The development of NATO's strategic thinking in the 1950s and 1960s was driven by changing threat perceptions, the quest for a balance between deterrence and defense, and the search for an equilibrium between the strategic interests and the power positions of key member states. The key challenge the allies faced was how to reconcile what they believed were Soviet capabilities with what they perceived to be the Soviets' intentions and how to act on their overall perception of the Soviet threat. When it came to defining the means to counter the perceived threat, there was much debate within the Alliance about how NATO should link deterrence and defense and whether it should focus on terminating or on fighting a potential war. Most important, however, was the question whether NATO would be able to integrate the disparate political interests of its member states.1
NATO's strategic dependence on nuclear weapons evolved in a debate about the political usefulness of nuclear force at a time of rapidly changing nuclear balance between the superpowers. The credibility of the US nuclear guarantee was gradually discredited during the 1950s, as the Soviet potential to damage the American homeland slowly increased. At the time, Europeans feared that the evolving mutual vulnerability would lead either to a stalemate between the superpowers or, worse, to risk-taking by one of the superpowers before a stalemate could be reached, if that superpower perceived itself as temporarily at a military-technological advantage. A stalemate might lead to political decoupling, whereas risk-taking could destroy Europe completely. Consequently, increasingly fierce debates about burden sharing and political control marked the end of NATO's first decade.2
For much of the 1950s, NATO strategy and force planning focused on Soviet capabilities and worst-case scenarios. Yet by the late 1960s, deterrence increasingly depended on political tactics and the perception of Soviet intentions, and ambiguous concepts such as political warning, flexibility, and escalation had moved to the center of NATO's strategic debate. The Alliance had learned that deterrence in the age of mutual vulnerability depended on a combination of political will with regard to aims and uncertainty with regard to means. Moreover, political leadership could no longer be based on the crude logic that he who pays and controls the means decides on when and how to act.
By the end of the 1960s, NATO members built the new strategic concept on leadership by persuasion rather than by control, on institutional flexibility rather than on a clear chain of command, and on political consultation rather than on agreement about operational details. This chapter shows how NATO's security came to depend on nuclear weapons between 1949 and 1967 and why the nuclearization of NATO caused a precarious political balance among the allies. NATO's strategic thinking shifted between 1958 and 1963 from a doctrine of massive retaliation to a more flexible strategic posture. During this period, the allies, and especially Washington and Paris, had different political visions of Europe's future that clashed throughout their debate about military strategy. After France had left all integrated military commands, the 14 remaining NATO allies successfully transformed the organizational structure of the Alliance to accommodate the extensive political, strategic, and technological changes of the previous two decades. Once the allies had agreed that NATO should now have a political role in the interest of peace, a compromise on strategy became possible in late 1967.
Originally conceived to prevent the expansion of Soviet political influence in Europe, NATO served to contain fears of a new war in Europe. Article V of the Alliance treaty committed NATO members to mutual defense in only a limited way. Article IX, however, committed them to creating the organizational structures needed to eventually achieve collective self-defense.3 Among the structures that were subsequently created, the Standing Group of senior military representatives from the United States, Britain, and France was tasked with the development of an overall strategic concept for the Alliance.
The Standing Group recognized that, given the military and economic realities, the defense of the North Atlantic area depended on “the ability to deliver the atomic bomb promptly.”4 Whereas the Soviet Union was believed to maintain its military capabilities at Second World War levels, the allies would take many years to reach such levels.5 The success of NATO's strategic offensive in case of war depended on “the ability to carry out strategic bombing promptly by all means possible with all types of weapons, without exception.”6 Early strategic thinking in NATO reflected two beliefs: for the time being, the threat was as much political and economic as military. Should this change, however, NATO's military defense and deterrent depended on US nuclear power.
Western threat perceptions changed dramatically as a result of the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb in August 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. The early demise of the US nuclear monopoly came as surprise and undermined Western confidence in US military strength. North Korea's aggression was perceived as proof of communist expansionism by means of military force. Western observers wondered whether military aggression could be expected along the German border. The challenges of the Cold War seemed to move away from the political to the military arena. This led the United States and its NATO allies to review their strategies, accelerate the build-up of their forces, to expand and integrate NATO's military and political structures, and accept West Germany's rearmament.
The first Soviet atomic explosion triggered a re-examination of US national security policies. The resulting NSC 68 report called for a rapid and sustained build-up of the political, economic, and military strength of the free world. Although President Harry S. Truman authorized the construction of the hydrogen bomb, the goal of his administration was to avoid “dependence on the strategic use of atomic weapons in the event of general war.”7 NSC 68 called for the strengthening of both conventional and nuclear weapons. It left the incoming Eisenhower administration with serious concerns about the huge cost of collective security and a concomitant danger of isolationism.
The fear that Western Europe might be the next target of communist aggression led to the establishment of an integrated military force under centralized command in late 1950. Within two years, Greece and Turkey joined the Alliance.8 The Lisbon force goals, adopted in February 1952, called for the establishment of 96 NATO divisions by 1954, echoing the Truman administration's conviction that exclusive reliance on US strategic forces had to be overcome.
Between 1950 and 1952, NATO perceived a shift in the balance of power “from extreme [NATO] weakness toward strength.” If the Lisbon forces were provided by 1954, “then the danger point can and will be passed.”9 In the meantime, however, war could not be discounted, given Soviet capabilities and Soviet intent, believed to be “the establishment of communism, directed from Moscow, throughout the world.”10 The Soviet Union enjoyed “a marked predominance in Armed Forces and conventional weapons over the free nations of the West.” It was believed that the Soviets would pursue their goals “by a policy of political and ideological aggression, backed by the threat of overwhelming armed force.”11
So far, the British military suggested, the Soviets had preferred “armed aggression by proxy,”12 and they would understand that major military action against NATO countries would entail ever-greater risks as time progressed. However, unless the Western powers were “strong enough to neutralize each Communist move at the point where it occurs,” a miscalculation by the Soviet leaders could lead to a war that was not intended by either side. In addition, the possibility could not be discounted that the Soviet government would decide to precipitate a general war before their present predominance in military power had been threatened by Western rearmament.13 If war broke out, NATO's DC 13 conjectured, the Soviets would attempt to defeat NATO forces and reach the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Moreover, the Soviet Union might initiate air attacks in Europe and the Western hemisphere, using all types of weapons without exception.14
The Standing Group's report on strategic guidance, MC 14/1, approved on December 9, 1952, stated that NATO's deterrence and defense at the time was based on US nuclear superiority, while insisting that a conventional build-up be undertaken simultaneously. The strategic aim of NATO was “to ensure the defense of the NATO area and to destroy the will and capability of the USSR and her satellites to wage war, initially by means of an air offensive, while at the same time conducting air, ground and sea operations designed to preserve the integrity of the NATO area.” In case of a USSR offensive, the report said, allied strategic air attacks would use “all types of weapons,” and the land defense would “arrest and counter as soon as practicable the enemy offensive.” The report concluded that, in the meantime, the conventional NATO forces fell “far short of requirements,” and no relaxation of their planned expansion could be allowed.15
The British believed that US and NATO strategy overemphasized conventional weapons at the expense of nuclear weapons. Their 1952 global strategy paper called for increasing nuclear deterrence.16 The Soviets had not risked an invasion of Western Europe because they knew that their aggression would be met by an immediate nuclear response. Moreover, the Lisbon force goals were politically and financially unattainable.
In British view, unless NATO used the atomic weapon, it could not hold the Russians on the Rhine but could only hold the Italian-Austrian bridgehead on the Continent.17 London recommended to Eisenhower's successor as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Matthew B. Ridgway, to define NATO's force goals by relying on nuclear weapons. It came as something of a surprise that his subsequent report called for even bigger conventional forces than the Lisbon force goals, as a result of anticipated personnel shortages in the case of a nuclear attack.18 The British hoped for better results from the incoming Eisenhower administration.
The British have often been credited for the American NATO strategy based primarily on nuclear power.19 In fact, the Eisenhower administration integrated nuclear weapons into US security policy for a complex set of reasons, some of which did not coincide with the British view. The overhaul of basic national security policy resulted in NSC 162/2 stating that “in the event of hostilities, the United States will consider nuclear weapons to be as available for use as other munitions.”20 This made good sense both economically and strategically. Nuclear weapons made the cost of the Cold War tolerable, allowing Eisenhower to plan like his British counterparts — for the “long pull.”21 He was convinced that excessive military spending would endanger US democratic institutions and lead to a garrison state. Eisenhower's New Look made strategic sense since the Korean War had led to overextension of US armed forces and the first Soviet test of a hydrogen bomb on August 12, 1953 highlighted the growing vulnerability of the American homeland.
