In today's session, therefore, we will concentrate on issues of political policy. We asked Secretary Leddy to address himself specifically to the major political developments in Europe during the past 12 months, to their possible impact on the NATO alliance, and to the basic political problems-the future of Germany and of Central Europe— which confront the governments of that continent.

We would like to take a closer look at those problems-to examine our Government's, General de Gaulle's and our other allies' attitudes toward them, and to see how they may relate to what is happening in NATO.

I hope that the members of the subcommittee will cooperate in concentrating on these issues. As you all know, our next witness will be Assistant Secretary of Defense John T. McNaughton, who will address himself to the military aspects of the recent, and prospective, developments in NATO.

If there is no objection, I should like to insert at this point in the record the Declaration of the 14 Members of NATO, dated March 18. (There was no objection. The text of the Declaration follows:) MARCH 18, 1966.

DECLARATION OF THE 14 MEMBERS OF NATO

The following declaration has been agreed between the heads of Governments of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

"The North Atlantic Treaty and the organization established under it are both alike essential to the security of our countries.

"The Atlantic Alliance has insured its efficacy as an instrument of defense and deterrence by the maintenance in peacetime of an integrated and interdependent military organization in which, as in no previous alliance in history, the efforts and resources of each are combined for the common security of all. We are convinced that this organization is essential and will continue. No system of bilateral arrangements can be a substitute.

"The North Atlantic Treaty and the organization are not merely instruments of the common defense. They meet a common political need and reflect the readiness and determination of the member countries of the North Atlantic community to consult and act together wherever possible in the safeguard of their freedom and security and in the furtherance of international peace, progress, and prosperity."

Mrs. KELLY. With this, let's begin.
Secretary Leddy, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN M. LEDDY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF STATE FOR EUROPEAN
STATE

AFFAIRS,

DEPARTMENT OF

Mr. LEDDY. Madam Chairman, I hope I can proceed as I did in our earlier sessions last August, in which I can tell you very candidly and very frankly my own views about this problem, rather than attempting to present a formal position of the administration.

You have had testimony here by Ambassador Bohlen. I don't want to cover all of the same ground that he did. Perhaps it might be helpful for me to begin by summarizing the events to date, and then try to answer some of your questions.

To begin with, as you have foreshadowed in some of your opening remarks, very early in March we received indications from Paris that

General de Gaulle would move very promptly in making clear his intentions about the French role in NATO.

Last August we had discussed here the indications that had been received over some years that this was in the offing. And we expected that this might come this year-in the spring, as a matter of fact. But after General de Gaulle's press conference of February 21 we had reason to believe, partly because of the tone of the language that he used in this press conference, that he probably would not move soon, that perhaps he would delay matters until after the French parliamentary elections which will probably take place sometime between October of this year and March of next year. These indications proved to be incorrect.

I think, as Ambassador Bohlen explained to you, General de Gaulle on short notice drafted and sent handwritten notes to President Johnson, Chancellor Erhard, Prime Minister Wilson, and President Saragat of Italy, indicating in broad outline his intentions, in effect, to withdraw from virtually all military cooperation in NATO, in the sense of being a part of the organization. However, he indicated that France would remain a party to the North Atlantic Treaty, barring changes in the international situation, even after 1969, which is the date when any member is free to withdraw.

This was followed within a few days by an aide memoire from the French Government to all of the parties to NATO, repeating more or less these intentions and putting all the NATO countries on notice.

I informed you last August that we had done certain contingency planning as to basic attitudes. We got in touch immediately with all of the other NATO countries and exchanged views with them. We did that here in Washington, and also in the capitals. Basically our views were that we felt that NATO should continue, both the organization and the treaty, on an integrated basis, that we wanted no confrontation with the French, but if it became necessary the rest of us should see what we could do to keep the whole thing going, and indeed strengthen it, and importantly, the concept of military integration. Integration has a number of meanings, but its general sense is a willingness to plan carefully in peace against the day when war might come, with a view to deterring war.

