Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Western European Integration and Security, Canada, Volume VII, Part 1

207. Memorandum of Discussion at the 400th Meeting of the National Security Council⁰

March 26, 1959.

[Here follow a paragraph listing the participants at the meeting and agenda items 1 and 2.]

3. Long-Range NATO and Related European Regional Problems (NSC 5433/1; Memo for NSC, subject: “North Atlantic Treaty Organization”, dated January 22, 1957; NSC 5810/1; NSC Action No. 2017; NIE 20–58; NIE 100–59; Memos for NSC, subject: “Long-Range NATO and Related European Regional Problems”, dated March 11 and 23, 1959)¹

Mr. Gordon Gray briefed the Council on the Discussion Paper² pointing out early in his briefing the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they could not find in the Discussion Paper a clear requirement for a separate policy on the subject although they thought a broadening of the issues might develop a requirement for an NSC policy on long-range NATO and related problems.

(A copy of Mr. Gray’s briefing note is filed in the Minutes of the Meeting and another is appended to this Memorandum).³

Mr. Gray then posed the first of the four major policy issues for discussion. The first issue was: “What should the U.S. seek as the NATO military posture for the 1960’s? Will there be a requirement for a change in the current NATO sword and shield concept?”

After explaining the nature of the issue, Mr. Gray invited General Twining to give his views as to the answer.

General Twining did not reply directly to Mr. Gray’s question but instead repeated the written views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the effect that most of the policy issues raised in the Discussion Paper related to internal problems of the NATO countries. If we were to have a policy paper on NATO, that paper should be very much broader in character than seemed to be indicated by the issues raised in the Discussion Paper this morning.

Secretary Herter expressed himself as in agreement with the views just provided by General Twining. He also said that with respect to the Discussion Paper, there had not been sufficient time to staff the paper out in the Department of State. Accordingly, he felt himself obliged to reserve judgment as to the necessity for a policy paper on NATO. In any event, the posture of NATO at the present time was good despite the actions of President De Gaulle. The main consideration before us at present was the task of maintaining the unity and solidarity of NATO. Moreover, at the forthcoming April 2-April 4 NATO meeting in Washington, there would be no discussion of the military aspects of NATO. What we hoped to achieve at this meeting was a reiteration of the solidarity of NATO in the face of the Soviet threat. The State Department people have been very busy dealing with this problem and they feel that the military issues and questions will require more extended discussion with General Norstad.

In reply to the views of General Twining that a NATO paper if there were to be one, should address itself to broader problems than those indicated in the Discussion Paper, Mr. Gray invited the Council’s attention to the note on Page 5 of the Discussion Paper which pointed out that the possibilities inherent in East-West agreements, our mutual troop withdrawals, regional arms inspection, and limited bans on nuclear weapons were separate questions under study by the working groups on the Berlin crisis and for that reason were not considered in this Paper. Mr. Gray then said that he would at least run over briefly the other three issues even though the Council was not disposed to discuss them at this time.⁴ He concluded his comments by stating that the Discussion Paper had been put up to the Council, not with the objective of securing the Council’s answers to the basic issues raised, but to determine whether or not the Planning Board should proceed to formulate a statement of policy on NATO and related European regional problems.

When Mr. Gray had completed his statement, the President turned to General Twining and inquired how much the Joint Chiefs of Staff had done by way of reviewing the entire world posture of the U.S. The President said that he did not wish to appear rigid but that when we had originally worked out the concepts on which we had based the deployment of U.S. Forces in Europe back in 1951, these concepts had been very realistic. Were we still being realistic in our concepts about the role of U.S. Forces or had we diverged? Back at this time it was clear, said the President, that the U.S. had in mind three major missions for U.S. Forces deployed overseas. The first of these missions was the obvious one of deterring Communist aggression. The second was to help friendly nations around the world to keep these outposts defended with their own ground troops. The third mission was to provide for the ground forces of the outpost nations a degree of mobility; that is, U.S. naval and air strength would be used to reinforce local ground forces in the outpost countries.

Specifically, said the President, the six U.S. divisions which we had deployed to the NATO area were originally intended to be our response to an emergency situation. These divisions were sent in order to encourage the European nations to become the first line of their own defense against the Soviet Union. Since that time we seemed to have abandoned this realistic concept. Now these Western European countries and others were calling for more and more U.S. Forces to be deployed. Yet we must not be so dispersed in our military deployments that we cannot act promptly to meet an emergency. What we need for an emergency is not a dispersal of U.S. military forces but on the contrary a concentration of them. We should try to bring pressure all around the world so that the local forces in all these countries constitute the first line of defense, a line of defense which we can assist with our mobile reserve forces. This was the concept that we were all talking about back at the time of the New Look in 1953.

General Twining commented that the MC-70 Plan⁵ was a precise illustration of what the President was complaining about. We were now stuck with our role in the MC-70 Plan.

Speaking quite forcefully, the President continued his exposition, noting that General De Gaulle shows no hesitation in telling us what he proposes to do here and there with French military forces. This illustrated, said the President, his point that many of these countries have lost any sense of their own responsibility for the defense of Europe. The President admitted that he did not know how we were going to get out of the responsibility represented by the deployment of our troops abroad but he certainly knew that we had strayed far from our original concept of the purposes our troops abroad were to serve. These U.S. Forces abroad were now looked upon as permanent features of local defense.

The President then indicated that he would like to see the whole of this matter talked about or studied about by a staff which was not committed to a Service point of view. General Twining replied that while the Joint Chiefs of Staff had no such study in hand at the present time, they could certainly start one.