The Americans expected deterrence to work. Unlike the British, however, they also believed that should it fail, the United States would prevail in a general war. At the same time, anxiety about the increasing Soviet nuclear ability to strike the American homeland led Washington to consider preventive war.22 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill took exception to “any idea of the automatic use of atomic weapons, even in the case of a Communist renewal of hostilities in Korea.”23 British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden suspected that the Americans would use intervention on behalf of the French in Indochina to launch war against China.24 From a European standpoint, basing Europe's security on the US strategic deterrent was one thing; threatening massive retaliation to relatively minor conflicts in Asia was quite another. For Europe, the time when it could survive a general war with only limited damage had passed.
In April 1954, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles urged NATO to agree to the use of “atomic weapons as conventional weapons against the military assets of the enemy whenever and wherever it would be of advantage to do so.”25 But the Eisenhower administration realized the political problems inherent in a nuclear concept for NATO and was prepared to accept a compromise. Dulles told the president to inform allies that the United States would not wage preventive war and would “be prepared to explore reasonable bona fide disarmament proposals.”26 NSC 5501 subsequently ruled out “the concept of preventive war or acts intended to provoke war.”27
The British and French were reluctant to surrender the authority to implement NATO plans in the event of hostilities and so were the Americans.28 Dulles therefore suggested that the guiding document, MC 48, be approved only “as a basis for planning and preparation of forces,”29 thus leaving the authority to declare war when there was not time for consultation to the nation that controlled the weapons. If this was the carrot offered to the Europeans, the stick was the threat of a fundamental reappraisal of US foreign policy should they reject MC 48. Moreover, disunity on strategy within NATO would seriously jeopardize its deterrent value.
Anticipating a future in which atomic weapons would be plentiful, MC 48 committed NATO to a strategy of massive retaliation. It noted that nuclear superiority and strategic surprise would be the defining factors of modern war. Since, however, the initiation of war was contrary to “the fundamental principles of the Alliance,” war could come only “as a result of Communist aggression.” In that case, the Soviet's only hope of winning “would rest upon their sudden destruction of NATO's ability to counter-attack immediately and decisively with atomic weapons.”30
MC 48 stated that “the primary aim of NATO must more than ever before, be to prevent war.” With the planned increase of NATO nuclear forces, NATO would be able to “provide an effective deterrent in Europe and, should war come despite the deterrent, to prevent a rapid overrunning of Europe.” The ability to use immediately atomic weapons, along with a German contribution to NATO, would “for the first time enable NATO to adopt a real forward strategy with a main line of defense well to the East of the Rhine-Ijssel… on the assumption that atomic and thermo-nuclear weapons [would] be used in defense from the outset.”31
MC 48 was a compromise driven by strategic, economic, and political factors. The nuclearization of NATO was essential to maintain confidence in the Alliance in the face of a rapidly changing balance of power. However, there remained considerable unease regarding the massive retaliation strategy, whose credibility decreased with the growing Soviet nuclear capability. The British Joint Planning Staff warned that, if deterrence failed, massive retaliation “might cause such destruction as to make the operation of large land forces impracticable.”32 In any case, the line between prevention and preemption in the nuclear age was very thin indeed. For the Europeans, security would depend solely on the good judgment of the US president.
The emphasis on nuclear power devalued NATO's conventional armament programs, particularly West Germany's rearmament. Its delays meant that a forward defense would not be feasible until 1959 at the earliest.33 In the meantime, Western threat perceptions changed after Khrushchev's February 1956 announcement of unilateral troop cuts of one million men. British Foreign Secretary John Selwyn Lloyd told the North Atlantic Councial (NAC) that the Soviets did not want war and would no longer risk it. Instead they would rely on massive penetration of the underdeveloped world by economic, technical, and cultural means.34
The threat to NATO was shifting from the military field to the political field, prompting NAC to set up a committee of “Three Wise Men” to investigate what could be done to strengthen economic and political ties among the allies.35 In November, the divisive Suez Crisis reminded them how events outside NATO could have an important political impact on it. Moscow's nuclear threats to Paris and London encouraged those people in the two countries who thought that an independent nuclear force was a precondition for a truly sovereign foreign policy.
Already in April 1955, London had proposed to reduce NATO shield forces in Germany, limiting their function to dealing with “local infiltration, to prevent external intimidation and to enable aggression to be identified as such.”36 Eden was quick to add that Washington seemed to be considering major troop cuts as well, and he demanded a new directive to NATO military authorities to review NATO strategy.
Washington faced the prospect of increased defense budgets for the period 1957-60. For political reasons there had been no redeployments. Moreover, missiles had to be developed in addition to bombers. Savings could only be achieved by planning to use tactical nuclear weapons in any small war. Eisenhower's decision in the summer of 1956 to fully integrate these weapons into US security policy was based on financial rather than military and strategic considerations.37 He decided not to take any US divisions out of Europe for the time being, however, since ground forces were essential to preserving flexibility. In Dulles's opinion, it was “one thing for us to rely on the new look, not being subject to insurrectionary or conventional attack as the Europeans are, and it is something else to propose it for the Europeans.”38
In Paris, the Americans uncharacteristically argued in favor of conventional forces whereas the British having overcome their earlier skepticism about tactical nuclear weapons now argued for the integration down to the divisional level. The new NATO directive, focusing on Soviet intentions rather than on Soviet capabilities, produced a new strategic compromise. Since the Soviets were not likely to deliberately launch a major attack, even with conventional weapons, the Western shield forces should have the ability to deal with “infiltrations, incursions or hostile local action… without necessarily having recourse to nuclear weapons.”39
MC 14/2, approved on May 9, 1957, perpetuated, with minor revisions, NATO's emphasis on strategic nuclear weapons as the main deterrent. Unlike MC 48, it took account of both Soviet capabilities and Soviet intentions. It presumed that the Soviets “could not count on achieving a profitable military and political victory.” Therefore, the Soviets might conclude that “the only way in which they could profitably further their aim would be to initiate operations with limited objectives.” NATO must therefore “be prepared to deal immediately with such situations without necessarily having recourse to nuclear weapons.” Yet if the Soviets “sought to broaden the scope of such an incident or to prolong it, the situation would call for the utilization of all weapons and forces at NATO's disposal, since in no case is there a NATO concept of limited war with the Soviets.”40
NATO's nuclearization resulted from a delicate balance of national, particularly British and American, strategic, economic, and political interests. NATO went nuclear at a point when the US nuclear guarantee of European security was increasingly in doubt because of rising Soviet nuclear capabilities. Changing threat perceptions and the changing balance of power required a revision of NATO strategic thinking. It would be much more difficult to achieve agreement about Soviet intentions, about how to fight a war in the nuclear age, and about the balance of political power within the Alliance.
The launching, on October 4,1957, of the first Soviet satellite, the Sputnik, meant that the United States had been overtaken in the field of long-range missile technology. It exposed the Eisenhower administration to domestic criticism that it had allowed a supposedly growing missile gap between the United States and the Soviet Union.41 The US defense establishment debated whether relative military strength still mattered in the missile age. The Gaither Panel's report “Deterrence and Survival in the Nuclear Age” perceived an “extremely unstable equilibrium” for the foreseeable future, urging a build-up of US offensive capabilities at the cost of US$19 billion over the subsequent five years.42 In view of the mutual vulnerability with the prospect of inflicting “50% casualties on a enemy,”43 Eisenhower and Dulles were becoming confident that the Soviets would be deterred.
Although Eisenhower saw no military need for supplementing the defense budget, domestic pressures led him to set it at a level that would create confidence and stabilize public opinion. Criticized for inadequate public explanation of the impact of a nuclear stalemate,44 he was limited by the need to maintain nuclear superiority to reassure the allies and uphold NATO's credibility. He had learned how important military superiority was for the allies psychologically and politically. The problem was, “how to inform our own people in a logical way of our military capabilities, without at the same time scaring our allies to death.”45 The resulting uncertainty among the public could be used by pressure groups to argue for bigger nuclear forces — the background of Eisenhower's warning against the military-industrial complex in his farewell address to the nation.46
Sputnik challenged the credibility of the US nuclear guarantee to Europe, resulting in pressure for control over nuclear forces not only from London and Paris, but also — causing particular concern in Moscow — from Bonn.
To mitigate fears of US isolationism, Washington adopted the policy of nuclear sharing. It offered to establish additional stockpiles of tactical nuclear warheads in Europe that could be made available to the allies in the event of war. NATO members agreed to accept US intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), provided they could choose their location and control them. Rejecting the proposal by SACEUR General Lauris Norstad for a missile force under direct NATO control, the Eisenhower administration favored bilateral control. Eventually, Norstad secured placements in Italy and Turkey under SACEUR's direct control and in Britain under dual control thus providing NATO with limited influence over nuclear weapons with targets beyond the battlefield.47
The 1958 amendment to the Atomic Energy Act permitted a more liberal exchange of information with Britain on nuclear weapons, including their design, development, and production. President Charles de Gaulle of France saw this as discriminatory against his nation and consequently refused to accept nuclear warheads unless they were put under French control. He proposed that NATO be run by a trilateral directorate, which should decide on strategic plans and the use of nuclear weapons. When his demand was rejected, as he himself had expected, de Gaulle began a step-by-step withdrawal of France's naval and air forces from NATO's integrated commands in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.48 By the 1960s, the consensus among NATO members on US leadership of NATO had dissolved.
