205. Letter From President Kennedy to Chancellor Adenauer0
Dear Mr. Chancellor: Secretary McNamara has just come back and reported to me his long conversation with you.1 He has suggested that it might be useful for me to send you a letter commenting on some of the things which you and he talked about, and I think his suggestion is a good one. As he reports the conversation, you talked about two major topics. The larger of them is the question of the basic policy of the West toward the Soviet Union, in which, as I understand it, your worry is that the U.S. may be too easily beguiled by the smiles and tricks of the Soviet Government.
I understand this concern, but I must tell you in all frankness that I do not think it is justified. It seems to me, in fact, as far from the mark as the kind of thing I sometimes hear from political groups in this country who say that it is wrong to trust the democratic commitment and the loyalty to the Alliance of the Federal Republic. The truth is, in my judgment, that one of the wisest things our two countries have done the last fifteen years is to trust each other, and I think the record of the United States Government as a whole, and of this Administration in particular, makes it pretty clear that we are not disposed to be taken in by Soviet duplicity.
I myself believe that it is much too soon to throw our hats in the air because of a single agreement on a single subject, the limited test ban—important as that subject is. I believe that we have reached even this small understanding as much through our strength and resolution as through the process of negotiation, and I recognize, as you do, that we are dealing still with a government which has repeatedly posed threats to the freedom of West Berlin and which, as late as October of last year, undertook a peculiarly dangerous and reckless act of duplicity in Cuba. So we are not under illusions about the Soviet Government, and you may be quite sure that Secretary McNamara, who has pressed so hard and so successfully for a strengthening of Western defense in the last three years, is not a man who is likely to be lulled into forgetfulness or [Page 555] neglect of his duty by a single limited agreement. It is Secretary McNamara, after all, who has been my chief lieutenant in a process of reinforcement which has added nine billion dollars a year to our defense budget, and has increased the number of our battle-ready divisions by forty per cent. It was with Secretary McNamara that I called up 150,000 Reserves at the height of the Berlin crisis in 1961. And he and I feel, just as you do, that this is not time to let down our guard.
It may be, as you say, that there is some danger of relaxation in Europe, and you can count on us to work energetically against any such tendency. That is one reason why Secretary McNamara has pressed so hard in Bonn to find ways and means of meeting the overseas cost of the great forces which we have placed in Germany for the common defense.
Our own commitment and alertness, of course, have to be world-wide. If the Chinese should break out into new acts of aggression, it is only the United States among Western countries that will have the necessary means and determination for reply. We are the only Western power fully engaged in a two-front struggle in the cold war, and I think there is little reason for any feeling that we are blind to its dangers and demands.
Let me repeat that I do understand and respect your honest concern here, for I recognize also that in a large and varied country like this one there will always be people who can bring you reports that this or that individual or group is spreading dangerous opinions. But such rumors deserve to be set against the reality of what our Governments have done together for fifteen years.
As to the particular question of the limited test ban treaty, I am glad to see both in Secretary McNamara’s and in William Tyler’s reports that you do regard it as a success, although you have some specific questions about its possible impact on the status of the regime in East Germany. I too think it a success, for reasons which I stated at length last week and with which I will not bother you again now.2 I do not think it matters much where a treaty of this kind is signed or who claims the credit for it. The point about the treaty is that it makes sense for the world and that it does not jeopardize the essential security of either side. That is what makes it possible and useful.
The problem of the status of the East German regime is an important one, and I fully recognize your special concern with it. In our judgment, fully adequate precautions have been taken on this point. We do not think that either as a whole or in its separate parts does the treaty create any danger of increased recognition or international status for the East German regime. The use of the term “states,” which goes back a [Page 556] year, and the reference to sovereign rights, which is a product of the more recent negotiations, are both of them standard phrases which do not confer any new standing upon any regime which adheres to the treaty, and this solid legal judgment is one which we are prepared to make clear as often as is necessary. Moreover, we believe that the new process of accession is distinctly advantageous to us from this point of view, in that the Federal Republic, which is recognized by all three depository governments, has an opportunity to deposit its accession without challenge from any of them, while the Pankow regime will obviously have to confine its accession to the USSR. Thus the process of adherence itself will make it clear which regime is recognized by all, and which is a puppet of one.
Having heard Secretary McNamara’s report, I have asked Dean Rusk to follow up with a visit in Bonn over this weekend, particularly so that you may be able to talk with him about the wider problems of our dealings with the Soviet Union. You will find him both careful and determined. You may be sure that he commands my full confidence. He won his diplomatic spurs in the first hard months of the Korean war, and you may speak to him in full assurance that neither he nor the Government for which he speaks is less deserving of your trust than any with which you have dealt in the past.3
With warm personal regards,
Sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 15–1 US/Kennedy. Secret. The source text bears no drafting information. The letter was transmitted to Bonn in telegram 374, August 6 at 9:58 p.m., with the instruction that it be delivered as soon as possible. (Ibid., DEF 18–4)↩
- See Document 203. The President, Ball, and McNamara discussed McNamara’s conversation with Adenauer at a meeting at the White House at 5:35 p.m. on August 5, and in a telegram to Moscow at 9 p.m. that day Kennedy advised Secretary Rusk that, in view of the Chancellor’s anxiety and suspicion about the Test Ban Treaty, he should stop in Bonn on the way back to Washington. (Tosec 30; Department of State, Central Files, ORG 7 S)↩
- See footnote 2, Document 203.↩
- On August 17 Chancellor Adenauer thanked the President for this letter and for having Secretary Rusk stop in Bonn to brief him on his talks in Moscow. The Chancellor continued that this briefing and Rusk’s testimony before the Senate on the Test Ban Treaty had allayed the serious reservations that the Federal Government had about the Moscow agreement. (Letter to the President, transmitted in telegram 652 from Bonn, August 17; Department of State, Central Files, POL 15–1 W GER)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