Editorial Note
Exploratory discussions between officials of the United States and United Kingdom relating to command problems in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern areas were held in Washington on May 16 and May 24, 1951. Among others representing the United States were Messrs. Matthews, Nitze, Bonbright, and McGhee of the Department of State and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The British delegation was led by Ambassador Sir Oliver Franks and Air Chief Marshal Sir William Elliot.
At the opening of the talks, United States officials pressed for resolution of the Mediterranean command problem without an attempt at that time to resolve command arrangements in the Middle East where neither NATO nor the United States had substantial interests or responsibilities. Franks, who subsequently admitted that he had not come to the first session with any firm instructions, countered with a defense of British desires to see established a Supreme Commander, [Page 523] Mediterranean, who would be British, and under him a Commander in Chief responsible for all naval forces in the Mediterranean, who would be American. Franks stated that British thinking was informed by the conception of the Mediterranean area as a distinct strategic entity—a “unitary sea”—washing the shores of both Europe and the Middle East; he also admitted that the United Kingdom hoped for “some degree of equivalence” for itself “between the picture in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic”, i.e., an exact reversal of roles so that as British commanders were currently envisaged as occupying a subordinate role in the Atlantic, they would be supreme over American commanders in the Mediterranean.
Admiral Sherman replied that he rejected the idea of resolving the Mediterranean command problem on the basis of that proposed for the Atlantic because he did not like the existing Atlantic arrangement with its plethora of subordinate commands controlling “rather meager resources”. After some further discussion in which Sir Roger Makins pressed the wishes of his Government to have a Supreme Command, Mediterranean, General Collins suggested that the naval perspective was not a sound basis for judgment, that the Mediterranean should be viewed chiefly as a line of communication, and that during World War II most of the fighting in the region had taken place on the ground or in the air. He added that General Eisenhower currently envisaged a NATO front stretching no further than to Yugoslavia and Greece and therefore the Middle East should be a separate area under British control. Sherman replied, inter alia; “The danger is that in trying to meet desirable political and emotional views we end up with a bad military arrangement”.
After further discussion, attention focused on the promise and problems of establishing a separate Middle East Command under a British Supreme Commander with the naval commander-in-chief Mediterranean under NATO responsible for the supply line from the NATO front to the Middle East. Among the problems of an MEC would be (a) the paucity of resources which the United States could provide even though the Joint Chiefs admitted that American interests in the Middle Eastern region were growing with the possible admission of Turkey to NATO and the existence of United States training missions in Turkey and Iran, and (b) problems with the French with respect to administrative and prestige factors involved in Middle East command arrangements.
At the conclusion of the first meeting, however, the Americans expressed no objection to Franks’ informing London that (1) proposals for a Supreme Allied Commander Middle East (to be British) had been raised and considered; (2) that a single naval commander for the entire Mediterranean area who would be American seemed preferable to the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and (3) that while the above arrangements [Page 524] were being further worked out, the appointment of Admiral Fechteler as SACLANT should be pressed.
At the second meeting, discussions continued without a binding conclusion or set of conclusions being reached. United States officials were willing to accept the concept of a separate but interlocking Middle East command structure with NATO, but lengthy discussion ensued on the British proposal for a supreme naval commander in the Mediterranean. Sherman argued that the Mediterranean area was not a strategic entity and he raised the issue of properly demarcating lines of responsibility, using the Balkan region as an example. As the meeting closed, General Hull of the United States Army proposed agreement in principle to establish a Middle East command within “a reasonable time” and Ambassador Franks acknowledged Sherman’s objections to a unified Mediterranean naval command that might be under British control by admitting that “one major fact is that the forces that can be imported into that area—and they are naval and air and they are American—should be under American control”. With these acknowledgments of continuing dilemmas, the meeting agreed to inform General Eisenhower of the discussions and adjourned.
These two meetings were in a series of several inaugurated in early 1951. For further documentation on Anglo-American meetings, see volume iv . The full minutes of the meetings of May 16 and May 24 are in the PPS files, lot 64 D 563, 720 UK.