In August 1961 — against the background of the Berlin Crisis — Norstad informed NATO that its present forces could not defend the Alliance even with the use of nuclear weapons: “It would not be [a] question of choice since [the] mission assigned to SACEUR to defend [the] peoples and territories simply could not be carried out with [the] forces and all weapons presently available.”49 MC 14/2 simply did not adequately define the necessary size of conventional and nuclear NATO forces. The reason, according to the British Chiefs of Staff, was that the agreed policy was a compromise that submerged “fundamental international and inter-service differences of opinion.”50 Washington wanted the US contribution to be primarily nuclear and the European contribution primarily conventional. What the Americans labeled a “fair share” concept was degrading and unacceptable to the Europeans because of their merely having to supply troops. Wanting to expand its nuclear capabilities, Britain informed Washington that it planned to reduce its forces from 750,000 troops in 1957 to 400,000 troops in 1962.
In 1958, the outbreak of the Berlin Crisis transformed the question of how to deter limited aggression in Europe from the realm of strategic theory to the realm of daily politics. Both Eisenhower and Dulles deprecated Khrushchev's nuclear boasts as bluff on the grounds that he “does not desire war more than we,”51 but feared that the Western position could be “nibbled away.”52 They believed that if the West accepted the risk of nuclear war as laid down in NATO's strategy and kept its unity the Soviets would withdraw their ultimatum.
Once the United States, Britain, and France started to discuss contingency plans for a Soviet challenge to Western access to Berlin the Europeans opposed an automatic nuclear response. According to British Ambassador in Washington Sir Harold Caccia “the British people will never be atomized for the sake of Berlin.”53 Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of Germany seemed to have developed “almost a psychopathic fear of what he considers to be ‘British weakness’.”54 In 1960, Eisenhower insisted that “we must be ready to throw the book at the Russians should they jump us.”55 The unity of the Alliance depended not so much on the military value of its military preparations as on how these preparations were perceived by the allies.
Eisenhower was convinced that the United States could not fight a ground battle around Berlin. If the Soviets took Berlin by force, he believed “we have to then face up to the big decision but in the meanwhile we would do everything feasible to negotiate.”56 In public, Eisenhower held fast to a firm deterrence posture, but if a war broke out, he expected a period of hard conventional warfare while the politicians talked.57 The focus then would be on alternative strategies to terminate war without completely destroying both sides' civil societies. Such alternatives were never considered by his administration, however. Instead, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) transformed the nuclear deterrent into a single integrated operational plan (SIOP-62) that provided for a massive, simultaneous nuclear offensive against the full set of military and urban-industrial targets in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe.58
President John F. Kennedy brought a group of people into government who shared his campaign criticism of Eisenhower's defense policies and were convinced that the US military posture had to be strengthened and made more flexible. He approached the strategic dilemma of the decreasing credibility of the US security guarantee for Europe differently from his predecessor.
Alarmed by the dangerous inflexibility of the nation's nuclear war plan, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy informed the president that the plan “may leave you very little choice as to how you face the moment of thermonuclear truth.”59 In response to a small Soviet action in Central Europe, massive retaliation left the choice of “all or nothing at all, world devastation or submission.”60 According to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara “the West cannot make a credible deterrent out of a incredible action, i.e., the inevitable destruction of Central Europe, the US and the Soviet Union.”61
The new administration feared that local use of tactical nuclear weapons would rapidly escalate into general nuclear war. The Acheson report found NATO's tactical nuclear shield forces obsolete because the Soviets had acquired similar capabilities.62 Kennedy's policy on tactical nuclear weapons was inconsistent: on the one hand, his administration made every effort to install electro-mechanical locks on all short-range nuclear weapons in Europe; on the other hand, for political reasons it continued delivering thousands of those weapons to allied territories throughout the 1960s.
To discourage national nuclear forces the administration emphasized central nuclear control. It agreed with the Acheson report that, in the long run, “it would be desirable if the British decided to phase out of the nuclear deterrent business.…The U.S. should not assist the French to attain a nuclear weapons capability.” For foreign policy reasons, however, Kennedy did not terminate the multilateral nuclear force (MLF) project, hoping that this might eventually bring together all European weapons.
In Washington, the focus had shifted from deterrence to defense and from preemption to war termination — not least due to the Berlin Crisis. Kennedy called for increased conventional forces to deter limited aggression in Europe. They were to enhance the credibility of the nuclear deterrent by providing “a non-nuclear capability to impose a pause in the event of quite large attacks by the Soviet non-nuclear ready forces.”63 The pause was to give the adversary time to consider the grave consequences of escalation. SACEUR Norstad had reservations about a pause that might leave much of Germany destroyed and the rest of Europe doubtful about US willingness to escalate to a nuclear level. The Kennedy administration decided to raise the nuclear threshold without demanding a formal change of NATO's existing political guidelines.64
Norstad's successor as SACEUR General Lyman Lemnitzer wondered “how the US could politically square itself arguing for increased conventional capabilities for NATO on the one hand and sponsoring a force reduction on the other.”65 For NATO, the most important preconditions for flexibility were invulnerable nuclear weapons systems and a secure command and control system. Kennedy's multiple options strategy, however, reflected the view of his civilian strategists that uncertainty and ambiguity made threats work in a situation marked by potential mutual vulnerability.
In 1961, the Berlin Crisis provided the Kennedy administration with an opportunity to advance its new strategic ideas within NATO parallel with the overhaul of Berlin contingency planning. Reversing the earlier British approach, the Kennedy administration proceeded bottom-up from the level of operational planning. It accepted the key premise of Acheson's Berlin report of June 28, 1961 that the Soviet fears that interference with Western rights in Berlin would lead to nuclear war had diminished along with Soviet nuclear gains. Insisting that the Soviet perception had to be reversed, the report portrayed the Berlin issue as a test of will between Washington and Moscow over the US resolve to defend Europe. Acheson proposed a strategy of risk manipulation to signal the resolve even at the cost of nuclear war.66
Mutual nuclear vulnerability had weakened the link between the military capabilities and the political behavior of states. In conventional warfare, a country's political behavior was directly related to its actual military capabilities. In the nuclear age, however, vulnerability to atomic bombs had created a conceptual gap between the military capability and the political resolve. The credibility of a state had become elusive and highly dependent on subjective factors. At issue in the Berlin Crisis was influencing the beliefs of both adversaries and allies about one's resolve to use nuclear weapons. The different views of Washington, Bonn, London, and Paris about how best to manipulate nuclear risk perception depended on different strategic and political interests, geographic location, and economic considerations.67
Unlike Eisenhower's low-key approach to Berlin contingency planning, Kennedy's strategy of risk manipulation entailed a highly visible conventional build-up to signal to the Soviets that escalation would mean the use of nuclear weapons. Kennedy thus attempted to shift the responsibility for crossing the nuclear threshold to them. He counted on the deterrent value of announcing the military build-up. Marc Trachtenberg has suggested that contingency planning may have had a comparable function. Washington assumed that Moscow's understanding of Western plans through espionage enhanced the credibility of the deterrent.68
Norstad warned, however, that “the credibility of the deterrent can be destroyed by emphasizing a policy that could be construed by the Soviets as permitting them to become involved, and then, if they decide the risks are too great, to disengage.”69 From a German perspective, a conventional pause would lead to terrible losses in both territory and life. Therefore, even limited aggression should be countered with the immediate employment of battlefield nuclear weapons, for only this would force the Soviets to decide whether or not they would escalate. The Germans thought it “extremely unlikely” that they would.70 Instead, the Western use of tactical nuclear weapons would make them realize “they [had] misjudged the situation and would cause them to stop their aggression.”71 If not, it would be impossible to avoid an all-out nuclear exchange.