The President repeated his view that we always seem to start out on one of these moves in an emergency and when we wake up our emergency deployment has become a permanent U.S. policy.

Secretary Herter said that the preliminary report of the Draper Committee⁶ had raised some of the questions which bothered the President. The latter replied by stating that giving $400 million to the NATO countries to improve their own military defense would in the long run be much cheaper than maintaining all these U.S. divisions in the NATO area.

Mr. Gordon Gray then stressed the importance of the question of what the U.S. was going to say with regard to this recommendation for $400 million in the Draper Report. The President replied facetiously that we should tell the NATO countries that this is our problem. The President then went on to observe that once the U.S. has achieved a certain level of military security, the Mutual Security Assistance becomes more important than Military Assistance. If we are going to allocate more and more money for weapons and cut down on other kinds of assistance to friendly countries, we would soon find ourselves in very bad shape.

Secretary Herter said that it appeared to him that there were two aspects to the problem under discussion. The first aspect was what kind of U.S. presence in Europe was necessary in order to provide an adequate military deterrent to the Soviets. The second aspect was what kind of U.S. presence was required in Europe in order to give NATO the requisite political and psychological support and cohesion. The determination of the latter phase of the problem was particularly ticklish.

The President thereafter commented as follows with respect to the question posed by the Discussion Paper; namely whether or not we should proceed to develop a policy paper on long-range NATO and related European regional problems. The President said that he did not believe that at this moment it would be wise to put too much of our talent on this problem. In the near future we would be in too much of a state of flux. Accordingly, he would not suggest doing the NATO paper at this time. To do it now would be to build on shifting sands, at least over the next few months. It might, he said to Mr. Gray, be a good idea to give his people a week’s rest.

Mr. Gray then indicated his concern whether Secretary Herter felt that he had sufficient guidance with respect to what to do about the Draper Report to handle the matter at the NATO meeting. In reply Secretary Herter again pointed out that no military matters were on the agenda for discussion at the NATO meeting on April 2 and that he felt that he did have sufficient guidance to deal with the political issues which would be discussed at the meeting.

Secretary Quarles warned that it might prove very difficult at the forthcoming NATO meeting to confine the discussion to purely political issues.

The President then commented that he thought that in the end he would support the recommendation of the Draper Committee for the additional $400 million. This would of course, he admitted, raise severe budgetary problems and we must try to find some way to scale down some of our more costly domestic programs. Mr. Stans observed that speaking from the standpoint of the Bureau of the Budget, he very much hoped that no commitments would be made at the NATO meetings with respect to the recommendations of the Draper Committee. The Bureau of the Budget would very much prefer first to go through the regular review process. Secretary Quarles stated that the Department of Defense felt that it must submit a bill of particulars with respect to the recommendations of the Draper Committee. Such a bill of particulars was being prepared in Defense and when completed it would be sent to both the Bureau of the Budget and the State Department. Even though this problem was not on the agenda of the forthcoming NATO meeting, Secretary Quarles expressed the conviction that this Government must be ready soon to move in on the problem. He therefore suggested a discussion of the Draper Report at an early Council meeting.

The National Security Council:⁷

a. Noted and discussed the Discussion Paper on the subject, transmitted by the reference memorandum of March 11, 1959; in the light of the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, circulated by the reference memorandum of March 23, 1959.

b. Noted the President’s view that the preparation of a policy on long-range NATO and related European regional problems should be deferred for the time being.

Note: Immediately preceding this NSC meeting, the President met with the Vice President, the Acting Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Assistant Secretary of State Merchant, and the White House Staff Secretary and Assistant, to discuss policy issues related to German reunification, European security, and Berlin, involved in preparation for negotiations with the USSR.⁸

S. Everett Gleason

0. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Top Secret; Eyes Only. Drafted by Gleason.
1. NSC 5433/1, “Immediate U.S. Policy Toward Western Europe,” September 25, 1954, is printed in Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, vol. V, pp. 1268–1271. The January 22, 1957, memorandum has not been found. NSC 5810/1, “Basic National Security Policy,” May 5, 1958, is scheduled for publication in volume III. Regarding NSC Action No. 2017, see footnote 4, Document 163. NIE 20–58 is printed as Document 34. NIE 100–59, “Estimate of the World Situation,” is in Department of State, INR–NIE Files. The March 11 memorandum transmitted to the NSC the discussion paper on the subject. (Eisenhower Library, Sp. Asst. for Nat. Sec. Affairs Records, NATO) The March 23 memorandum transmitted to the NSC the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; neither the memorandum nor the JCS paper has been found.
2. See footnote 1 above.
3. Not printed. The minutes of all National Security Council meetings held during the Eisenhower administration are in the National Archives and Records Administration, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, Official Meeting Minutes File.
4. The other three issues as listed in Gray’s briefing note were as follows: How can the NATO countries support the defensive forces required for the 1960s? How should the United States deal with the problems raised by the desire of other NATO nations for an independent European nuclear capability? In general, how should the broader Atlantic Community of NATO be related to the Western European integration movement in the years ahead?
5. See Document 131.
6. President Eisenhower appointed William H. Draper, Jr., on November 24, 1958, as chairman of a special committee to undertake an analysis of the military assistance aspects of the Mutual Security Program. (Department of State Bulletin, December 15, 1958, p. 954) The preliminary report has not been found.
7. Paragraphs a and b and the Note that follows constitute NSC Action No. 2062, approved by the President on March 31. (Department of State, S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action by National Security Council)
8. A memorandum of this conversation with the President is printed in volume VIII, Document 245.