safety of the United States depends upon the freedom of Europe, and the freedom of Europe depends upon the strength and the will of the United States. That strength and that will have never been clearer, have never been more necessary than today.

The United States is committed to the increasing strength and the cooperation of the Atlantic community in every field of actioneconomic, commercial, and monetary. There are no problems which we cannot solve together, and there are very few which any of us can settle by himself.

The United States sees no safe future for ourselves and none for any other Atlantic nation in a policy of narrow national self-interest. One of the great aspirations within the Atlantic community is the aspiration toward growing unity among the free peoples of Europe. No nation on either side of the Atlantic has done more to support this purpose than the United States. This support will continue.

Since 1945 the United States has borne a special responsibility for the nuclear defense of the free world. The costs and the complexities of modern nuclear weapons make it inevitable that this American responsibility will continue far into the future. While we cannot divest ourselves of this awesome obligation, we can and we will work earnestly with all of our friends to find new and better ways by which all interested members of the alliance can increase their own sense of safety by sharing responsibility in the unified defense of the alliance as a whole. This is the meaning of our present interest in the multilateral forces. This is the meaning of our continued readiness to discuss these problems with every interested ally.

I believe that the Atlantic Alliance is only at the beginning of its time of greatest achievement. Its success has been proved in 15 years of Atlantic peace. Its differences are differences among peoples who have learned in the torment of war that the freedom of each requires the freedom of all. I look forward with confidence to the resolution of present differences and the reassertion of the unity which is so deeply in the common interest of us all.

Document IV-34

The French Need for a Nuclear Deterrent: ADDRESS BY THE PREMIER OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC (POMPIDOU) BEFORE THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, DECEMBER 2, 1964 (EXCERPT) 25

France wants peace. France has no demands to make. France is not threatening anyone and has no expansionist aims anywhere. France is ready to disarm if those who are overarmed set the example. But in the present situation France is compelled to prepare to defend itself. Actually, defense today is impossible without nuclear force.

(1) The atomic bomb has changed everything. It is not only the most modern weapon, just as tanks, planes, or heavy artillery or machine guns were in the past. It is the weapon the possession of which gives certainty of victoryimmediate and unchallengeable victory-over an adversary who does not have it.

French Foreign Ministry press release (official translation) (text as printed in Documents on Disarmament, 1964, pp. 492-497).

One cannot, therefore, resign oneself to not having it, unless one resigns oneself either to being a protectorate, pure and simple, or to relying on the wisdom of all the nations and of all their leaders. The latter assumption is such a dangerous gamble that as soon as one has the means to possess the atomic weapon one has the obligation to do so. In any case it is a gamble that no great power seems willing to take since-and this is no accident-the five great powers at San Francisco, which became the permanent members of the Security Council, are today nuclear powers in varying degrees and everyone is talking about the desire of the others to get closer to the atomic weapon.

(2) The destructiveness of the atomic weapon is such that war can only be envisaged as total catastrophe. Hence it is no longer a question of "preparing for victory" but of safeguarding the peace. In the words of a military writer, “the role of the nuclear weapon is not to make war but to prevent it." This is what is called deterrence, which means "to be in possession of a destruction capability, as compared with a possible enemy, which is such that the latter will realize that he will be able to gain the victory only at the cost of unbearable sacrifices." For this it is desirable, but it is not essential, to be the equal of the enemy. It suffices if the blows that one has the capability to deal him are sufficiently heavy to remove temptation.

DETERRENCE RESTS ESSENTIALLY ON THIS PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENT

(3) But in order for it to count, it is necessary that the enemy be convinced that he cannot escape the impact of atomic weapons on his own soil. Otherwise, he might hope to win, either in a conventional war or in an atomic war waged beyond his own borders without great harm to him, particularly if he has sufficient mass potential and a territory protected by remoteness or by its vastness. (4) This is what explains our attitude toward NATO, that is, toward American protection. As long as the United States had an actual monopoly on the nuclear weapon we were certain of victory, to be sure, but also of deterrence.