The concept of a pause brought about by the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield reflected Germany's political interests but from a military point of view it was highly questionable. General Maxwell Taylor, Military Representative to the US president, noted that “tactical nuclear weapons do not reduce force requirements; they impose many casualties and cause substantial physical damage; they also carry with them a risk of escalation.”72 The German approach relied primarily on the political signals their deterrence concept sent to both the Eastern bloc and Germany's Alliance partners. If deterrence failed, Germany could hardly hope to benefit from a nuclear war being limited to Europe.73
The British covered the middle ground. Like the Germans, they rejected the large conventional option suggested by the United States. Like the Americans, they doubted the possibility of limiting a tactical nuclear war to continental Europe. Like the Germans and the Americans, they sought ways to extend deterrence into the process of war. They wanted the decision to use a nuclear weapon to be a political one and called for the discriminate or selective use of nuclear weapons.74 This was also what strategist Thomas Schelling proposed in early 1961 suggesting that the US develop a plan to use nuclear weapons selectively as part of a bargaining strategy designed to convey to the Soviets the message that a war might get out of hand.75
After the Berlin wall went up, Kennedy sped up the Berlin contingency planning. He intended the October 1961 National Security Action Memorandum No. 109 to ensure “a sequence of graduated responses to Soviet/German Democratic Republic actions in denial of our rights of access.” These would range from diplomatic and economic initiatives to military measures including small probes of Soviet intentions, non-nuclear air action, non-nuclear ground operations in German Democratic Republic (GDR) territories in division and greater strength and supplementary naval blockade, selective attacks as a demonstration of the will to use nuclear weapons, limited tactical use of nuclear weapons, and, as a last resort, general nuclear war. Kennedy emphasized that non-nuclear operations were politically oriented, “aiming to display to the Soviets the approaching danger of possibly irreversible escalation.”76
Norstad doubted that NATO could sustain an extended conventional defense and enforce a gradual and controlled escalation. In particular, he doubted the feasibility of firebreaks below the nuclear threshold. Like the Europeans, he believed that the West had to prepare for an explosive escalation.77 Yet Kennedy enforced Washington's views.78 By August 1962 there was considerable agreement on the Berlin contingency plans among the United States, Britain, France, and Germany.79 The plans aimed at firebreaks to permit negotiations before a crisis situation could escalate into an all-out war. Unable to agree on strategic guidance and force planning NATO members nevertheless continued to argue about whether a conventional option was militarily feasible and politically acceptable.
In the fall of 1961, the Kennedy administration faced the dilemma of how to sell the conventional option to the Europeans without destroying their already shaky trust in the American nuclear guarantee. Over the summer of 1962, Kennedy decided to focus on the “three fundamentals of freedom for Berlin, free access, and a western presence” while shifting “substantially toward acceptance of the GDR, the Oder-Neisse line, a non-aggression pact, and even the idea of two peace treaties.”80 The US stance was anathema to Bonn and Paris and made the Europeans wonder whether the Soviet nuclear strength had inspired the sudden US interest in Berlin negotiations and the conventional option.
Although Kennedy had known since February 1961 that the missile gap was in favor of the West rather than the USSR, he had to convince the allies of this. On October 21,1961, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric reassured them that “we have a second strike capability which is at least as extensive as what the Soviets can deliver by striking first.”81 McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk described dramatically superior US nuclear forces in speeches at the December 1961 NAC meeting that succeeded in reassuring the Europeans.82
In December 1961, Kennedy proposed to Congress a huge build-up of strategic forces, even though these were already vastly superior to the Soviet ones. Besides considerable bureaucratic and political pressures, perceived need to signal US resolve was behind these decisions.83 As the Acheson report had emphasized, it was the act of building up forces, rather than the result of the build-up that mattered politically. However, Henry Kissinger had warned that the Acheson approach neglected the European obsession with nuclear weapons that could only be overcome “by a strategic concept in which both nuclear and conventional weapons have their place.”84 Reassuring the Europeans thus demanded bigger strategic forces than seemed justified in military terms.
The Berlin Crisis promoted a far-reaching reappraisal of NATO strategy. McNamara told the December 1961 NAC meeting: “We believe… that since military strategy for Berlin is a function of basic NATO strategy, the U.S. is under the strongest obligation to its allies not only to share its latest findings, but to indicate as frankly and candidly as it can what appears to it to be their inescapable implications for facing the Berlin crisis.”85 He proceeded doing so in his famous speech to NATO's foreign and defense ministers in Athens in May 1962 where he discussed nuclear retaliation in the case of a general nuclear war in terms of a no-cities counterforce strategy. He said that “military strategy in general nuclear war should be approached in much the same way that more conventional military operations have been regarded in the past. That is to say, our principal military objective, in the event of a nuclear war stemming from a major attack on the Alliance, should be the destruction of the enemy's military forces while attempting to preserve the fabric as well as the integrity of allied society.”86
McNamara did not believe that the Soviets would reciprocate by refusing to attack US cities.87 As long as the Europeans believed that the USSR would reciprocate, however, their fears that the United States might be forced to risk New York for Paris would be allayed. He made his statement to a European audience to send the right political messages. The strategy he described signaled confidence in the ability of US forces to destroy the Soviet forces. It also allowed him to argue that the Soviets would not initiate the use of nuclear force in case of a limited conventional engagement in Europe. Finally, the strategy emphasized central control. He warned that “weak nuclear capabilities, operating independently, are expensive, prone to obsolescence, and lacking in credibility as a deterrent.”88
McNamara was skeptical about the tactical and demonstrative use of nuclear weapons in dealing with limited aggression: “Local engagement would do grave damage to Europe, be militarily ineffective, and would probably expand very rapidly into general nuclear war.”89 McNamara's most important conclusion was that the only credible deterrent to minor Soviet aggression was conventional. He urged meeting the goal of 30 divisions for NATO's central region, as outlined in MC 26/4. He cited Pentagon studies that suggested that the Warsaw Pact did not have overwhelming conventional superiority and that a conventional defense of Europe was indeed possible.90
Ironically, McNamara's attempt to make a political statement by describing a military strategy he believed had limited operational feasibility turned out to be a foreign policy disaster. Paris interpreted McNamara's speech as a direct attack on France's national nuclear weapons program. The issue of centralized nuclear control touched a nerve in London, which feared its sovereignty and prestige being undermined. McNamara's correcting himself that he had not been referring to the thoroughly coordinated British bomber force added fuel to the fire of outrage in Paris. If de Gaulle needed confirmation that the United States would never share nuclear control, McNamara had just provided it.
Since it was obvious that his strategy would not save Europe from destruction by late 1963 McNamara began to stress an assured destruction capability.91 The new emphasis was primarily a product of political considerations. It showed mutual vulnerability as the basis of global stability. Assured destruction, compared with a counterforce strategy, also provided a better answer to the question of how much military power was enough for a credible deterrent. By then, however, it was too late to win de Gaulle over for a compromise on NATO's integrated military structure.
France perceived NATO as “the creature of US invention,” which, in an era of mutual vulnerability, could no longer serve France's national interests.92 In times of crisis, France believed it would be informed retrospectively of US decisions, rather than consulted in advance — as proved during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. De Gaulle became convinced that France would have to take full responsibility for its own security sooner rather than later.
In January 1963, Stikker began work on NATO force planning. However, the Military Committee was unable to reach a compromise on a basic strategy that would serve as the basis for NATO force goals. The allies could not agree on the duration of the conventional phase, the role of tactical nuclear weapons, and the definition of the nuclear threshold.93 Washington, London, and Bonn were prepared to compromise, but Paris refused to move away from the “trip-wire” approach that had marked NATO's strategy since early 1961. In November 1963, Paris threatened to veto the further development of MC 100/1 and boycott the force planning exercise.94
By 1964, the exercise and revision of strategic guidance had come to a halt.95 No compromise on strategy could be found before a solution of the fundamental political differences regarding the credibility of NATO's integrated military structure and its legitimacy as a forum of political consultation. France would have to leave the integrated commands before the remaining 14 allies could transform NATO into a less hierarchical Alliance at 14 and a more political Alliance at 15.
In March 1966, de Gaulle announced that France would withdraw its remaining forces from NATO's integrated commands and would no longer place its forces at NATO's disposal.96 He opposed military integration and central control for political rather than military reasons. He believed that at a time of evolving détente, NATO could no longer serve as a legitimate forum for political consultation. US forces in Europe as a symbol of US hegemony had to go before détente could proceed. On the one hand, de Gaulle argued, Soviet threats “no longer [presented] the immediate and menacing character that they [had] presented formerly.”97 On the other hand, Europe had regained its economic strength while Washington had been drawn into the Vietnam War it could not win. All this suggested to de Gaulle that the Europeans had to assume Europe's political leadership.
