50. Draft Memorandum of Conversation1
SUBJECT
- MLF
In this portion of the meeting there were present in addition to the President:
- Senator Humphrey
- Secretary Rusk
- Secretary McNamara
- McGeorge Bundy
- Under Secretary Ball
- John McCone
- Llewellyn Thompson
- Bromley Smith
- Richard Neustadt
At the end of the session, Secretary McNamara and Messrs. Smith and Thompson left and Secretary Dillon came in to talk about British balance of payments, but before he began there was some further talk of this subject.
At Secretary Rusk’s suggestion, Under Secretary Ball opened by reporting briefly on his conversations in Berlin and Bonn. He said there was no doubt that Chancellor Erhard was firmly behind the MLF and had the capacity to get it through the Bundestag. Erhard faced no inter-Party problem since the SPD had no intention of opposing him and Berlin Mayor Brandt had assured Ball that the SPD would support the government on this matter. The FDP was insignificant in this respect and was internally divided.
Erhard’s problem was intra-Party within the CDU. It had been a tactical error to leave Adenauer as Party Chairman. Adenauer now had two primary motivations: first, to get rid of Erhard by any means, and second, to pursue his fascination with de Gaulle. Around der Alte there was now grouped an odd combination of politicians on the outs with the Chancellor: Strauss, Guttenberg, Gerstenmaier, et al. They played with Adenauer and played on Party fears of antagonizing France or destroying the Franco-German relationship.
Therefore, we had a French problem which manifested itself through this divisiveness within the German CDU.
In Bonn, Gordon Walker had said nothing different from what he had said to us here except that he was a bit less forthcoming on the prospect of British mixed-manning in surface ships. The British were now going to have a week-end at Chequers where for the first time the chief members of the government would confront defense policy problems together. Mr. Ball thought it quite likely that they could work out an accommodation with us and the Germans on MLF. It was too soon to be sure, but he was hopeful.
There was now to be a sequence of consultations. He himself was going to London and Paris, Wilson was coming here December 7–8 and the NATO Ministerial meeting would follow on December 15. In the course of these consultations, we might find it possible and needful to move fast for an accommodation. However, this prospect required no decisions today, with one exception: the need for contact with De Gaulle before Prime Minister Wilson visited the United States in order to avoid any impression of another Anglo-Saxon deal.
[Page 117]Ball made the point that in the eyes of London and Bonn, and also with regard to our own public, it was important not to leave De Gaulle free to create the impression that we were trying to isolate the French or work against them. Therefore, we should prepare to demonstrate our interest and concern for France by a public and serious approach to De Gaulle—an approach which put to him the question: “What do you want?” We should seriously make the point to him (in such fashion that it was understood publicly): “We are not against you, but we don’t know what troubles you, and we don’t have proposals from you.”
Ball emphasized that this demonstration should begin before Wilson’s meeting with the President. He recommended therefore (on the basis of discussion earlier in the morning among members of the “Ball committee”) that we ask Jack McCloy to head a small mission to talk with the French about nuclear relations. McCloy could go to Paris in the first part of December when Ball would also be there (OECD). He and McCloy could see Couve and then McCloy could see De Gaulle. The Secretary could follow on when he came over for the NATO meetings—December 15.
Since there was no prospect of a Johnson-De Gaulle meeting yet, these meetings could serve as a public indication, a conspicuous gesture, that we were not trying to steam-roller the French against De Gaulle and were seriously interested in opening a dialogue if he chose to be forthcoming.
The President asked whether emissaries of this sort from him to De Gaulle wouldn’t just seem—as it did to him—as if Johnson were just needling De Gaulle.
Ball responded that last summer when he had gone as an “emissary” to discuss the Southeast Asian question he had had a session with the General which was frank and agreeable. Rusk added: “and sterile”.
Secretary Rusk then observed that even so, it was useful to make this sort of gesture. We should not leave De Gaulle in a position to say that we haven’t tried to keep him in touch.
The President asked: “What was the gain in not waiting until the Secretary reached Paris December 15?”
Rusk and Bundy responded that it was important to prevent press talk about a repetition of the Nassau pattern, of the Nassau error.
The President then asked: “What was our own situation on the Hill?”
Bundy responded that the situation was tough, but unformed. Ball elaborated by saying that we had held off real consultations with Congress deliberately waiting for the Europeans to work out with us a concrete proposition. Congressional attitudes were therefore rather negative on MLF and relevantly uninformed about it. The doubts were uninformed doubts. We would have to go to work on this but cannot do it [Page 118] until we know precisely what it is we are going to want Congress to accept.
