740.5/7–1254

No. 247
The United States High Commissioner for Germany (Conant) to the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant)

secret

Dear Livie: The situation here in Germany continues to deteriorate, as we expected. The SPD attacks the Chancellor and the U.S. and has turned into a pro-French party! (I think the attitude is purely based on expediency and may be short-lived.) At least one group of German generals is preparing plans for an alternative that envisions an old-fashioned army massed on the frontier. In short, a great deal of nonsense is being talked publicly and privately. Unless the miracle occurs and the French Assembly ratifies the EDC before adjournment, the situation will get a lot worse before it gets better.

The purpose of this letter is to offer an amendment to the HICOG proposal based on one recent development, namely the talks between American officers and Germans in Blank’s office.1 [Page 584] These were recently authorized, you will recall. They have started off very successfully, I am told, by Tuthill. If Washington will continue to give us a green light in this direction, I believe Blank’s office and his generals can be kept usefully busy for another 4 to 6 months on real planning, which up to now has been impossible. It is my guess that though these talks are very secret, the fact they are proceeding will take the heat off the Chancellor from one direction. Therefore, it will probably not be necessary to do anything overt about military preparations for the next six months. Nevertheless, before long I’m afraid we must face up to the rearmament problem and my present thinking is still along the lines of the HICOG proposal.

Though the Chancellor says now that EDC and the whole European integration movement will be dead and gone forever if the French don’t ratify this summer, I believe a second round may be possible, that is, if we can give the Chancellor some tangible evidence of our desire to return sovereignty at once either by treaty or by HICOM action and if Blank’s office can be satisfied. The second round would emerge in the fall and winter. If this fails, then even I would be willing to throw in the sponge. But I do hope we can have a second try. A German national army within NATO is for me a very dubious undertaking, even assuming the French would agree, and I see no evidence to indicate they would. (Would it require action by the French Assembly,—an important point?)

What to me is far more important than the way the Germans rearm is the spirit in which they do so. The significance of the EDC is not that it is a method for controlling the German soldiers, but a guide line as to the type of Europe to be defended. And here I come to the second point of this letter, namely, my desire to emphasize the importance of the Saar. I would be relatively optimistic about the picture of Europe if I could envision a German National Army in NATO and the Saar settled as envisioned by the AdenauerTeitgen memorandum.2 For then I think the Coal and Steel Community would continue to develop and the EPC come into existence. In short, the Chancellor’s European policy would have been, on the whole, justified. But a German National Army with the Saar still in the hands of the French occupation (as it is today) and the Coal and Steel Community in a state of dissolution is quite another story. Why? Because the moods of Germany under these two alternatives would be as different as night from day.

I believe that the U.S. has reason to intervene more actively in the Saar than we have been willing to do in the past. (How, of [Page 585] course, depends on the state of negotiations on sovereignty and rearmament.) Not only is an unsettled Saar a political handicap to us, it is also somewhat of a military one as our lines of communication from Kaiser-lautern to Metz run through the Saar.

If Western Europe is to be successfully defended for the long pull, France and Germany must work together. This means eventual European integration; the Saar solution which is contemplated is dependent on the creation of a European Community. But for the present France is like a man mentally incapable of attending to business. Can not the U.S. act as an interim trustee, so to speak, and get ahead with the German part of EDC by starting the rearmament of a sovereign Federal Republic under a plan which assumes EDC as the goal? I don’t know whether the thought behind this question makes sense or not, but I am sending this letter along at all events. You are free to file it, or even burn it!

With all good wishes,

As ever,

James B. Conant
  1. These talks have not been further identified.
  2. For documentation on the AdenauerTeitgen agreement on the Saar, see Documents 686 ff.