France by an act of faith powerful enough to override a seemingly contrary reality. In De Gaulle's view, an almost mystical communion has existed since the war between himself representing the general interest and the French people. Thus, during the revolt in Algiers in 1960, De Gaulle could say: "Finally, I speak to France. Well, my dear country, my old country, here we are together, once again, facing a harsh test."¹³ The effort to achieve greatness required that France regain--wherever possible--the right of independent decision. France could agree with the decisions of others: but it had to make clear that this represented a voluntary act and not the abdication of the impotent.

This is why De Gaulle never tires of insisting on his imperturbability in the face of Soviet threats or American criticisms. During the height of the Berlin crisis of 1960, De Gaulle spoke as follows:

12

Charles de Gaulle, Address on June 14, 1960, Major Addresses, Statements, and Press Conferences of General Charles de Gaulle, May 19, 1958-January 31, 1964 (Henceforth referred to as Major Addresses), French Embassy, Press and Information Division, New York, 1964, p. 79.

13

Major Addresses, *ibid.*, January 29, 1960, p. 74.

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personality to produce De Gaulle's aloof and uncompromising diplomatic style.

To him, being swayed by personal emotion is a form of servitude or of irresponsibility:

> Man "limited by his nature" is "infinite in his desires."
> The world is thus full of opposing forces. Of course, human wisdom has often succeeded in preventing these rivalries from degenerating into murderous conflicts. But the competition of efforts is the condition of life. Our country finds itself confronted today with this law of the species, as it has been for two thousand years.¹⁵

No, the art of statesmanship is to understand the nature of the world and the trend of history. A great leader is not so much clever as lucid and clear-sighted. Grandeur is not simply physical power but strength reinforced by moral purpose. Nor does competition inevitably involve physical conflict. On the contrary, a wise assessment of mutual interests should produce harmony:

> Yes, international life, like life in general, is a battle. The battle which our country is waging tends to unite and not to divide, to honor and not to debase, to liberate and not to dominate. Thus it is faithful to its mission, which always was and which remains human and universal.

De Gaulle's nationalism is in the tradition of Mazzini, who thought that nations which have achieved their independence would respect the dignity of others. His diplomacy is in the style of Bismarck, who strove ruthlessly to achieve what he considered Prussia's rightful place

15 *Major Addresses*, ibid., May 31, 1960, p. 75.

16 *Ibid.*, p. 78.

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but who then tried to preserve the new equilibrium through prudence,
restraint and moderation.
LA

However, De Gaulle's conception of the role of the nation-state
inevitably clashed with the American conviction of its obsolescence.
Washington considers insistène on autonomy divisive and as implying a
desire for separate, perhaps antagonistic, policies. Paris regards the
attacks on its independent stance as indicative of hegemonial designs.

Both sides have pressed their arguments with such vigor because
from its perspective each is right. De Gaulle is correct in insisting
that independence does not exclude cooperation. But he has stressed his
autonomy so insistently and with such abrupt methods that French
separateness at times seems to have become an end in itself. The United
States is correct in affirming an underlying community of interests. But
our emphasis on organizational devices blinds us to psychological realities.
One particular method of European integration and Atlantic partnership has
become as much an end to America as the affirmation of independence has to
France. Involved, ultimately, are differing conceptions of truth. The
United States, with its technical, pragmatic approach, often has analytical
truth on its side. De Gaulle, with his consciousness of the trials of
France for the past generation, is frequently closer to the historical truth.

Disagreement, of course, is not confined to theoretical issues. In
his effort to vindicate a more autonomous role for France, De Gaulle
challenges many basic American policies with respect to European unity,
nuclear policy and East-West relations. The problem is not that De Gaulle