(5) Today the American Alliance still provides the certainty of final victory, but it no longer gives assurance of not being attacked, because the United States is henceforth within range of the nuclear weapons of its possible enemy. Hence the latter might hope to limit the theater of operations to Western Europe, conquer it by using its conventional or even its atomic means, and then see the United States draw back from the decision to destroy itself which an attack with all its nuclear weapons against the territory of the U.S.S.R. itself would involve. The risk is real. The past proves it since at a time when war was infinitely less terrible Wilhelm II could believe that Great Britain would not intervene and Hitler could believe that Great Britain and a fortiori the United States would accept the defeat of France and would halt the war or would not declare war. The risk lies not so much in our uncertainty regarding the decision of the United States as in the error in evaluation that the enemy might make. Was it not an analogous error in evaluation that Soviet Russia made just recently in the Cuban affair? 20

(6) It is necessary, therefore, that France, in order to be protected from the risk of war, should possess nuclear weapons such that the aggressor would know with certainty that he cannot hope to attack and win without inevitably suffering destruction such that he could not bear it, or at least such as to remove all attraction from the hypothesis of victory. Hence our program, which is giving us the destruction capability that is adequate because it is equivalent to the stake which our country can represent.

(7) By adopting this attitude we are at the same time amply helping to protect Europe. It goes without saying that if Great Britain had chosen to link itself closely to Western Europe, the addition of its nuclear power to ours would have increased the value of the deterrent considerably, but it did not choose to do 80. We sincerely hope that some day it will change its policy. Meanwhile the only systems which have been suggested consist more or less of integrating the forces belonging to European nations with a portion of the American forces, creating a joint power of decision. This is a double-veto system. Such a sys

26 See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1962, pp. 399-471.

tem gives Europe no guarantee. In the first place, Europe is no longer sure of its defense in the sense that I meant it above since the enemy may at any moment doubt that the U.S.A. would decide to intervene all-out for the benefit of a European state.

Moreover, Europe would not find in such a system any real capability, either of blocking the launching of an atomic war or, on the other hand, of being free to launch one in its own defense.

Indeed, let us imagine that aggression takes place somewhere in the world. Let us consider a situation in which the United States and Europe are not in agreement regarding the steps to take in intervening, an assumption that cannot be ruled out and which, moreover, is the only one that lends value to the holding of the veto right.

In such a situation:

Either the United States of America will want to use the nuclear weapon and Europe will not want to, in which case the United States will be free to act, using at least 95 percent of its power, and the European veto will count for nothing; or else, in case of an aggression affecting them directly, the European countries will want to use the atomic weapon and the United States will not want to use it, or will not want to use it all-out. In this case the American veto suffices to paralyze the European nuclear forces.

(8) Now, there is a risk, and a grave risk, that the final result of the so-called strategy of escalation would be that the atomic weapons would not be used or would be used only in a limited theater. If the aggression were directed against Western Europe, it might mean that France, Germany and the satellite countries of the East would be destroyed, while the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. would keep their territory intact during this first phase. The leaders of the U.S.S.R. might then find themselves in the psychological situation which I mentioned that is, the illusion that the U.S.A. would recoil before selfdestruction and would accept the annihilation of Europe as a fait accompli to which it had to resign itself. It is therefore evident that in the present situation the only sure deterrent which Europe can employ comes from its own nuclear forces. In other words, all Europe today has a direct interest in the French nuclear force, although it is of course very inadequate for winning final victory, and consequently the Atlantic Alliance remains a necessity.

(9) It has been maintained that it would be better if this nuclear force did not remain exclusively French but were integrated in a European force. Theoretically, this would make it possible for the force to become stronger and thus be a more effective deterrent. However, it should be noted that because of the very fact that France is in Europe its force operates fully and automatically to the advantage of Europe, whose defense is inseparable from its own-which is not the case with forces, even allied forces, which are outside the European Continent.

Furthermore, the creation of a European nuclear force raises a number of questions for which there is no solution under the present circumstances. In the first place, the question of Germany's participation. Arming Germany with nuclear weapons would, in the eyes of the U.S.S.R., constitute a grave act the consequences of which could not be measured. The U.S.S.R. has not yet forgotten what the last war was like, with Hitler's armies at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow and Sebastopol. Nor have Poland, Czechoslovakia, or Rumania, for their part, forgotten it. There is here a need for caution, which the Federal Republic itself has recognized. Furthermore, an integrated European defense can be conceived of only if there is first a political Europe that has its own policy and consequently its own defense. That is an ideal we not only contemplate but hope for. But who can fail to see the difficulties that must still be surmounted? To imagine that, for our defense, we are going to entrust the supreme decision to use the atomic weapon to the president of an organization like the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community or the Commission of the EEC is ridiculous. Whenever decisions or proposals of the High Authority of the Brussels Commission clashed with important interests in one of the states, deliberations of the governments have been necessary in order to carry them out. Who could imagine leaving to an international official, however eminent

he might be, the responsibility for pressing the button on which the life of tens of millions of men would depend? Hence it is necessary to creat a minimum of European political organization among states, and France, for its part, is ready to contribute to that. But this first stage would not suffice to provide the conditions necessary to a really integrated defense. Indeed, it presupposes a decision that might have to be immediate. In the event of a crisis, it will be a matter of minutes, not hours, and there will be but little time for consultations. There may even be no time at all. Therefore, what is needed is a responsible person who must consult if he has the time but who may make the decision alone if that is necessary. We see this clearly in the case of NATO. But what cannot satisfy us is that the one solely responsible for European defense should be outside Europe.