France did not object to NATO in principle but to the dominant US role in its military structures. State Department analysts found the French view “reflective of a wider European feeling.”98 The Germans also believed it was “timely to take a look at the NATO organization” and that the Standing Group in particular needed “revamping.”99 The ultimate danger of de Gaulle's challenge was that Germany might shift to a more unilateral policy to concentrate on reunification and détente with the East.100
President Lyndon B. Johnson approached the task of re-evaluating US policy on Europe very carefully.101 Against State Department hardliners, he opted for a quiet but firm policy while reserving an empty chair for France.102 He realized that NATO's organizational structure had to accommodate the changed political circumstances. There had to be more political consultation between the 14 remaining allies, many of whom worried about an increased role of Germany in a trilateral leadership. Consequently, the military structures of the Alliance were reorganized less hierarchically. The Standing Group was abolished, and the new International Military Staff (IMS) at NATO headquarters, now in Brussels, was open to all member countries. Germany's special interests with regard to nuclear planning and decision-making were taken into account through the establishment of the Nuclear Defense Affairs Committee (NDAC) and its seven-member Nuclear Planning Group (NPG).103
There was a consensus in Washington that NATO had to expand its political role as an instrument of peace during the evolving détente. Ache son called for a strengthening of the political functions of the Alliance, in particular with regard to “the collective management of the German-Soviet relationship in the unsettled Central European setting that emerged from World War II.”104 Finally, Johnson and his administration recognized that only trilateral leadership by the United States, Britain, and Germany would resolve NATO's political and military crisis.105
The trilateral talks between Washington, Bonn, and London from September 1966 to April 1967 marked a turning point in the development of NATO's new strategic concept. The issues of strategy, force levels, deployments, and burden sharing were all closely linked. The Alliance's defense needs had to take into account the political interests, the military strengths, and the geographical locations of the big three. For domestic reasons, any solution had to strike a balance between economic and military security. NATO had to widen its definition of security and allow for the financial and budgetary priorities of its member states, together with their political and military priorities.106
McNamara's September 21, 1966 memorandum to Johnson stressed the importance of political factors in NATO strategy: “Our political objectives in maintaining a U.S. military presence in Europe have been and remain as important as our military objectives.” These included the prevention of Soviet political pressure against Western Europe, the maintenance of NATO's cohesion, and the integration of German power in the multilateral structure of the West. Further, NATO should move “away from the emphasis mainly on massive attacks mounted with minimum warning and toward less extreme and far more likely nonnuclear contingencies.”107
McNamara concluded that NATO had adequate nuclear forces, but pointed to qualitative deficiencies and major imbalances in its non-nuclear forces. “The real problem has been to define precisely the objectives for non-nuclear capabilities in a way which is military and economically feasible, and politically acceptable.”108 His September 1966 memorandum dealt with the dilemma of how US forces in Europe should be reduced whereas NATO's non-nuclear forces would “help deter and, if necessary, defeat larger-scale aggressions which the Soviet Union might initiate in the belief that we would not resist or would not initiate the use of nuclear weapons.”109
The US devised “political warning and strategic mobility as a rationale for removing forces from Europe without reducing NATO military capabilities.”110 The US military rejected such diffuse concepts as a basis for force planning and force optimization. But these ambiguities were successful in allowing Washington, London, and Bonn to agree on NATO's new strategy. On November 9, 1966, in the first major breakthrough of the trilateral negotiations, the three countries signed the Agreed Minute on Strategy and Force111 and concluded that “existing NATO conventional forces for the Central region are adequate in size to support a flexible response strategy.”112
After de Gaulle's withdrawal from NATO's integrated commands had freed up the strategy debate, the negotiations of the big three forced their consensus on financial and defense priorities. After several rounds of tough negotiations, Washington, London, and Bonn eventually signed a compromise on force levels and burden sharing in April 1967. The compromise could fulfill its purpose only if it were integrated into the ongoing multilateral review of the military situation in Europe. The December 1966 NAC meeting therefore had to be used to inform and consult the other members of the Alliance.113
On December 15, 1966, the NATO ministerial at fourteen was briefed about the results of the trilateral talks. It shifted final decision on political guidance for NATO's military bodies onto the May 1967 ministerial. In the debate, marked by disagreement about the nature of the Soviet threat, two distinct viewpoints emerged. Harland Cleveland, US ambassador to NATO, reported that a majority of countries including Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States, agreed on the need for “new substantive guidance around the theme of flexibility and a strategic concept which would give a realistic role to nuclear weapons and take into account the Soviet intentions and probable warning time.” A second group, including Italy, Greece, and Turkey, stressed “the traditional elements of enemy capabilities rather than intentions, and maintaining maximum nuclear strength and deterrence so as to influence Warsaw Pact intentions.”114
The key issue was whether or not the United States would be able to bridge the gap between Britain's optimism on détente and Germany's cautious stance. British Secretary of Defense Denis Healey stressed that the political guidance to NATO military planners should be “in a total political context in which the military are the servant and not the master of policy.” He urged considering “enemy intentions as well as capabilities in the interest of realism” and believed “there would be at least months of warning” in view of Sino-Soviet tension. Bonn, however, feared that the Soviets would relax tensions selectively and isolate Germany. German Foreign Minister Willy Brandt said the Soviets might change their attitude during a period of tension. Since they could at any time use military power for political pressure the risk of Western escalation had to be preserved in the enemy's mind.
McNamara thought that the political and military warning aspects required more study.115 This task was referred to the working groups studying the future of the Alliance as suggested by Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel.116 This “Harmel exercise” led to a convergence of NATO members' views on the nature of the Soviet threat and the political role of the Alliance at a time of détente. Discussions on threat perceptions led to the conclusion that détente was a fluctuating process that had to be comprehensive and include the United States, Canada, and the Western European states as well as the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states.117 Contrary to de Gaulle's view, NATO and détente were not incompatible: “While our principal objective remains the security of the North Atlantic area, this now involves, to a greater extent, questions of political tactics and actions as well as military issues.”118
The Harmel discussions led to widespread consensus about NATO's roles in the interest of peace. It was agreed that US presence was vital to a peaceful order even beyond a European settlement while multilateral political and military consultation and cooperation within NATO remained a precondition for Western unity. Moreover, NATO members recognized that the Soviet Union could effectively block any European settlement; instead of driving a wedge between the Soviet Union and its Eastern European bloc partners, the West should therefore aim at involving all of them in constructive forms of economic, military, and political cooperation to support the development of the East. In particular, NATO should promote mutual force reductions as means to reduce the costs of the Cold War. Finally, multilateral and bilateral approaches to détente should be tested in such a way that selective détente could be avoided. NATO offered an excellent forum for establishing “harmonization on our side, and for maintaining a necessary degree of coordination in our bilateral and multilateral dealings with the East.”119 NATO played a key role in monitoring the domestic defense budget debates, the discussions within the Grand Coalition on progress of Germany's Ostpolitik, and the discussions between the United States and the Soviet Union on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), signed in 1968.
By late 1967, the Alliance had recovered its credibility as an integrated military structure and its legitimacy as the multilateral forum for political consultation in Europe. The Harmel report established a two-pillar strategy of military security and détente.120 The Harmel report integrated the new compromise on strategy, force levels, nuclear planning, and crisis consultation that had been reached by the Defense Planning Committee (DPC) and the NPG within the broader context of a multilateral political dialogue about the future of East-West relations in Europe.
On December 12, 1967, the DPC adopted MC 14/3 as NATO's new strategic concept and agreed upon force commitments for 1968 and a five-year force plan. Rusk reported back to Washington that “the Fourteen now have in being a set of institutional arrangements enabling them realistically to tie together nuclear and conventional strategy, force planning and available resources.”121
The new strategic concept integrated politics and strategy into a comprehensive deterrent concept consisting of the three factors — intention, capability, and uncertainty. It called for manifest determination to act jointly and defend the North Atlantic Treaty area against aggression, recognizable capability to respond effectively at any level of aggression, and flexibility in not allowing the aggressor to predict with confidence NATO's specific response, thus leading him to conclude that any attack involved unacceptable risk. Should deterrence fail, the concept foresaw three types of military responses: direct defense to “defeat the aggression on the level at which the enemy chooses to fight,” deliberate escalation by steps to “defeat aggression by raising but where possible controlling, the scope and intensity of combat” while making the threat of a nuclear response progressively more imminent, thus weakening the enemy's “will to continue the conflict,” and, finally, general nuclear response as “both the ultimate deterrent and, if used, the ultimate military response.”122
There had been considerable last-minute disagreement about the document. Whereas most Europeans emphasized a deterrent strategy, the United States also valued a defensive strategy. Depending on their political interests, military power, geographic location, and economic considerations, various countries interpreted political warning, flexibility, and escalation differently. For the United States, flexibility meant that “NATO be in a position to defend European territory against a limited nonnuclear Soviet attack without resort to nuclear weapons.”123 Since, however, both the United States and Britain had to reduce at least some of their forces in Europe for domestic reasons, McNamara acknowledged that NATO's conventional option stopped short of “providing for a capability to deal successfully with any kind of nonnuclear attack without using nuclear weapons ourselves.”124 With their emphasis on escalation the Europeans signaled that they were not prepared to accept risks greater than the United States did. They were “still inclined toward a public posture which emphasizes the risks of escalation rather than avoidance of escalation.”125 The NPG discussion, however, had made it difficult for them, in particular for the Germans, to imagine circumstances in which NATO's use of tactical nuclear weapons would be feasible.126 In April 1967, the ministers endorsed political “guidelines” for the tactical use of nuclear weapons that involved Europeans and eased German concerns about the NPT by deciding that the “selective release of nuclear weapons employed from or on German soil” would be subject to confirmation by the German government.127 However, the decision to use nuclear weapons remained solely with the US president.
NATO's flexible response strategy was a political compromise, as all strategic concepts had been since the foundation of the Alliance. Over the years, however, the compromise evolved considerably as a result of changing threat perceptions, a shifting military and economic balance of power, and the postures of member states. The political significance of the new strategy was decisive in 1967: the allies agreed on a common strategic concept after France left NATO's integrated military structures. The fourteen were determined to preserve the Alliance beyond its twentieth anniversary and into a period of East-West détente. The transformation into a less hierarchical Alliance of fourteen and a more political Alliance of fifteen was the answer to the Gaullist challenge. When the political interests of NATO member states could be merged into a political program for European security, the door was opened for a compromise on strategy.
