Abstract
The Republican administration followed its Democrat predecessor in adopting a Europe-first strategy. As Rosenberg, Wampler and Trachtenberg argue, there was strong continuity in American strategy for the defence of western Europe between the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.1 Both considered the presence of combat forces in western Europe and Germany as essential in order to resist the Soviet military threat, despite the increasing availability of nuclear weapons during that period. The difference was perhaps a matter of emphasis, with the Eisenhower administration placing more reliance on nuclear weapons, in an effort to compensate for the inability and unwillingness of America’s NATO allies in Europe to provide sufficient troops. This comprised part of what Gaddis termed the ‘asymmetrical response’ to the nature of the Communist threat. More importantly, it was the Eisenhower administration that first raised the question of who should provide troops for NATO.
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Notes and References
See, Rosenberg, ‘The Origins of Overkill’, pp. 123–95; Robert A. Wampler, ‘Conventional Goals and Nuclear Promises: the Truman Administration and the Roots of the NATO New Look’ in Heller and Gillingham (eds), NATO, pp. 353–80; Marc Trachtenberg, ‘The Nuclearization of NATO and U.S.-West European Relations’, Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 153–68.
David C. Elliot, ‘Project Vista and Nuclear Weapons in Europe’, International Security 11:1 (Summer 1986), p. 163;
Robert A. Wampler, NATO Strategic Planning and Nuclear Weapons, 1950–1957, Nuclear History Program (Occasional Paper 6), (the Center for International Security Studies, University of Maryland, 1990), p. 4.
Wampler, NATO Strategic Planning, p. 8; idem, ‘Conventional Goals and Nuclear Promises’, pp. 353–61ff; Poole, JCS History, vol. 4, pp. 309–10; Robert Watson, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1953–1954, vol. 5 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1986), pp. 284–5.
‘Dulles’s notes for Senate Foreign Relations’, 10 February 1953, Box 67, Dulles papers, SML; Secretary of Defense Report Jan-June ‘53, p. 57. For fuller accounts of United States military aid to Europe, see Lawrence S. Kaplan, A Community of Interests: NATO and the Military Assistance Program, 1948–51 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office, 1980).
‘Declaration by the Governments of the USA, the United Kingdom and France on their interest in the strength and integrity of the European Defence Community’ published at the time of the signature of the EDC Treaty in Paris on 27 May 1952, see Denise Folliot (ed.), Documents on International Affairs, 1952 (London and New York: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1955), p. 169.
Konrad Adenauer, Memoirs 1945–1953 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966), pp. 428–33ff; The record of Dulles’s visit to Western Europe, 31 January–8 February 1953, FRUS 1952–4, vol. 5, pp. 1548–81 ff.
For American perceptions of the French situation see, Dunn (Paris) to the Dept. of State, tel. 7991, 20 June FRUS 1952–4, vol. 5, pp. 688–90; Acheson (Bonn) to Truman (letter), 26 May 1952, ibid., pp. 680–3; Acheson to Dunn, tel. 1305, 6 September 1952, ibid., pp. 690–2; Anglo-American talks, 12 November 1952, ibid., pp. 698–9. For the French attitude, see, Vincent Auriol, Journal du Septennat, 1947–1954, vol. 6 (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1971), pp. 106–7; François Seydoux, Mémoires (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1975), pp. 168–70;
Rene Massigli, Une Comédie des Erreurs (Paris: Plon 1978), pp. 322–6.
Anthony Seldon, Churchill’s Indian Summer — The Conservative Government, 1951–55 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981), pp. 391–2;
Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986), p. 355; Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez, p. 47;
David Carlton, Anthony Eden (London: Allen Lane, 1981), p. 323;
John Colville, Footprints in Time (London: Collins, 1976), p. 235; idem, The Fringes of Power — Downing Street Diaries vol. 2, 1941– April 1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1987) pp. 319–22; For Churchill calling Dulles ‘Dullith’, see Winthrop Aldrich Oral History Transcript (interviewed by David Berliner on 16 October 1972), OH-250, Columbia University Oral History Project, DDEL.
Mosley, Dulles, pp. 292, 353: Gerson, Dulles, p. 71; Hoopes, Dulles, p. 166; See also a perceptive study on the Anglo-American power relationship by D. Cameron Watt, ‘Demythologizing the Eisenhower Era’, in Wm. Roger Louis and Hedley Bull (eds) The Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 65–85.
