189. Telegram From the Embassy in Germany to the Department of State1
7031. 1. As you will have seen from Bonn tel 70022 FonMin Brandt, in a speech in Berlin on Dec 10 at an open meeting of the SPD, repeated twice for empasis: “I have myself in the past week been prevented from acting in Bonn as a result of a combination of legal sterility and political malice.” As indicated in reftel, while we have in accordance with existing instructions done nothing further, the British Amb became agitated over this issue and raised it today for tripartite decision so that the three Allies can speak to Brandt with a single voice when this issue is raised at the Quadripartite dinner in Paris on December 14.
2. Brandt is obviously still greatly piqued at the Allied position on this issue taken during the recent governmental negotiations, which had in his view the effect of blocking an FDP/SPD coalition which would have made him Chancellor. Almost all other political observers here believe, on the contrary, that this would not have been a feasible basis for a new govt in Bonn at that time. In any event I do not believe that Brandt’s open attack on the Allies, in using such words, can go unchallenged. To do so would, I believe, invite trouble in the future—not only on this and other Berlin issues but in our relations with him as FonMin. If he elects to believe that the Allies are more tractable under public attack, our troubles have just begun. It is obvious that he has not yet become accustomed to the fact that he is FonMin, with the restraints on public speech which this position sometimes entails, and no longer Governing Mayor of Berlin for whom a major weapon has traditionally been an open appeal to public opinion.
3. Brandt’s basic reasoning which was elaborated to me by Albertz on the evening of Dec 3 in Berlin, appears to be that the voting rights reservation is outdated and that an agreement should be made at once of progressively permitting Berlin Deputies full voting rights. I believe it could well be pointed out in response to such reasoning that there are some who will argue that so is the maintenance of an Allied presence in defense of Berlin outdated (which is precisely the argument the Soviets began making in 1958). If this dangerous argument based on obsolescence were accepted, the point could be reached where the Allies would be forced to reexamine their responsibilities which entail the most direct [Page 461] confrontation with the Soviet Union and ultimately the possibility of nuclear war.
4. As has been pointed out in previous tels we have sent on this subject, the demand that the restriction of voting rights be eliminated raises both the issues of Allied legal rights and Allied ability to control the situation involving the exercise of our responsibilities in Berlin. Of the two the latter may be perhaps more compelling than the former. If Berlin should become a political football, as we have seen it become in recent years in connection with the issue of Bundestag meetings in the city, a situation could arise wherein the Germans egged on by the political parties acting independently and not necessarily as a government could vie with each other in demonstrating the claim that Berlin is an integral part of the FRG. It is only reasonable to recall in this connection the interference with civilian access and jet buzzings of the old Reichstag building which resulted from the last Bundestag meeting there. These incidents—which resulted from a meeting which was not necessary—could easily have resulted in a confrontation.
5. If, moreover, the Germans were to act unilaterally in defiance of expressed Allied wishes, this might well be interpreted as an example of rising German nationalism and determination to “go it alone” in achieving her postwar aims. This could be pointed out discreetly to Brandt.
6. The best argument, however, that could be used by the three Foreign Ministers in Paris, I believe, is as we have recommended in Bonn 64523 that if the Allies are faced with a fait accompli it might force them to have another look at their Berlin responsibilities. It could also be stated that there is good ground for holding that German action on voting rights without Allied consent would be illegal and in violation of the Paris Agreement of 1954, as approved by the Bundestag, and could be so declared by the Constitutional Court. Although we would not ourselves desire it, this could have the effect of calling into question the 1954 agreement itself.
7. Our preference would be to have someone else, hopefully the French, take the initiative with Brandt on this issue, as the British have done locally today. In the Quadripartite dinner, we should, I believe, show solidarity with the others and, if necessary, take the initiative ourselves as spokesman on a Three-Power basis. As part of such discussion, it would be well to ask Brandt precisely what he had in mind in the remarks he made on Dec 10 in Berlin.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Germany, vol. 12. Confidential; Immediate. Repeated to the White House and Paris for the Secretary who arrived there from India on December 13, to attend the North Atlantic Council Ministerial Meeting.↩
- Not found.↩
- Document 186.↩