The operational implications of MC 14/3 were less clear. The allies had agreed on the concepts of flexibility and escalation for varying and sometimes contradictory political reasons. There was never any agreement about how long the conventional phase of a war was likely to be. Further, the role of nuclear weapons was never precisely defined. The ambiguous wording of the new strate-gic document reflected NATO's nuclear learning: uncertainty made nuclear threats work in a situation of mutual vulnerability. Therefore, NATO's deterrent depended on determination and flexibility as much as on its military capability. At the same time, ambiguity of strategic terminology and operational war planning was a precondition for a political compromise on nuclear control and burden sharing.
Political leadership during a phase of mutual vulnerability and stirrings of détente in Eastern Europe depended on soft power rather than on hard power, on the flexibility and adaptability of NATO's institutions, and on common norms and values of its members. Political rhetoric, not military-technical considerations, drove NATO strategic thinking by the late 1960s. The military and technical feasibility of a strategy would likely never be tested. The political signals the strategy sent, however, had a direct and immediate effect on the adversary's and the other allies' perceptions.
During much of the 1950s, NATO strategic thinking had been dominated by the notion that the military capability of states was closely linked to their political behavior. For example, after the Korean War, NATO members naturally assumed that the Soviet Union would expand its political and ideological influence on the basis of its preponderant military power. In fact, NATO's threat perceptions shifted from the political field to the military field and back to the political field between 1949 and 1957. However, NATO never considered the gap between Soviet capabilities and intentions as significant enough for a fundamental reappraisal of NATO policies. NATO's dependence on nuclear weapons resulted from the belief that deterrence had to be based on a plausible defense concept. Forward defense was credible only if NATO compensated for its numerical inferiority in relation to the Soviets by including into its concept the technical superiority of US nuclear power. A commitment to massive retaliation in the case of war made it easier for the United States and for its European partners to compromise on burden sharing. At the same time, given US quantitative and qualitative nuclear superiority, massive retaliation — at least from a US perspective — made more strategic sense in the early 1950s than any other option.
In the 1950s there had not been a clear decision on how nuclear crisis consultation should proceed. MC 48 was approved as a basis for planning and preparing forces. The Europeans had accepted the political leadership of the United States in exchange for the US agreement to back down on preventive war. Yet in essence, NATO's nuclearization resulted from a very delicate and shortlived balance of the various allies' political interests: first, the launch of the Sputnik challenged the credibility of the US nuclear guarantee for Europe. As a result, US political leadership was being questioned more and more by the end of the 1950s. Second, the Berlin Crisis alerted the allies to the very real possibility that the Soviets might employ limited aggression. Consequently, the wisdom of NATO's massive retaliation strategy was increasingly questioned.
The United States and its allies perceived the Berlin Crisis as a test of the US's readiness to defend its allies in the event of a nuclear risk. As a consequence of the Berlin Crisis, the focus of the strategic debate within NATO shifted from deterrence to defense and from preempting war to terminating a possible war. The United States demanded a conventional build-up as a means of enhancing the nuclear deterrent. But for the Europeans and, in particular, for the Germans, a conventional pause as foreseen by the US's proposal was unacceptable, both militarily (with Europe as the battlefield) and politically (with the risk of decoupling). The Germans suggested as an alternative a tactical nuclear weapons pause as a means of preventing a loss of territory. The United States, in turn, rejected this option for military reasons (the risk of escalation and battlefield damage) and political reasons (a US loss of central control). Britain covered the middle ground and suggested a selective use of nuclear weapons as a political tool for stopping a war. The notions of flexibility, escalation, and uncertainty had entered the strategic debate with the aim of expanding the process of deterrence into war.
From a military point of view, the value of firebreaks along the Iron Curtain was questionable. However, more important from a political point of view was that the US emphasis on a conventional option coincided with growing US interest in Berlin negotiations and in the stabilization of the central European status quo. In addition, the debate about central nuclear control touched upon the sensitive issues of sovereignty and prestige. From a European perspective, Washington seemed to be tightening its control over NATO's integrated military command at the very moment when the political interests of the allies were diverging. De Gaulle was not prepared to accept US control. Military integration, in his view, had to go, and the political leadership in Europe was first and foremost the responsibility of the Europeans themselves.
With de Gaulle's withdrawal from all integrated military commands, the remaining allies were much better positioned to transform NATO into an Alliance that was more participatory and political. Washington realized that there had to be more political consultation among the 14 on nuclear planning and on decision-making, in particular. Further, NATO had to adopt a wider concept of security that would allow for a better balance between the members' military and defense priorities and their financial and economic priorities. Once a basic consensus on the nature of détente and on the fact that NATO should have a political role beyond a European settlement had been reached during the Harmel exercise, a new compromise on strategy, force levels, nuclear planning, and crisis consultation emerged.
1 On the evolution of NATO strategy in the 1950s and 1960s, see Jane E. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response: NATO's Debate over Strategy in the 1960s (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988); Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (London: Macmillan, 1997); Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); Catherine McArdle Kelleher, Germany and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).
2 On the debate over nuclear strategy, see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Vintage Books, 1988); Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991); Andreas Wenger, Living with Peril: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nuclear Weapons (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).
3 On the foundation of NATO, see Lawrence S. Kaplan, NATO and the United States: The Enduring Alliance (Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1988); Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1969); George F. Kennan, George F. Kennan: Memoirs 1925–1950 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983).
4 Strategic Concept for the Defense of the North Atlantic Area, October 19, 1949, MC 3, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, ed. Gregory W. Pedlow (Brussels: SHAPE, 1997), pp. 3–8,6.
5 Strategic Guidance for North Atlantic Regional Planning, March 28,1950, MC 14, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 90, 91–100.
6 NATO Medium Term Defense Plan: Part I — Defense Policy and Concept of Operations, July 1, 1954, DC 13, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 117–24, 121.
7 Memorandum, Paul H. Nitze to the Secretary of State, January 12, 1953, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1952–54, 2 (part 1), pp. 202–5.
8 Gregory W. Pedlow, ed., “The Evolution of NATO Strategy 1949–1969,” in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. ix–xxv.
9 Note, “Estimate of the Relative Strength and Capabilities of NATO and Soviet Bloc Forces at Present and in the Immediate Future,” November 10, 1951, MC 33, Parallel History Project (PHP), www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003), pp. 1–19.
10 NATO Medium Term Defense Plan: Part I — Defense Policy and Concept of Operations, July 1, 1954, DC 13, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 117–24,140.
11 Note, “Estimate of the Relative Strength and Capabilities of NATO and Soviet Bloc Forces at Present and in the Immediate Future,” November 10, 1951, MC 33, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003), pp. 1–19.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 NATO Medium Term Defense Plan: Part I — Defense Policy and Concept of Operations, July 1, 1954, DC 13, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 117–24, 118–19.
15 NATO Strategic Guidance, December 9, 1952, MC 14/1, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 197–228, 206–9.
16 On the Global Strategy paper, see Stephen Twigge and Alan Macmillan, “Britain, the United States, and the Development of NATO Strategy, 1950–1964,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19, No. 2 (1996): 260–82, 261–2; Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG, pp. 30–6; Robert A. Wampler, Ambiguous Legacy: The United States, Great Britain and the Foundations of NATO Strategy, 1948–1957, PhD dissertation (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1991), pp. 389–414.
17 Report, “Defense of Europe in the Short Term,” May 31, 1951, COS (51) 322, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
18 Wampler, Ambiguous Legacy, pp. 452–506.
19 Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG; Wampler, Ambiguous Legacy.
20 National Security Council (NSC) 162/2, “Basic National Security Policy,” October 30, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 2, pp. 577–97, 593.
21 Eisenhower, Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, February 2, 1953, Eisenhower Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (PPS), 1953, pp. 12–34.
22 On preventive war thinking, see Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, pp. 100–15.
23 Memorandum of NSC meeting, December 10, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 15 (part 2), pp. 1653–5.
24 Memorandum, McCardle to the Secretary of State, April 30, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 16, pp. 629–30.
25 John Foster Dulles, “Talking Paper” for NATO Meeting in Paris on April 23, April 22, 1954, SS, “Disarmament — Atomic Weapons and Proposal, 1953, 1954, 1955 [2],” John Foster Dulles Papers, 1951–59, Seeley G. Mudd Library, Princeton, NJ.
26 Memorandum by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense to the President, November 2, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 5 (part 1), pp. 531.
27 NSC 5501, “Basic National Security Policy,” January 7, 1955, FRUS, 1955–57, 19, pp. 24–38.
28 Report, “Capabilities Study Allied Command Europe,” September 2, 1954, JP (54) 76 (Final), PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003); Report, “The Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength,” September 3,1954, JP (54) 77 (Final), PHP, www.in.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
29 Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff, December 16, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 5 (part 1), pp. 548; Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, December 19, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 5 (part 1), pp. 560.
