Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XIII, Western Europe Region

168. Telegram From President Johnson to Prime Minister Wilson¹

Washington, May 21, 1966, 0005Z.

CAP 66307. President to Prime Minister.

I have given further thought and study to the problems posed for us by General De Gaulle’s decisions and I hope to send you my thoughts on these matters in the near future. Meanwhile, Dean Rusk and George Ball have had a good visit with George Thomson² and I think we are in basic agreement as to how to proceed.

As you may have noted in my talk on the occasion of the Polish millennium,³ I share your view that we should actively explore possibilities for the east from our Atlantic base.

I know Chancellor Erhard will be visiting you next week, and your talks can be very important: taking account of the comments in your letter of March 29,⁴ I would like to make several points that may be relevant to those talks.

The heart of the matter is this: so long as France and Germany were working closely together to build an integrated Europe there was some assurance of stability in German policy and attitudes. Now that France is no longer taking part in this joint effort—and, indeed, placing heavy pressure on German political life—there is grave danger that the Germans will over time feel that they have been cast adrift. A growing sense of uncertainty and insecurity on their part could lead to a fragmentation of European and Atlantic relations which would be tragic for all of us.

On our part, we cannot risk the danger of a rudderless Germany in the heart of Europe.

On the other hand, any exaggerated bilateral relationship between the United States and Germany offers many disadvantages.

I believe, therefore, that it is imperative for our three countries to stay as close as possible to each other. On that basis Europe and the Atlantic world can be rallied.

Such a relationship will be healthy and lasting only if it is based on the concept of German equality with the other major European countries. We have seen before an attempt to keep Germany in second class status. It failed then and it would fail again.

In this circumstance, we should make a special effort to maintain the closest unity of action with the Germans during the coming months of tension.

I am sure, therefore, that it would not serve our common interests now to try to press the Chancellor to accept a nuclear solution that he might consider at variance with the concept of equality.

As you know, the United States did not invent the nuclear issue. We have simply tried to respond to concerns expressed by others.

These concerns first became evident when, in December 1957 the NATO heads of government agreed that missiles of strategic range should be placed at the disposal of SACEUR.

Both your government and mine saw serious disadvantages in national land-based deployment of these missiles. That is why the proposal for a joint sea-based force was first developed. The British Government stated in December 1962 that they would “use their best endeavours” in closest consultation with our NATO allies to develop a multilateral sea-based force.

In December 1964 you put forward the alternative proposal for an Atlantic nuclear force. I agreed that this should be fairly and fully discussed among the interested countries. We used our best efforts to guide German thinking along this line. A year later Chancellor Erhard gave a memorandum reflecting German views which went a long way to meet your proposals.⁵

Against this background, it seems important that we not leave the Germans under the impression that we have shifted our views just when they were moving towards us or that we do not take the Chancellor’s proposal seriously.

I do not mean at all that I am wedded to any particular solution to this problem. We are doing staff work over the whole range of options. We should not foreclose any of them. I hope this will also be your view and that none of our three governments will freeze its position until we all discuss this question more fully.

It seems to me that what is at stake in all of this is a political question of the deepest moment: Germany’s relations with the West. In the context of the present crisis, the pressures on the Germans it has already generated, and the likelihood that those pressures will increase as French diplomatic maneuvers add further confusion, we must all keep together.

In the long pull, I am sure that the one best hope of stability and peace lies in the inclusion of Germany in a larger European unity, in which any latent nationalistic drives can be submerged. I am sure, also, that you and your country hold the key to this possibility and that you can play a role of great leadership in Europe. When all is said and done, no one has come up with a better formula than that of European unity and Atlantic partnership, and I doubt that anyone will.

Sincerely,

End of message.⁶

1. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 67 D 272. Secret; Nodis. The source text bears no drafting information, but a shorter draft is attached to a May 19 memorandum from Ball to the President. (Ibid.)
2. Thomson visited Washington May 16–17 primarily to work on a draft aide-memoire that the NATO Allies would send to France on the future of the Alliance. The text of the resulting draft was transmitted to the NATO capitals in circular telegram 2258, May 18. (Ibid., Central Files, DEF 4 NATO)
3. See footnote 4, Document 167.
4. Document 149.
5. See footnote 3, Document 119.
6. On May 26, Wilson sent the President a 3-page summary of his talks with Erhard, which he said went “very well indeed.” The Prime Minister also expressed his agreement with the need to maintain the closest unity of action with the West Germans in the difficult period ahead. (Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 67 D 262)