Office of the Historian

215. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson1

Washington, November 7, 1967.

SUBJECT

  • Germany and the N.P.T.

This is a good time to get Secretary Rusk’s appraisal of where we are going on the N.P.T. Last week we made good progress on Article III (the safeguards clause):

  • —The Euratom countries could not get together on their own Article III (only the Germans presented an “illustrative” draft)2 and contented themselves with giving us five “principles,”3 which we probably can live with.
  • —We were able to hand to the Russians at Geneva on Thursday4 a revision of their own draft Article III incorporating much of the five Euratom principles, plus some key language from the German “illustration.” Preliminary Russian reaction was reasonably forthcoming.

We still must be particularly careful with the Germans. There is a strong possibility that they will not ratify the N.P.T. even if (as seems likely) they grudgingly sign it. German adherence, however, is vital to the success of the Treaty. Yet we cannot afford to put so much pressure on them that we give nationalists an easy means of attacking Germany’s U.S. ties. The political situation comes down to this:

  • —Attitudes among top German politicians and officials range from total hostility, represented by people like Strauss5 and the right-wing press, to grudging acceptance, represented by Kiesinger and Brandt.
  • —The basic German dissatisfaction with the Treaty makes it easier for people like Strauss to propagate the view that the N.P.T. represents a U.S.-Soviet “deal” made behind Germany’s back at her expense.
  • —The N.P.T. is not yet a big public issue; so far the issues it presents have been too complex to capture popular attention. We can be grateful, in fact, that opposition has focused on Article III, perhaps the most complicated aspect of the Treaty, rather than on basic principles. Nevertheless, the danger we face is that someone like Strauss will try to blow the Treaty up into a nationalist issue.

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We do not yet know how the Russians will finally react to our revised Article III. If they insist on their original formulation we will face a dilemma:

  • —We must push the Russians hard to meet German concerns regarding Article III. Not to do so would give the Germans an excuse for rejecting the Treaty, and would seriously damage our relations with them. (We can ease things some by close and high-level consultations.)
  • —On the other hand, an impasse with the Russians now would probably make it impossible to put a draft Treaty before this year’s UN General Assembly and thus could delay the Treaty for as much as a year, if not kill it altogether.

You will want to get Secretary Rusk’s assessment of these risks.

W.W. Rostow 6
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Rostow Files, Meetings with the President, July thru December 1967, Box 1. Secret.↩
  2. Not further identified.↩
  3. See Document 216.↩
  4. November 2; see Document 214.↩
  5. Strauss and his followers, who represented one of two powerful, often opposing wings of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, the former Gaullists, feared that the Non-Proliferation Treaty would preclude the creation of a European Nuclear Force which they considered to be a necessary step toward European unity.↩
  6. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