30 Report by the Military Committee to the North Atlantic Council on the Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength for the Next Few Years, November 18, 1954, MC 48, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 231–48.
31 Ibid.
32 Report, “Capabilities Study Allied Command Europe,” September 2, 1954, JP (54) 76 (Final), PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
33 Report by the Military Committee to the North Atlantic Council on the Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength for the Next Few Years, November 18, 1954, MC 48, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 231–48.
34 Telegram from the US Delegation at the NAC Ministerial Meeting to the Department of State, May 5, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, 4, pp. 57–62.
35 Telegram from the US Delegation at the NAC Ministerial Meeting to the Department of State, May 5, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, 4, pp. 66–70; Telegram from the US Delegation at the NAC Ministerial Meeting to the Department of State, May 5, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, pp. 70–1; Message, Secretary of State to the President, May 5, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, p. 75; Message, Secretary of State to the President, May 6, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, pp. 76–7.
36 Letter, Eden to Eisenhower, July 18, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, 4, pp. 90–2.
37 Conference with the President, May 24, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, 19, pp. 311–15.
38 Memorandum of Conference with the President, October 2,1956, FRUS, 1955–57,4, pp. 99–102.
39 Directive to the NATO Military Authorities from the North Atlantic Council, December 13, 1956, C-M (56) 138 (Final), in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 269–76.
40 A Report by the Military Committee to the North Atlantic Council on Overall Strategic Concept for the Defense of the NATO Area, February 1957, MC 14/2, 21, in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 279–313; Report, “Allied Command Channel Forces Study 1958–1965,” November 6, 1957, JP (57) 128 (Final), PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
41 Andreas Wenger, “Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Missile Gap: Determinants of US Military Expenditure in the Wake of the Sputnik Shock,” Defence and Peace Economics, 8, no. 1 (1997): 77–100.
42 NSC 5724, “Deterrence and Survival in the Nuclear Age: Report to the President by the Security Resources Panel of the Science Advisory Committee,” November 7, 1957, Office of the Special Assistant for National Secutiry Affairs (OSANSA), NSC, Box 22, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (DDEL) Abilene, KS. The report is in part reprinted in FRUS, 1955–57, 19, pp. 638–61.
43 Memorandum of a Conference with the President, November 4, 1957, FRUS, 1955–57, 19, pp. 621.
44 Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 334–50.
45 Memorandum of NSC meeting, December 12, 1957, FRUS, 1955–57, 19, pp. 704–9.
46 Eisenhower, Farewell Radio and Television Address to the American People, January 17, 1961, Eisenhower PPS, 1960–61, pp. 1035–9.
47 Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG, pp. 41–3; Twigge and Macmillan, “Britain, the United States, and the Development of NATO Strategy, 1950–1964,” pp. 268–70.
48 Frédéric Bozo, Deux stratégies pour l'Europe: de Gaulle, les Etats-Unis et l'Alliance atlantique, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon et Fondation Charles de Gaulle, 1996).
49 Telegram to Department of State (August 24,1961), “SACEUR Presentation to NAC Meeting,” August 23, 1961, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
50 Report, “NATO Minimum Force Studies,” November 14, 1957, COS (57) 244, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
51 Memorandum of Conference With the President, March 6, 1959, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 907, National Security Archive (NSA) Washington, DC.
52 Memorandum of Conversation with the French Ambassador and his staff, February 3, 1959, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 705, NSA.
53 Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary Dulles, March 6, 1959, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 899, NSA.
54 Conversation with Chancellor Adenauer, May 27, 1959, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 1309, NSA.
55 Memorandum of Conference with the President, August 19, 1960, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 1944, NSA.
56 Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary Dulles, 6 March 1959, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 899, NSA.
57 John Millar to Russell Fessenden, “NATO Military Concept,” May 4, 1960, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
58 Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill,” pp. 3–71.
59 Covering Note on Henry Kissinger's Memo on Berlin, McGeorge Bundy, July 7, 1961, “July 1961 Folder,” Nuclear History Box 13, NSA.
60 John F. Kennedy, The Strategy of Peace, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), p. 184.
61 Memorandum, “McNamara Meeting with von Hassel,” November 13,1964, RG 200, Robert McNamara Papers, Box 133, Memcons with Germany, Vol. 1, Sec. 1, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
62 National Security Memorandum No. 40, see “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future,” March 1961, “NATO Acheson Report 3/61 Folder,” Box 220, National Security File (NSF), John F. Kennedy Library (JFKL), Boston, MA; “To Members of the NSC from McGeorge Bundy,” April 24, 1961, National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) No. 40, “Vice Presidential Security File,” Box 4, NSC-1961, Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL), Austin, TX; Robert S. McNamara, Draft Memorandum for the President, “The Role of Tactical Nuclear Forces in NATO Strategy,” January 15, 1965, Office of the Secretary of Defense, the pentagon, Washington, DC/Freedom of Information Act (DOD/FOIA).
63 “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future,” March 1961, “NATO Acheson Report 3/61 Folder,” Box 220, NSF, JFKL, p. 51.
64 Letter, Arleigh Burke to Dean Acheson, March 20, 1961, CCS 9050/3070, “NATO (10 March 1961) Sec. 2,” Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), National Archives and Records Service (NARS); Memorandum, Nitze to the Secretary of Defense, “General Norstad's Comments on NATO Policy,” April 6, 1961, CCS 9050/3070, “NATO (10 March 1961) Sec. 2,” JCS, NARS; Memorandum, Chairman of the JCS to the Secretary of Defense, March 7, 1961, CCS 9050/3070, “NATO (February 11, 1961) Sec. 1,” JCS, NARS.
65 Memorandum Weiss to Johnson, “Meetings with Bohlen, Finletter, Lemnitzer, McConnell,” May 27, 1964, RG 59, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
66 Report by Dean Acheson, June 28, 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, 14, pp. 138–59.
67 Wenger, Living with Peril, pp. 197–272.
68 Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, pp. 223–4.
69 Memorandum, McNamara to Kennedy, “Military Build-up and Possible Action in Europe,” Appendix A, September 18, 1961, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 2484, NSA.
70 Memorandum, “McNamara Meeting with von Hassel on Strategic Objects,” July 31, 1963, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
71 Memorandum, “McNamara Meeting with von Hassel,” November 13, 1964, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
72 Taylor and Speidel, see Robert S. McNamara, Draft Memorandum for the President, “The Role of Tactical Nuclear Forces in NATO Strategy,” January 15, 1965, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
73 Memorandum Weiss to Johnson, “Meetings with Bohlen, Finletter, Lemnitzer, McConnell,” May 27, 1964, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
74 Heuser, NATO, Britain, France and the FRG, 47–52; Twigge and Macmillan, “Britain, the United States, and the Development of NATO Strategy, 1950–1964,” pp. 270–3.
75 Thomas C. Schelling, “Nuclear Strategy in the Berlin Crisis,” July 5, 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, 14, pp. 170–2.
76 Letter, Kennedy to Norstad, including NSAM 109, “U.S. Policy on Military Actions in a Berlin Conflict,” October 20, 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, 14, pp. 520–3.
77 Memorandum of Meeting, October 20, 1961, FRUS, 1961–63, 14, pp. 517–19.
78 Memorandum for the Record by Legere, December 5, 1961, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 2643, NSA.
79 John C. Ausland, “Briefing for President Kennedy on Berlin,” August 2,1962, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 2842, NSA.
80 Memorandum, Bundy to the President, “Issues to be Settled with General Clay,” August 28, 1961, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 2415, NSA; see also Andreas Wenger, “Kennedy, Chruschtschow und das gemeinsame Interesse der Supermächte am Status quo in Europa,” Vierteljahrshefte fü:r Zeitgeschichte, 46, 1 (1998): 69–99; Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Christof Münger, Die Berliner Mauer, Kennedy und die Kubakrise: Die westliche Allianz in der Zerreissprobe, 1961–1963 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2003).
81 Memorandum, Yarmolinsky to Sorensen, “Missile Gap Controversy,” May 3, 1962, “May 1962 Folder,” Nuclear History Box 14, NSA.
82 Minutes ofNational Security Council Meeting, December 19,1961, “December 1961 Folder,” Nuclear History Box 13, NSA.
83 See Desmond Ball, Politics and Force Levels: The Strategic Missile Program of the Kennedy Administration (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980). For the 1963–67 defense program, see McNamara, Draft Memorandum for the President, “Recommended Long Range Nuclear Delivery Force 1963–1967,” September 23, 1961,DOD/FOIA, p. 4.
84 Memorandum, Kissinger to Bundy, October 3, 1961, Berlin Crisis 1958–62, no. 2523, NSA.
85 Airgram, “McNamara Remarks to NAC Meeting,” December 15, 1961, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003].
86 Remarks by McNamara, NATO Ministerial Meeting, May 5, 1962, Restricted Session, “May 1962 Folder,” Nuclear History Box 14, NSA.
