briefly about this field, since these matters will soon be discussed in detail in the Council.

My country's approach to NATO's military tasks is governed by the principles which are reflected in the President's recent message to the Congress on our own military budget.30 Our objective is to insure that any potential aggressor will know that he would be confronted with a suitable, selective, swift, and effective military response. To fulfill this objective the United States is seeking to create a flexible and balanced military posture. This is also the goal of NATO. To achieve this goal several steps will be called for.

For one thing a vigorous and sustained effort to build up NATO's nonnuclear defenses will be required. This is a high-priority task; it I will call for increased effort from all of us. But the result will be worth the sacrifice, for NATO's defenses will be more effective and their deterrent power greater. As part of its contribution to this task the United States is committed to full participation in the common defense and the maintenance of its military strength on the Continent for the foreseeable future. The President was absolutely clear on this point in his message to NATO soon after taking office.31

An effective NATO nuclear capability is also needed to achieve our goal, and the United States stands ready to consult closely with all members of the Alliance on the best ways and means of maintaining this capability in the future. The security of Europe and the security of the United States are inseparable.

In going forward with a practical and balanced program to strengthen NATO's arms, we will reduce any temptation to aggression and thus enhance the prospects for peace.

The fruits of peace are not achieved merely by avoiding war. We must also seek to progress toward a richer life for all mankind. If the Atlantic Community is to help achieve that progress, we will

need:

First: higher rates of growth in some Atlantic countries;

Second: more effective coordination between the economic policies of Europe and North America;

Third: increased aid to less developed countries; and

Fourth: fair sharing within the Alliance of the burden of that aid and of our military programs.

The OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] was created to help achieve just these purposes.32 The United States intends to participate fully in its work to this end.

This is not the time or the place to go into the details. I wish only to lay out the general course of action to which we are dedicated in seeking closer economic cooperation with our Atlantic partners.

We cannot fail in this course if there is to be a high assurance of maintaining an environment in which free societies can flourish. The effectiveness of the OECD in prosecuting this course will be an indispensable base both for the military programs which I have

30

Message of Mar. 28, 1961 (H. Doc. 123, 87th Cong.); cited as an unnumbered title, ante, p. 28.

31 Ante, doc. 166.

* See post, doc. 176.

Doc. 170

described and for fulfilling the purposes of the Atlantic Community in less developed areas.

The political impact of progress to this end may, however, be even more significant than its economic or military effect. For the chief Western nations will have been brought together into earnest conclave to launch measures of great and constructive moment. This would contribute to their confidence and cohesion and, over the long run, might well lay the basis for a new and even closer relation between North America and Europe.

It would make more solid the hope that the world will be developed in peace a secure and peaceful world in which international disputes can be straightened out in accordance with the charter of the United Nations. I have just come from Geneva.33 We are earnestly striving to get a nuclear test ban treaty. We want and we pledge our best efforts to get a sound and effective treaty. If so it may well be a prelude for constructive planning for disarmament.

If these hopes are frustrated it must not be and will not be upon the conscience of the free world. We can and will have the satisfaction and knowledge that we labored diligently and we tried with dignity and honor, even if we pled in vain. A genuine political-as well as economic-community might appear increasingly feasible as our longrun goal.

Such a demonstration of the Atlantic nations' capacity for bold and creative effort could not fail also to impress mightily friendly nations in other areas, and possibly the Communist leaders themselves. For its plain import would be to bring within reach the formation of what would be incomparably the most powerful economic grouping in the world. No calculation of the future relative strength of the free world could fail to be decisively affected by this prospect.

If we go forward with these general policies in the political, military, and economic fields we can look forward to an Atlantic Community which will increasingly fulfill the rich promise that its founders foresaw when they signed the treaty 12 years ago.

The task will not be easy. It will call for continuing sacrifices from all of us:

Sacrifices of resources.

Sacrifices of man-years spent in uniform.

Sacrifices of special interests.

Sacrifices of ancient concepts in the light of growing interdepend

ence.

We cannot shrink from these sacrifices if we are to be worthy of the common civilization which we share.

The United States is prepared to play its full part. It accepts the responsibilities of leadership, both in projecting its own effort and in setting forth its view as to the tasks of the Alliance as a whole.

The message that I bring you today is evidence of its unreserved commitment to these tasks, which all of our countries will need to prosecute vigorously in the decade that lies ahead if their high purposes are to be achieved.

33 See post, doc. 572A.

[UNITED KINGDOM-UNITED STATES DISCUSSION OF "THE MAJOR ISSUES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS" AFFECTING THE TWO COUNTRIES: Joint Statement Issued at Washington by the President of the United States (Kennedy) and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Macmillan), April 8, 1961-Post, doc. 205]

171. “POLITICAL PLANNING [IN NATO] MUST BE AWARE OF MILITARY REALITIES, AND MILITARY PLANS, IN TURN, MUST BE RESPONSIVE TO POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS": Remarks Made by the President (Kennedy) Before the Military Committee of NATO, Washington, April 10, 1961 34

I am delighted to offer the warm welcome of the United States Government to the Chiefs of Staff of the nations of NATO as you assemble here for a meeting of the Military Committee. We, of course, take satisfaction in having your representatives with us regularly, in permanent session, but it is especially good today to have in Washington the Military Committee itself. Moreover, it is for me much more than a ceremonial pleasure to meet with you.

