264. Memorandum of Conference With President Eisenhower0
OTHERS PRESENT
- Mr. Robert Bowie, Gen. Goodpaster
Mr. Bowie said he wanted to give a brief oral report on the ten-year study on NATO that he has been making.1 On the military side, he said he sees an urgent need for a new look at the strategy of NATO in light of the Soviet nuclear development. Action is needed respecting, first, a strategic strike capability in the European area, and, second, the “shield” forces.
As to the strategic capability, the Europeans want to have some nuclear weapons under their own control. Mr. Bowie said that the national [Page 612] programs now being carried forward are very bad and are having a divisive effect. He suggests instead a multilateral program. As the first stage of such a program, the United States would assign some Polaris submarines with missiles to NATO. The assignment should be irrevocable, with a commitment that we will not pull them out [6-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] As the second stage, we would help the Europeans develop indigenous strike forces of a multilateral, multinational character (even including mixed crews in all probability). We would have to agree on the method of use of such a collective force. It might be that we would keep the warheads in our possession, [less than 1 line of source text not declassified].
Mr. Bowie said he saw a number of merits for these schemes over the national force approach. Also, he thought the use of the Polaris was much better than proposals for land-based weapons, [2 lines of source text not declassified].
With regard to the shield forces, Mr. Bowie thought that the non-nuclear elements should be enhanced and brought up to something like the 28–30 divisions contemplated in SHAPE plans. These should be equipped for, and capable of, non-nuclear fighting. The Europeans are not drawn with enthusiasm to the prospect of tactical nuclear war on their own homelands. He did not think that there could be a stage of conflict between the non–nuclear and the all–out strategic attack—in other words, there can be no war limited to tactical nuclear war in Europe. Accordingly, he felt we should take a very hard look at our MRBM proposals and our tactical nuclear planning. He thought we should have enough tactical nuclear weapons of up to several hundred mile range to prevent an enemy from being able to mass forces against us. He did not see reason or need to go to a 1,200 mile missile.
At this point the President commented on Mr. Bowie’s remarks. He said he was in accord with the first part of Bowie’s thesis—about the unsatisfactory state of the alliance insofar as atomic cooperation is concerned. The difficulty in his judgment is not with the Europeans but with our own Congress, which strives to keep in its own hands details of military foreign policy and similar operations. He said the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy is unconstitutional in its functions. The President said he agreed that we are not going to have a tactical nuclear war in Western Europe. In fact, he said he cannot see any chance of keeping any war in Europe from becoming a general war. For this reason he thought we must be ready to throw the book at the Russians should they jump us. He did not see how there could be such a thing as a limited war in Europe, and thought we would be fooling ourselves and our European friends if we said we could fight such a war without recourse to nuclear weapons. If massive land war operations such as the Ludendorff offensive in early 1918 in World War I were to occur, he was sure [Page 613] that nations would use every weapon available to them. Mr. Bowie said that he did not see the Soviets attempting to mount a massive land attack in Europe. The point is psychological and political more than military. If the Europeans think that they are in a situation where they cannot resist at all if they do not use all-out nuclear attack, the probability becomes great that they would not resist and accordingly could not prevent Soviet encroachment. What he is suggesting is that we should be careful that we would not end up deterring ourselves.
The President said he thinks it is of the greatest importance to have this kind of thinking. He assured Mr. Bowie he would read his report, when it is available, most carefully. He noted that the Bowie proposal is the antithesis of De Gaulle’s line of thought. De Gaulle apparently wants the atomic weapons completely in his own hands. Only when he has these things himself will he talk about “collective forces”. He thinks De Gaulle gives only lip service to the basic idea of NATO. Mr. Bowie acknowledged that these proposals will probably not be acceptable to De Gaulle. However, one of their merits is that they permit us to go ahead with the first step. He also noted that officials in the French Government below De Gaulle do not agree with his approach and philosophy. The President commented that the ability to carry out the first step seems to be dependent upon the Congress. Mr. Bowie said this matter is not completely clear, since the weapons will in fact be retained in our hands, and the President will say that he will consider SACEUR’s decision as his own. The President commented that if the Europeans are not willing to accept the idea of collective defense by multiple rather than national forces, the whole NATO concept will fall apart. Mr. Bowie agreed with the qualification that if the four or five big industrial powers will not work intimately together in the next ten years, we are in trouble.
The President said he has very much on his mind the question as to how NATO can act in harmony on a world-wide scale. Perhaps a geographical division of effort would be possible, with the French concentrating on their community, the British on the Commonwealth, the Germans perhaps on the Mid-East, and ourselves elsewhere. This did not really look like a feasible scheme to him, however. Mr. Bowie said that the present may be a critical point in time in one respect. The British, in his judgment, should throw their lot in with the continent. This is an historical opportunity for them, and perhaps for us to influence them. He suggested that we put our weight behind this. The President commented that Adenauer seems to be pulling back somewhat from the European concept. He added he thought it would be good to see Britain in this grouping. Mr. Bowie agreed that Britain is the key element to the success of this idea. The President thought it could be presented to them in terms that they would be going back to the balance of power, contributing their wisdom, experience and sturdiness to European affairs. Mr. Bowie [Page 614] thought we should tell them that they have to get into the European grouping in order to make these qualities effective.
The President recalled that he had told Churchill years ago that Britain is faced with three choices and will soon have to adopt one of them: to make the Commonwealth a single nation (which seems impractical); to join up with the continent; or to join the U. S. as several additional states. Mr. Churchill did not welcome the suggestion. Mr. Bowie repeated that the next few months in his opinion are a critical turning point. He thought Adenauer has lost his nerve over the European approach, and that the British are capitalizing on this to try to water down the European Community. He thought it should not be watered down, but should be developed as a strong political grouping.
[3 lines of source text not declassified] It will be more difficult, and possibly impossible, to get around the problem of Commonwealth preference. Mr. Bowie observed that Commonwealth preferences are a wasting asset, both for the British and for the other Commonwealth members. The President commented that the Canadians, for example, are at the moment very Commonwealth-conscious, trying to orient their trade to Britain.
The President said he thought he agreed with all of Mr. Bowie’s remarks except the possibility of having a land struggle in Europe. Mr. Bowie said his proposal is that, if we have the capability to conduct some operations of this kind, we will probably not need it. The President said he felt sure we would never see another grinding type of conflict along the lines of World War I. He recognized that perhaps there has been a gap in his own thinking regarding this question. Since the costs of developing and maintaining such a force would be quite large we come to a matter of priorities. Our gold outflow has been such that we cannot take on too much of a burden of supporting the development of conventional forces. Mr. Bowie thought that we should aim at strategic forces up to a couple of hundred missiles. We could cut on tactical nuclear forces and put the savings into the shield. The President agreed that if we have Polaris submarines there should not be a need for so many tactical missiles. He asked me to arrange to have General Norstad come in the next time he is in the States, preferably with Mr. Bowie. I commented that he will be here in mid-September.
The President said the overall question is to face up to the dilemma of how we make ourselves secure in our alliance without destroying the alliance. This is the real problem that De Gaulle has raised. He asked me to set up a “couple of hours” for the discussion he mentioned. He said if the scheme looks reasonable, he would be ready to battle with de Gaulle about it.
Brigadier General, USA
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diaries. Top Secret. Drafted by Goodpaster on August 19.↩
- For an extract of Bowie’s report, see Document 266.↩