87 McNamara, January 19, 1962, Senate Armed Services Committee, Military Procurement Authorization, Fiscal Year 1963 p. 16; McNamara, January 25, 1962, House Appropriations Committee, Department of Defense Appropriations, Fiscal Year 1963, pp. 249–50; McNamara, DOD Press Conference, Pentagon, November 17, 1961, Public Statements of Robert S. McNamara, Vol. 3, 1961, Historical Office of the Secretary of Defense (HOSD), Pentagon, p. 1470; McNamara, Address to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, February 17, 1962, “February 1962 Folder,” Nuclear History Box 14, NSA, p. 5.
88 Remarks by McNamara, NATO Ministerial Meeting, May 5, 1962, Restricted Session, “May 1962 Folder,” Nuclear History Box 14, NSA.
89 Ibid.
90 See Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response, p. 46.
91 Robert McNamara, Memorandum for the President, “Recommended Fiscal Year 1966–1970 Programs for Strategic Offensive Forces, Continental Air and Missile Defense Forces, and Civil Defense,” December 3, 1964, DOD/FOIA, p. 4.
92 Memorandum from Weiss to Johnson, “Meetings with Bohlen, Finletter, Lemnitzer, McConnell,” May 27, 1964, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
93 Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution, p. 40.
94 Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response, pp. 51–7.
95 On the development of NATO's force planning exercise, see Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution, pp. 200–95.
96 Letter From President de Gaulle to President Johnson, March 7, 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 325; for de Gaulle's 1966 decisions, see Georges-Henri Soutou, “La décision française de quitter le commandement intègre de l'OTAN,” in Von Truman bis Harmel: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Spannungsfeld von NATO und europäischer Integration, ed. Hans-Joachim Harder (München: Oldenbourg, 2000), pp. 185–208; Frédéric Bozo, “De Gaulle, l'amérique et l'alliance atlantique: une relecture de la crise de 1966,” Vingtième Siècle 43, Juillet-Septembre (1994): 55–68; Maurice Vaïsse, Le Grandeur: Politique Etrangère du Général de Gaulle, 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998).
97 Aide-Mémoire from the French Government to the US Government, March 11,1966, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 333.
98 Memorandum Weiss to Johnson, “Meetings with Bohlen, Finletter, Lemnitzer, McConnell,” May 27, 1964, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
99 Memorandum, “McNamara Meeting with von Hassel,” July 31, 1963, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
100 Memorandum, “Possible Effects of the NATO Crisis on German Foreign and Domestic Politics,” Undated, No-Proliferation Policy (NNP), no. 713, NSA.
101 See Thomas A. Schwartz, “NATO, Europe, and the Johnson Administration: Alliance Politics, Political Economy, and the Beginning of Détente, 1963–1969,” NATO Research Fellowships Programme, 1997–1999, www.nato.int/acad/fellow/97–99/schwartz.pdf (accessed/November 2003); Thomas A. Schwartz, “Lyndon Johnson and Europe: Alliance Politics, Political Economy, and ‘Growing out of the Cold War’,” in The Foreign Policies of Lyndon Johnson: Beyond Vietnam, ed. H.W. Brands (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University, Press 1999), pp. 37–60.
102 Diary Entry the Ambassador to the United Kingdom (Bruce), May 19, 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, pp. 391f. On the importance of Johnson's leadership for his administration's foreign policies towards Europe, see Thomas A. Schwartz, “NATO, Europe, and the Johnson Administration: Alliance Politics, Political Economy, and the Beginning of Détente, 1963–1969.”
103 NATO Ministerial Meeting, Scope and Strategy Paper, June 6–8, 1966, National Security Files, Conference Files 49–63, Box 409, LBJL; see Lawrence S. Kaplan, “The U.S. and NATO in the Johnson Years,” in The Johnson Years, Volume Three, LBJ at Home and Abroad, ed. Robert A. Divine (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1994), pp. 119–49.
104 Memorandum by the Acheson Group, Undated, FRUS, 1964–68, 11, p. 407.
105 Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara and Secretary of State Rusk to President Johnson, May 28, 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 402.
106 On the issue of burden sharing, see Harald Rosenbach, “Die deutsch-amerikanischen Verhandlungen über den Devisenausgleich, 1961–1967,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 46, 4 (Oktober 1998): 709–46; Hubert Zimmermann, “Der Konflikt um die Kosten des Kalten Krieges: Besatzungskosten, Stationierungskosten, Devisenausgleich,” in Die USA und Deutschland im Zeitalter des Kalten Krieges 1945–1990: Ein Handbuch, Band I, 1945–1968, ed. Detlef Junker (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001), pp. 514–24.
107 Robert S. McNamara, Draft Memorandum for the President, “NATO Strategy and Force Structure,” September 21, 1966, DOD/FOIA. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response, p. 64; Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution, p. 53.
108 Draft Memorandum for the President, “NATO Strategy and Force Structure,” January 16, 1968, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
109 Robert S. McNamara, Draft Memorandum for the President, “NATO Strategy and Force Structure,” September 21, 1966, DOD/FOIA.
110 Memorandum Fairley to Kohler, “NATO Strategy,” December 1, 1967, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
111 Agreed Minute on Strategy and Forces, November 9, 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 563.
112 Letter from John J. McCloy to President Johnson, November 21, 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 497.
113 Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution, pp. 200–319.
114 Cable (No. 24489) to the Department of State, “NATO Ministerial Meeting — Defense Planning,” November 26, 1966, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003); see also Anna Locher and Christiann Nuenlist, “Reinventing NATO: Canada and the Multilateralization of Détente, 1962–1966,” International Journal [Toronto], 58, 2 (Spring 2003): 283–302.
115 Cables (No. 012967 and 12968) to the Department of State, “NATO Ministerial Meeting — Defense Planning,” December 15, 1966, RG 59, SN 64–66, NATO 3 FR (PA), PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed/November 2003).
116 For an excellent study of the Harmel report, see Helga Haftendorn, “Entstehung und Bedeutung des Harmel-Berichts der NATO von 1967,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 40, 2 (April 1992): 169–220; Helga Haftendorn “The Adaptation of the NATO Alliance to a Period of Détente: The 1967 Harmel Report,” in Crises and Promises: The European Project, 1963–1969, ed. Wilfried Loth (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2001), pp. 285–322. For further assessments, see Pierre Harmel, “Forty Years of East-West Relations: Hopes, Fears, and Challenges,” The Atlantic Quarterly, 25, 3 (Fall 1987): 259–69; Eugene V. Rostow, “Ein praktisches Friedensprogramm: Der 20. Jahrestag des Harmel-Berichtes,” NATO Brief, 4 (Juli/August 1987): 11–17; Joachim Brockpähler, “Die Harmel-Philosophie: Ausdruck einer kreativen Friedensstrategie der NATO,” NATO Brief, 6 (November Dezember 1990): 20–24.
117 Sub-Group I Draft Report, Subject of Discussion on September 18/19, 1967, NATO Archives, NISCA 4/10/4/1, Item 27; Final Harmel Report, East—West Relations Détente and a European Settlement, NATO Archives, www.nato.int/archives/harmel/harmel01.htm, 2 (accessed November 2003).
118 Memorandum for Rapporteurs, Future of the Alliance Study, July 18, 1967, NATO Archives, NISCA 4/10/5, Item 33, p. 6.
119 Sub-Group I Draft Report, Subject of Discussion on September 18/19, 1967, NATO Archives, NISCA 4/10/4/1, Item 27, p. 13.
120 Report of the Rapporteur Sub-Group 3, Mr Foy D. Kohler, USA, The Future Security Policy of the Alliance, NATO Archives, www.nato.int/archives/harmel/harmel03.htm. Final Harmel Report, East-West Relations Détente and a European Settlement, NATO Archives, www.nato.int/archives/harmel/harmel01.htm (accessed November 2003), p. 3.
121 Telegram from Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of State, December 14, 1967, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 651.
122 Final Decision on MC 14/3: A Report by the Military Committee to the Defence Planning Committee on Overall Strategic Concept for the Defense of the NATO Area, January 16, 1968, MC 14/3 (Final), in NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969, pp. 345–46.
123 Ibid.
124 Draft Memorandum for the President, “NATO Strategy and Force Structure,” January 16, 1968, RG 200, Robert McNamara Papers, Box 77, Draft Memo to the President Vol. I, NARA, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
125 Memorandum Fairley to Kohler, “NATO Strategy,” December 1, 1967, FOIA/Department of State, PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_7.htm (accessed November 2003).
126 Telegram from the Mission to the NATO and European Regional Organizations to the Department of State, December 10, 1966, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 510; Research Memorandum No. REU-35, June 11, 1968, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 711.
127 Memorandum From Secretary of State Rusk and Secretary of Defense Clifford to President Johnson, FRUS, 1964–68,13, p. 679; Research Memorandum No. REU-35, Undated, FRUS, 1964–68, 13, p. 711.