Eisenhower’s Diary, 6 January 1953, in Box 9, DDE Diary Series, AWF, DDEL; Robert Griffith (ed.), Ike’s Letters to a Friend 1941–1958 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1984), p. 140; Ferrell, Eisenhower Diaries, pp. 224, 230–1.
Anthony Eden, Full Circle (London: Cassell, 1960), p. 63.
Robert Rhodes James, Eden, p. 352; Victor Rothwell, Anthony Eden — A Political Biography 1931–1957 (Manchester and NY: Manchester University Press, 1992), pp. 4, 128–9.
Saki Dockrill, ‘The Evolution of Britain’s Policy towards a European Army, 1950–54’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 12:1 (March 1989), pp. 38–62.
‘NATO Ground Forces in the West’ undated (written between May and December 1952?), 11/1949/23 and ‘The Atlantic Army for the Defence of the West’, undated, 11/1950/28, both in Sir Basil Liddell Hart papers, LHCMA; Coral Bell, Negotiation from Strength (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1963), p. 49.
US Delegation at the NATO council, Paris, to Dept. of State, tels 6 and 7, 24 April 1953, ibid., pp. 374–5, 379; see also Christian Greiner, ‘Das milit rätrategische Konzept der NATO von 1952 bis 1957’ in Militärgeschichitliches Forschungsamt, Zwischen Kaltem Krieg und Entspannung-Sicherheits — und Deutschlandpolitik der Bundesrepublik im Mächtesystem der Jahre 1953–1956 (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt, 1988), p. 217.
Ronald Lewin, Slim: The Standard Bearer (London: Leo Cooper, 1976), pp. 278–9;
Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (London: Macmillan, 1983), pp. 79–80;
Martin S. Navias, Nuclear Weapons and British Strategic Planning, 1955–1958 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 1–7;
Ian Clark and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy 1945–1955 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 160–74;
Alan Macmillan and John Baylis, A Reassessment of the British Global Strategy Paper of 1952. (Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in association with the Nuclear History Programme, 1993).
Dulles’s statement on 27 October 1953 FRUS 1952–4, vol. 5, p. 448, fn. 5; he also issued a denial on 13 October. See Dulles to DDE, 21 October 1953, FRUS 1952–4, vol. 2, p. 550; see also FRUS 1952–4, vol. 5, pp. 855, 867; G.W. Lewis, The Acting Director of the Office of German affairs to Conant, (letter), 28 October 1953 and Lewis minute of the mtg between Dr Heinz Krekeler (Ambassador, Chargé d’Affaires of the Federal Republic of Germany), Bedell Smith, and Lewis, 18 November 1953, ibid., pp. 555–6; Makins to Eden, tel. 73. 23 February 1954, FO 371/109099, PRO; see also James Hershberg, ‘German Rearmament and American Diplomacy, 1953–55’, Diplomatic History 16:4 (fall 1992), pp. 531–2;
Bruno Thoß, ‘The presence of American troops in Germany and German-American relations, 1949–1956’ in Jeffry M. Diefendorf, A. Frohn, and H.J. Rupieper, American Policy and the Reconstruction of West Germany, 1945–1955 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 421–2.
JP (53)25, 6 February 1953, DEFE6/23, PRO; Air Marshall Sir John Slessor to the Minister of Defence (Earl Alexander of Tunis (minute), 5 March 1952, IIIG; Slessor, minute of conference with Commanders-in-Chief, Whitehall, 17 November 1952,111G; Slessor on ‘The place of the bomber in British Policy’ in letter from Slessor to Churchill, 30 December 1952, XII F, all in Sir John Slessor Papers, The Air Historical Branch, Ministry of Defence, London; James Bonbright, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs to Dulles (letter), 24 September 1953, FRUS 1952–4, vol. 5, p. 441; Timothy Botti, The Long Wait — The Forging of the Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance, 1945–1958 (New York and London: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp. 105–9.
Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez, p. 120; Mérandri, Les Étas Unis, p. 429; Massagli, Une Comedie, pp. 412–14 ff; Gerson, Dulles, pp. 141–2; Brian R. Duchen, ‘The “Agonizing Reappraisal”: The Eisenhower, Dulles, and the European Defense Community’, Diplomatic History 16:2 (spring 1992), pp. 201–13.
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Dockrill, S. (1996). Collective Security in Western Europe. In: Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy, 1953–61. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372337_5
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