Office of the Historian

240. Record of Meeting1

Washington, March 8, 1967, 12:45 p.m.

RECORD OF PRESIDENT’S MARCH 8 MEETING WITH MESSRS. RUSK, McNAMARA, FOWLER, McCLOY, WALT ROSTOW, AND BATOR

McCloy reported on the status of the trilateral negotiations. He said the main problem was the UK-German gap. The UK was prepared to take less than a 100 percent offset and would accept some financial neutralization. However, there was still a $40 million shortfall between the [Page 546] UK’s demand and the FRG’s offer. Kiesinger would have his critical Cabinet meeting on March 15. Ambassador Duckwitz had suggested that a letter from the President to Kiesinger before this meeting could have an important effect in getting the Germans to improve their offer.

McCloy said there were two issues: (1) what we were prepared to do on our force levels in Germany, and (2) what, if anything, we were prepared to do to help close the $40 million gap.

The President asked for Secretary McNamara’s view on the second issue. Secretary McNamara replied that he did not favor the US picking up any of the gap. Secretary Fowler agreed.

The President asked if a deal could be worked out on the following lines:

  • —the US to cut one division;
  • —the UK to cut only one brigade;
  • —the Germans and British to split the $40 million gap.

McCloy said that the last of these would not work; it would be necessary for US to pick up some of the $40 million shortfall. He thought we could do this by rotating some of our air wings to the UK instead of to the US. The President instructed his advisers to get together and work out the figures on the $40 million gap, suggesting ways in which the US could help bridge part of it. He emphasized that he would not agree to having the US fill the entire $40 million gap.2

  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security Council Histories, Trilateral Negotiations, Book 2. Secret. The time of the meeting is derived from two memoranda by Bator: one to the President at 9:45 a.m. on March 8, in which Bator noted that this could be a “crucial” meeting and asked how it should be organized, and a second at 10:45 a.m., which outlined the issues as summarized by McCloy here. (Both ibid.)↩
  2. The President met again with his advisers at 4:15 p.m. on March 9. No record of this meeting has been found, but Bator prepared a memorandum for the President saying that he was working on a list of ways the $40 million gap could be filled, but that it would require real U.S. money. (Ibid.)↩