The United Kingdom Government immediately proposed that the 14 members of NATO other than France issue a declaration standing behind the NATO organization, as well as the treaty. This was then discussed in the various capitals and also among the 14 permanent representatives in Paris, and in the course of about 10 days there was an agreement among all the heads of state on a common declaration which was issued a few days ago.

I think this has appeared in the Congressional Record, and I believe the committee has copies of it.

So here we are. What the French have said to us so far is still in the realm of a statement of intention. They are firm intentions, but they are still intentions, and they have not taken the implementing steps which would be what one would have to do, adjusting all the legal arrangements to put the intentions in force.

The intentions as stated were first that France would resume Sovereignty over all military installations in France, which includes the American and Canadian installations in France; that it would be necessary for the NATO military headquarters located in France

that is to say, SHAPE and AFCENT—to leave; that French military personnel would be withdrawn from NATO Headquarters; that French forces in Germany which are now assigned to NATO under a series of complex international arrangements would be withdrawn from NATO assignment; and that the French would like to negotiate a new arrangement with Germany relating to those forces.

This, in effect, was the sum and substance of it. They did add that they would be prepared to discuss with NATO and with others the possibility of some sort of coordination or liaison in the event that France would find itself alongside the other NATO members in a conflict in which France may participate.

This clearly would not be the kind of arrangement that now exists, in which there is planning for a full integrated command in time of

war.

Our feeling at present is that the United States should not proceed to confront France or discuss with France alone. We feel this is a matter between France and NATO as a whole.

We feel that whatever the United States does should be in full consultation, that this is a matter of serious consequence to the whole of the West, that it is important for all of us to proceed together and take account of each other's views, and that this is the right way to deal with the problem.

There are many problems in this, and the Government has not taken decisions on several of them. I doubt whether we will take these in haste. I think we need time first to get more information from the French as to their specific steps. We need to work together in consultations, as I have said.

There are complicated legal and political problems to be examined. Our present purpose is to proceed on this in an orderly and calm way so that we can be very sure of what we are doing in working out whatever arrangement may come out of this.

I think one of the first questions that we need to ask ourselves is whether it is possible that the position taken by France could now possibly be reversed.

I think I would have to say that this is very doubtful. General de Gaulle feels deeply on the subject. He has strong convictions growing out of ideas of his which have matured over many years, and it is out of character for him to change these fundamental conceptions.

The second question that we must come to then, assuming that these intentions are irreversible, is what should be done about the longer term.

I would say first that France must continue over the long run to be regarded as an integral part of the West and if the way can be found to leave the way open for France to cooperate once more with the other countries on the basis of a system which is acceptable to all of them, surely we ought to leave that way open and work toward that end, even though it is not possible to make progress on that while General de Gaulle determines French policy.

This is the broad framework and we should work in consultation, we should seek unanimity, and the broadest consensus among the other 14 as to how to handle the problem. To be realistic, we cannot expect General de Gaulle to reverse his policies or change fundamentally his convictions, but in handling this problem we should always leave the way open for France to return to the alliance in the

long run. That judgment is based really upon history, the judgment of the feelings of the French people, the feeling that when the full significance of these policies are weighed in France, that they will not necessarily be the ones that in the long run the French people will want to support.

Therefore, we should not make it more difficult later on for them to come forward. This does not mean, in my judgment, that the 14 countries should allow themselves to be pushed around, so to speak. I think they must be firm in going ahead with what they think is necessary in their own security interests, but it does mean we ought to find ways of avoiding a complete closing of the door for all time, or to create such obstacles that this will make an ultimate reconciliation, if you will, more difficult.

Madam Chairman, I think at the beginning you raised a question as to whether this policy was the policy of one man or does it have deeper roots. I am not a philosopher particularly, or a good phychoanalyst, but I would say that a large part of it is the philosophy of one man who happens to be a person of great power in France, of great stature, because of his accomplishments for France, because of his position as the voice of Free France during World War II, because of his settlement of the Algerian affair, because of the fact that he brought an end to what many Frenchmen were tired of in their political structure, that he has immense power, he has very deep convictions, a very determined point of view; and I would say that if there had been almost any other man in charge of France, I doubt that the French Government would have taken this rather far-reaching action.

