Office of the Historian

196. Memorandum of Conversation1

Chamcook, New Brunswick, August 21, 1966.

SUBJECT

  • deGaulle and NATO

PARTICIPANTS

  • United States
    • The President
    • Ambassador W. Walton Butterworth
    • Rufus Z. Smith, Director for Relations with Canada
  • Canada
    • Prime Minister Pearson
    • Ambassador A. E. Ritchie
    • H. Basil Robinson, Assistant Under-Secretary for External Affairs

(The President met with Prime Minister Pearson on the occasion of his participation in a cornerstone laying ceremony at the Roosevelt Campobello [Page 452] International Park on Campobello Island, New Brunswick. He was the luncheon guest of the Prime Minister at Rossmount Inn in the little town of Chamcook, N.B. The lunch was preceded by approximately an hour and a half of serious conversation in a parlor of the Inn set aside for the purpose.)

At one point in the conversation, the Prime Minister asked the President how he was handling deGaulle, to which the President responded with a smile, “I get out of the box when he starts winding up. I’m betting on outliving him.”

The Prime Minister commented that Canada was anxious that nothing be done which will make more difficult the ultimate establishment of better relations with France.

The President responded that he himself had been very careful never to respond in kind to deGaulle. In fact he had never said one unkind word about deGaulle and he stopped American bureaucrats from doing so whenever he caught them. He added, however, that when we are told to get out, we simply have to get out.

The Prime Minister agreed, noting that this had been particularly hard for the Canadians to swallow, especially since Canadian forces would be moving to Germany. The special historic relationship which the Canadian nation had with France and the memories of Canadian involvement in the two wars against Germany made this an especially hard blow. Nevertheless, emotion was no basis for policy, although at one point he had not resisted the temptation to say to the French, “Do you want us to move out our hundred thousand dead, too?” In sum, the Canadian Government believes we should not make it easy for the French to pull out of NATO.

The President remarked that he could understand and appreciate the special feeling Canada had for France.

The Prime Minister went on to say that, looking to the future, he believed the Europeans should do more themselves. They should carry a greater share of the burden of their own defense.

The President did not take direct issue with the Prime Minister’s observation, but asked who among the Europeans will do more? Wilson? Erhard? The Italians? They simply won’t. What worried him most is that we might do less and they won’t do more. This would be frightening because, by tempting the aggressor, we could cause World War III. In any event, he was not going to try to dominate the Alliance.

The Prime Minister responded that he had not been suggesting that the US should pull out wholesale. He noted that Canada had had an opportunity to pull out when the French had asked them to leave France, but the Canadians had resisted this temptation. He was only suggesting that the British, for example, could involve themselves more in the [Page 453] defense of Europe and ought to give up trying to play the role of nineteenth century imperialists.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 4 NATO. Secret. Drafted by Smith and approved by the White House on August 30. The meeting was held at the Rossmount Inn. The source text is labeled “Part 6 of 9.”↩