(10) Our efforts will be devoted to preparing for that European unity, in which the Common Market will undoubtedly be a powerful agent. Meanwhile, we can only seek to make Europe realize the necessity of setting out resolutely toward political unity, and to provide ourselves with a force that is already European simply because it is French.

Such is our national defense policy. It is none the less European, and we are not responsible for seeing that it becomes more so. National or European, it in no wise deviates from the Atlantic Alliance, which we know to be necessary for the final victory and extremely useful as a deterrent. In arming ourselves, not to prepare for war but to render war impossible because it would be tragic for the aggressor, however powerful he might be, we are discharging an essential duty to the country, the most important one of all, for on it depends the very survival of France and its people-and we are also discharging that duty to Europe.

Document IV-35

Ministerial Session of the Council of the OECD, Paris, December 2-3, 1964: COMMUNIQUÉ ISSUED DECEMBER 3, 1964 27

1. The Ministerial Council of the OECD met in Paris on 2nd and 3rd December 1964, under the Chairmanship of the Honourable Joseph Luns, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and reviewed the economic situation of its Member countries and their economic relations with the rest of the world. Japan participated for the first time as a Member.

2. (a) For the years 1960-1964, the increase of the gross national product for the OECD countries taken together has been roughly in line with the target of 50 percent growth for the decade. Though there has been some slowing down in the rate of expansion in various European countries and Japan, the prospects for economic growth in 1965 for the OECD areas as a whole seem to be good. In certain countries such as Italy, encouragement for investment should now be contemplated.

(b) However, inflationary tendencies have made themselves felt in a number of Member countries. Their present policies designed to control these tendencies will have to be continued in order to prevent inflation spreading. Developments during the last year indicate that in working towards the growth target it will be necessary to devote great attention to policies designed to maintain stability.

"OECD Press Release Press/A (64) 88.

3. (a) It is therefore important that monetary incomes should be kept within the limits that productivity permits. An important condition for this is that demand should not be too high.

(b) The attainment of economic growth without inflation can be facilitated by an active manpower policy that promotes the best utilisation of human resources. Likewise further changes in agricultural policies shifting emphasis from price support to support of structural reforms and regional development would permit gradual transfers of manpower into expanding industries and services while allowing higher incomes to those remaining in agriculture. In this respect, due regard should be given to the social consequences arising out of the transformation process.

4. (a) Apart from the United Kingdom, the international payments positions of the OECD countries have been brought into better balance. Italy's large deficit has turned into a surplus, while the surpluses of France and Germany have been reduced, as has the deficit of the United States.

(b) Problems remain. The United States must continue to reduce its balance of payments deficit.28 The large deficit of the United Kingdom, though partly due to temporary factors, gives reason for concern. It calls for economic policies designed to bring about a lasting improvement in the United Kingdom's external financial position. The situation will be kept under close examination in the Organisation. Ministers noted the series of measures which had already been decided upon.29 They further noted the temporary character and non-discriminatory form of the import surcharge and that the United Kingdom Government was firmly resolved to reduce it in a non-discriminatory manner and abolish it at the earliest possible moment.

(c) The Ministers noted with satisfaction that the Organisation will undertake a special study of the balance of payments adjustment process and play an active role in the multilateral surveillance of means to finance imbalances, as requested by the ten countries parties to the General Arrangements to Borrow."

5. The Ministers directed the Organisation to continue its efforts to stimulate activity to improve the capital markets of Member countries of the Organisation. They considered that increased effectiveness of capital markets was especially important for facilitating the financing of economic growth and for contributing to balance of payments equilibrium.

6.

The Ministers reviewed the situation of the two Consortia for aid to Greece and Turkey. Greece has recently submitted a new request for financial assistance and there should now be renewed activity by the Consortium. While the Consortium for Turkey has provided substantial external aid in support of Turkish development, the financing of such development will require increased efforts by

28 See post, docs. XI-2 et seq.

29 See footnote 51 to doc. IV-60, post.

30 See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1962, pp. 251–255; ante, doc. II-58.