This is not to say there are not elements in our relations with Europe and with France that tend more or less to support this. There has been in Europe and in France, to some extent, a feeling of domination by the United States, because of our enormous economic power. This has been expressed in terms of economic problems, of the presence of very large American companies in France and Europe. There has also been a feeling of resentment in France about our unwillingness to assist France in the nuclear field at the time when we did assist the United Kingdom.

This has inevitably produced some feeling of discrimination. So that there are elements in which one can say that some of General de Gaulle's arguments fall on fertile ground. I doubt very much still that matters would have gone to the present extreme because of those factors. I think, as I recalled before, Madam Chairman, in 1958 General de Gaulle proposed to us, to General Eisenhower, the idea of setting up a directorate of three countries, outside NATO.

We answered that we did not feel that this was suitable, we didn't feel the rest of the countries would really accept a directorate of the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. But in general I don't believe the roots of this problem are so deep that we would have come to the present situation if it had not been for one man's convictions as to his conception of France and his conception of the organization of the West.

I have endeavored to respond to your first question. I haven't prepared a formal statement, and I believe it would be best now for you or others to ask me questions and perhaps I can respond.

Mrs. KELLY. I thank you for your statement. I do want my colleagues here to ask all the questions they desire, because I will

stay here afterwards to put into the record answers to those which I have before me.

Mr. LEDDY. May I ask, Madam Chairman, are these to be published?

Mrs. KELLY. Not at this point; not before you have a chance to look the transcript over. You will have an opportunity to review the transcript for any security deletions before publication.

Now I want to sum up a few remarks you have made. If I am not mistaken, you said that the recent course of events was the action of one man, and that those developments are irretrievable at this point. I feel that the U.S. Government has also played quite a part in bringing about this present state of affairs.

With that in mind, I would like to go back, and ask these questions: How far did we go in bringing this issue of NATO's future to the forefront; by worrying about it over the years? Did we press the other member nations of NATO too much to bring about the current crisis? In our dealings with President de Gaulle, were we sensitive to his background of nationalistic ideas and so forth, and all he has done for France? Did we antagonize him in any way and thus contribute to the fact that we are faced with a critical situation in NATO at this time? Have we over the months and years really attempted to see him personally, to sit down and weigh on both sides the problems involved? Or did we pour a little oil on the fire by kicking up our heels and bypassing him in our dealings with our other allies? Or has it come down to the point where all the countries of Europe, and he is a leader of Europe, desire Europe for Europeans? Or, perhaps, is the general doing what he is doing to force the other countries of Europe to face the basic political issues-issues which we as a nation have not been able to help solve?

It is a long statement.

Mr. LEDDY. I would like to comment on that. I can assure you that we have leaned over backward in dealing with the French on this problem and indeed with other countries as well. We have made that quite clear as we saw the signals coming. We have made it clear to others, and I believe everybody was agreed on this, that we do not want to provoke or seek a confrontation with France. We don't want to speed anything up. We don't want to irritate the French. We have not tried to do anything that would be in any sense. retaliatory. We have been very careful about this. We have sought to have conversations, especially with General de Gaulle, because in conversing on these matters with the cabinet and other French representatives it has not been possible to really find out what was on his mind.

So there have been a number of conversations which Ambassador Bohlen has had with the General. Vice President Humphrey went over there at the time of the visit to Paris of our astronauts and had a conversation with him.

Under Secretary Ball called on him and engaged in a conversation with him on this-this was last August, shortly after I was here before in an attempt to have some sort of response.

We have indicated to the French that for a number of years they have talked about proposals for reform of NATO as they call it, or change in the structure, and we have indicated that we would always be ready to consider any proposals that the French might want to come forward with and consider them on their merits.