You hold a critical responsibility in the affairs of NATO, and I want to talk with you about the substance of the task and about the necessary relation between you as military officers and others of us as political leaders.

NATO, as you gentlemen know, is at a turning point in its military planning. In Supreme Headquarters and in many of the capitals of the Alliance, work on our future needs is going ahead. As part of this effort, we in the Government of the United States are now well advanced in a careful study of our own view of the military policy of NATO.

Vice President Johnson explained last week in Paris our belief that there should be a reinforcement of the capabilities of NATO in conventional weapons.35 NATO needs to be able to respond to any conventional attack with conventional resistance which will be effective at least long enough, in General [Lauris] Norstad's phrase, to force a pause. To this end we ourselves mean to maintain our own divisions and supporting units in Europe and to increase their conventional capabilities.

In addition to strengthened conventional forces we believe that NATO must continue to have an effective nuclear capability. We hope to consult closely with our allies on the precise forms which the nuclear deterrent should take in future years. In his address last week Prime Minister Macmillan pointed out the urgency of this question.36 The

White House press release dated Apr. 10, 1961 (text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, May 1, 1961, pp. 647-648).

* See supra.

Reference to the Prime Minister's Apr. 7 address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; excerpts printed in the New York Times, Apr. 8, 1961.

United States means to do its full share in working toward a good solution of the problem, and we believe that the clarity and firmness of our own commitment to the full defense of Europe can be helpful in this direction.

I do not want to go further today in the elaboration of these matters. The proper first forum for their consideration in NATO is, of course, the North Atlantic Council, and, moreover, questions of this importance also require careful discussions in each country at the very highest levels of government.

But before I turn to other matters let me comment briefly on one further military point. In our studies we have found a serious need for a sensitive and flexible control of all arms, and especially over nuclear weapons. We propose to see to it, for our part, that our military forces operate at all times under continuous, responsible command and control from the highest authorities all the way downward-and we mean to see that this control is exercised before, during, and after any initiation of hostilities against our forces, and at any level of escalation. We believe in maintaining effective deterrent strength, but we believe also in making it do what we wish, neither more nor less.

In stating this doctrine I am reaffirming principles to which the responsible military leaders of NATO have always adhered--but I am also assuring you that the political leadership of the United States will apply both energy and resources in this direction.

And this brings me to my second main point. NATO is remarkable among the alliances of history in its combination of political, military, economic, and even psychological components. What NATO is, at any time, depends not only upon its forces in being but upon the resolution of its leaders, the state of mind of its peoples, and the view of all these elements which is held by the Kremlin.

In this situation it is clearly necessary that there should be close understanding between political leaders and the senior military officers. In our countries, of course, final responsibility always rests with political authorities, and we also have a tradition of respect for the professional judgment of professional soldiers. But in NATO, from the beginning, it has been essential that neither class of men should accept any arbitrary division of our problems into "the political" and "the military." The crucial problems have all been mixed. Political leaders have had a duty to share with their senior officers a full understanding of the political purposes of the Alliance, and military leaders for their part have had to recognize that in NATO all the important military problems are political problems too.

This recognition of the interconnection between policy and force is an even more compelling necessity today, especially in all the questions which relate to the command, the deployment, and the possible use of nuclear weapons.

In the months ahead, as we share in the framing of NATO's policy and in new decisions which may guide us safely toward the future, we shall need to have the closest and most understanding communication, not only from country to country but from soldier to civilian.

Political planning must be aware of military realities, and military plans in turn must be responsive to political considerations-among them such varied and important matters as resource capabilities, national attitudes, and other Alliance objectives like our common purpose to advance the economic welfare of the whole free world. Our force goals, our military policy, our deployments, and our war plans themselves must all reflect the purposes and spirit of our great community. Military and political problems are not separable, and military and political men must work ever more closely together.

I hold an office which by our very Constitution unites political and military responsibility, and therefore it is no more than my duty to pledge my own best effort to keep these two kinds of problems together in my mind. I ask the same of you.

In ending, gentlemen, let me turn for one moment from our problems to our accomplishment. NATO has kept the peace of Europe and the Atlantic through 12 dangerous years, and in that time our community has grown in strength and in well-being. This is no small accomplishment. I offer to you, and through you to all of NATO's armed forces, the thanks and congratulations of the people and Government of the United States. Let us go on together in this high task of guarding a free community's peace.

[GERMAN-UNITED STATES "MOST CORDIAL AND USEFUL EXCHANGE OF VIEWS ON... SUBJECTS OF [MUTUAL] INTEREST": Joint Communiqué Issued at Washington by the President of the United States (Kennedy) and the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (Adenauer), April 13, 1961-Post, doc. 200]

[GREEK-UNITED STATES "CORDIAL AND FRIENDLY TALKS UPON SUBJECTS OF MUTUAL INTEREST": Joint Communiqué Issued at Washington by the President of the United States (Kennedy) and the Prime Minister of Greece (Caramanlis), April 20, 1961-Post, doc. 202]

172. MINISTERIAL SESSION OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC COUNCIL, OSLO, MAY 8-10, 1961: Communiqué Issued May 10, 1961 3:

37

1. The North Atlantic Council held its Spring Ministerial Meeting in Oslo from May 8th to May 10th, 1961, under the Chairmanship of its new Secretary General, Mr. D. U. Stikker.

37 Department of State press release No. 307 (text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, May 29, 1961, pp. 801–802).