Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XV, Germany and Berlin

72. Telegram From the Embassy in Germany to the Department of State¹

Bonn, November 17, 1964, 7 p.m.

1950. Secretary and Under Secretary. During the past week a number of reports of former Chancellor Adenauer’s current views have come to our attention, each confirming that he has moved towards virtually complete acceptance of the de Gaulle position, combined with an anti-American bias and a suspicion of US motives which lead him almost automatically to oppose what he conceives to be the position of the US. The report to this effect contained in Embtel 1924,² based on a conversation between Adenauer and Henry Kissinger, while stark, is probably reasonably accurate.

In a conversation with FonMin Schroeder yesterday at luncheon, he commented on how difficult Adenauer was making life for him by his repeated attacks. There was now a complete lack of rapport between himself and Adenauer. He could no longer talk with Adenauer about serious subjects. It may be of interest that Schroeder confided that he had not intended to attack Adenauer recently, as it appeared in the article he had given to a Mainz journalist just prior to Adenauer’s visit to Paris. The journalist had not only released the article prematurely, before rather than after Adenauer’s visit, but attributed background comment on Adenauer directly to the FonMin, contrary to their understanding. The FonMin felt, however, that on balance he had gained more through acquiring the reputation of a fighter, than he had lost through the mishap.

Former High Commissioner McCloy, who has been here as head of the American delegation to the fourth German-American conference, reports that, while he was in Berlin, Von Eckhardt (for many years the former Chancellor’s chief information officer and now Federal plenipotentiary to Berlin) stated that Adenauer was hopelessly anti-American. He had been this way since his first visit to the United States during the Kennedy administration. He had developed a distrust for President Kennedy and certain of his advisers. According to Von Eckhardt, Adenauer felt that he had not been treated with proper respect during his visit. It was shortly after his visit to the US, while he was still under the influence of his disenchantment with the United States, that he had made his famous visit to France³ and had been taken in completely by President de Gaulle. Adenauer was further alienated by President Kennedy’s policy of seeking limited agreements with the Soviets, which he strongly opposed.

In the meeting which he had with Adenauer later in Bonn, McCloy reports that Adenauer labeled Schroeder a dunce (Dummkopf) and then went on to apply the same epithet to all Germans. He told McCloy that Americans simply didn’t understand de Gaulle or what was happening in Europe. The great danger, which the US did not comprehend, was that de Gaulle might be forced to go to the Soviets. He referred admiringly to de Gaulle’s library, giving the impression that his respect for de Gaulle derives from the fact that he represents the best in French culture and civilization, to which Americans presumably do not measure up. He expressed doubt that the US was capable of world leadership. Adenauer further felt, he stressed to McCloy, that the US would not defend Germany in a pinch. The recent NATO Fallex exercise had convinced him that we would not use nuclear weapons against the Soviets until it was too late.

During a luncheon conversation yesterday with McCloy and the DCM, Minister for Special Tasks Krone expressed somewhat similar suspicions of US nuclear policy. (He had personally participated in the Fallex exercise, and is probably the source of Adenauer’s information on this subject.) Krone protested the suggestion that the Chancellor and those who agreed with him were anti-American or that their pro-French policies were the main threat to the preservation of valuable postwar institutions. Krone did say that, if he were forced to make a choice, and he hoped it would never come to that, he would have to choose the US in preference to France.

Comment: Our policy here has been to keep in contact with Adenauer. I have had him to lunch privately at the Residence every three or four months, on which occasions he is relatively congenial and responsive. He attended our last Fourth of July reception. However, we are somewhat at a loss to know how to go about changing his attitude toward the US. He has apparently reconstructed in his own mind the entire course of postwar history to justify his own policies and those of President de Gaulle as against those of the United States. He still professes his basic friendship for the US, as he did to a group of US participants in the German-American conference yesterday. He probably thinks he is being sincere in this, although in practice his friendship amounts to little more than an empty formula. On any given point of conflict he will always end up defending the French position.

At this stage of his life Adenauer seems to be most affected by his strong positive or negative reactions to personalities, as well as by the quality of flattery he receives and by the cultural level of the environment which is provided him. We obviously cannot seem to reward him on this point, especially just after he has received the French honors of the Academy. One possibility which I should like to think about and comment on further is that he be invited to give a series of lectures at a leading American university, perhaps Harvard, from which he received an honorary degree. This might provide the kind of environment that would favorably impress him—and an opportunity for organized flattery and blandishments.

Without wishing to exaggerate Adenauer’s influence, he is nevertheless a serious problem for us. When the controversies he stirs up are brought out into the open, either in the Fraktion or before the public, he often has to backtrack. All the same, he can still get a group of some 60 or so Deputies in the CDU to follow him on most issues. He is fortified by public opinion polls which show him as “the best Chancellor Germany has had,” and will continue to have a disruptive effect on the efforts of the Erhard government to move ahead on policies which we favor.⁴

McGhee

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files,POL GER W–US. Confidential; Exdis. McGhee commented on relations with Adenauer in At the Creation of a New Germany, pp. 157–159.
2. Telegram 1924 from Bonn, November 17, reported on Henry Kissinger’s meeting with Adenauer. (Ibid., POL 3 EUR W)
3. Adenauer visited France December 9, 1961. See Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. XIV, pp. 659–660, for Adenauer’s report to Kennedy on the meeting.
4. In telegram 1964 from Bonn, November 18, McGhee suggested again that Adenauer be invited to lecture at Harvard University as a means of dealing with his anti-American bias, adding, “The effort may be basically hopeless … but it might still be worth a try. His capacity to do damage to our interests here is still considerable.” (Department of State, Central Files, POL 7 GER W)