Secretary Rusk observed that our delegation to the NATO parliamentarians had a good briefing session in the Department and had presented a strong statement at the parliamentarian session. Senator Fulbright was particularly helpful.
The President asked whether Congressional attitudes could be spelled out a bit more. Rusk then said that the negativism came chiefly from the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, not from the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Secretary McNamara broke in to say that the situation really was as Bundy had put it. There was considerable negativism but it had not hardened. It could be swung around if a good presentation were possible after the Wilson visit.
Secretary Rusk observed that there were two central questions on the Hill. First, do the Europeans really want this? Second, does it really contribute to unity in the Alliance? Bundy noted that there was a third question of equal, or more weight: “Are we letting go control?”
Senator Humphrey observed that this last question was the central issue. Now the general attitude in key quarters on the Hill—the Joint Committee and also the Armed Services Committee—was strongly negative, but no concerted effort had been made yet to demonstrate that control was safe.
Secretary McNamara noted that the key Senators were Russell, Anderson and Pastore. He thought Pastore was ready to be helpful and that Russell could swing Anderson if he himself were convinced. This was crucial.
Mr. Bundy observed that opposition from the Liberals could never be overcome but that this would not matter if the Russells and the Andersons were persuaded.
Senator Humphrey asked Bundy: “What about ‘Scoop’ (Jackson)?” Bundy responded that he did not know what had been done with or about Jackson.
Returning to his theme, Senator Humphrey pointed out that a key factor was jealousy between the Foreign Relations Committee and the Joint Committee (which includes key members of the Armed Services Committee). The more forthcoming Fulbright seemed to be the more instinctive resistance would be found in the attitudes of Russell, Anderson, et al.
Mr. McNamara concluded this phase of the discussion by emphasizing that in any event we would lose the Liberals, but what was crucial was not to lose Russell and Anderson. It would not be easy to assure Russell’s support, but he thought it could be done. This was not at any rate [Page 119] something we could go to work on as yet. We had no proposition to put forward.
This phase of the meeting broke up at that point and then as Secretary Dillon came in the President returned to the question Ball had posed about McCloy. The President said he was very dubious about this and he’d like to have Dillon’s view of it. “I have the reaction,” the President observed, “that this sort of emissary is just going to irritate De Gaulle. He’s after bigger fish. He wants to talk to me and he wants to talk about things that are very important to him—assuming he wants to talk at all.”
Bundy observed that there was another way to go about making the needed gesture: the President could call in Alphand and give him a letter to De Gaulle asking the latter to let us know what he had to propose and telling him we were continually interested in his views.
The President said that this appealed to him better than the McCloy idea did. Turning to Dillon the President sketched the background of the discussion and asked what Dillon thought about McCloy. The President repeated that his own instinct was negative. “De Gaulle”, he said, “might well conclude that there was no government operating in the United States, just bankers from New York. De Gaulle certainly was not going to succumb to a bunch of errand boys. He might react the way President Johnson would if De Gaulle started sending French bankers over here as his personal emissary.”
Secretary Dillon broke in to agree.
The President went on to say that if he were to send an emissary short of the Secretary of State, it ought to be someone identified with public service in the United States—not a banker, and ought to be someone more perceptive about France and less identified with Germany than McCloy. Dillon agreed that McCloy was wrong for that reason. Bundy observed that McCloy had an old wartime association with De Gaullists but this did not interrupt the President’s train of thought.
The President went on to say that McCloy’s German connection was all wrong—to say nothing of his banking connection—if anyone were to go it should be a Truman or an Eisenhower type. He would far rather send Eisenhower than McCloy.
Secretary Dillon observed that that would certainly flatter De Gaulle, but that it was really the President De Gaulle wanted to see. Perhaps the thing to do at this stage was merely to let De Gaulle know that the President intended to see him after Inaugural.
Secretary Rusk observed that in any event there was no need to decide this matter today. One should take it back and think it over and then come back to the President. The latter nodded and turned to the question of the run on sterling which had brought Secretary Dillon into the room.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Files of McGeorge Bundy, Miscellaneous Meetings. Secret. The memorandum was “dictated but not seen” by Neustadt. The conversation was held in the Oval Room of the White House.↩