Globalizing de Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, 1958-1969 (The Harvard Cold War Studies)

Globalizing de Gaulle The Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series Series Editor: Mark Kramer, Harvard University Redrawi...

Author: Christian Nuenlist

124 downloads 2395 Views 1MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!

Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Globalizing de Gaulle

The Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series Series Editor: Mark Kramer, Harvard University Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944–1948 Edited by Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak Triggering Communism’s Collapse: Perceptions and Power in Poland’s Transition Marjorie Castle The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation: Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism Bradley F. Abrams Resistance with the People: Repression and Resistance in Eastern Germany 1945–1955 Gary Bruce At the Dawn of the Cold War: The Soviet-American Crisis over Iranian Azerbaijan, 1941–1946 Jamil Hasanli The Cold War after Stalin’s Death: A Missed Opportunity for Peace? Edited by Klaus Larres and Kenneth Osgood Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China, 1948–1953 Hua-yu Li The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War Edited by Kathryn C. Statler and Andrew L. Johns Stalin and the Cold War in Europe: The Emergence and Development of East-West Conflict, 1939–1953 Gerhard Wettig Eisenhower and Adenauer: Alliance Maintenance under Pressure, 1953–1960 Steven Brady China Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949–Present Edited by Thomas P. Bernstein and Hua-yu Li The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 Edited by Günter Bischof, Stefan Karner, and Peter Ruggenthaler Globalizing de Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, 1958–1969 Edited by Christian Nuenlist, Anna Locher, and Garret Martin

Globalizing de Gaulle International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, 1958–1969

Edited by Christian Nuenlist, Anna Locher, and Garret Martin

Lexington Books A division of ROW M A N & L I T T L E F I E L D P U B L I S H E R S , I N C .

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Globalizing de Gaulle : international perspectives on French foreign policies, 1958-1969 / edited by Christian Nuenlist, Anna Locher, and Garret Martin. p. cm. -- (The Harvard Cold War studies book series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-4248-6 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7391-4250-9 (electronic) 1. France--Foreign relations--1958-1969. 2. Gaulle, Charles de, 1890-1970. 3. World politics--1945-1989. 4. Cold War. I. Nünlist, Christian. II. Locher, Anna. III. Martin, Garret, 1980DC420.G55 2010 327.44009’046--dc22 2009030904

 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Editors’ Preface

vii

â•‡ 1.â•‡â•‡Introduction: De Galle and Gaullism in France’s Cold War Foreign Policy Mark Kramer

1

Part I:â•‡ Europe â•‡ 2.â•‡â•‡De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow Marie-Pierre Rey

25

â•‡ 3.â•‡â•‡A “Cordial Potentiality?” De Gaulle and the Franco–German Partnership, 1963–1969 Carine Germond

43

â•‡ 4.â•‡â•‡From Words to Actions: Reinterpreting de Gaulle’s European Policy Piers Ludlow

63

Part II:â•‡ Transatlantia â•‡ 5.â•‡â•‡NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966: Learning to Cope Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist â•‡ 6.â•‡â•‡ Dealing with de Gaulle: The United States and France Carolyne Davidson v

85 111

vi

Contents

â•‡ 7.â•‡â•‡Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967 James Ellison

135

Part III:â•‡ Asia â•‡ 8.â•‡â•‡The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace, 1964–1966 Yuko Torikata â•‡ 9.â•‡â•‡ Seeking a Multipolar World: China and de Gaulle’s France Qiang Zhai 10.â•‡â•‡A Hot Summer: France, Israel, and the Middle East Crisis in 1958 Gadi Heimann

155 181

203

Part IV:â•‡ Africa and Latin America 11.â•‡â•‡“Je ne vous ai pas compris”: De Gaulle’s Decade of Negotiation with the Algerian FLN, 1958–1969 Jeffrey James Byrne

225

12.â•‡â•‡De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa: From Decolonization to French Development Policy, 1958–1963 Guia Migani

251

13.â•‡â•‡The Hero on the Latin American Scene Joaquín Fermandois

271

14.â•‡â•‡Conclusion: A Gaullist Grand Strategy? Garret Martin

291

Index

309

About the Contributors

315

Editors’ Preface Christian Nuenlist, Anna Locher, and Garret Martin

The towering personality of French President Charles de Gaulle (1958– 1969) has consistently fascinatedÂ€contemporaries and historians. His challenge toÂ€ U.S. Cold War hegemony, a key theme in Cold War history, has produced an industry of political biographies andÂ€analyses of the foreign policies of the Fifth Republic. Much of the existing literature has focused on national perspectives on French foreign policies andÂ€ bilateral relations in the de Gaulle era. A comprehensive internationalÂ€perspective on de Gaulle’s foreign policies, emanating from multinationalÂ€and multiarchival historical research into newly available records, hasÂ€been missing so far. This volume seeks to close this gap by integratingÂ€scholarship on the subject both from traditional and less conventional angles. The first six chapters deal with Europe and transatlantic affairs—deÂ€Gaulle’s immediate sphere of activity and challenge. They include sections on French–Soviet, French–German, and French–U.S. relations—integrating the latest research and offering original interpretations—andÂ€contributions examining the EEC and NATO, drawing on national and, remarkably,Â€institutional archives in Florence and Brussels. The second setÂ€ of six chapters deals with Asia, Africa, and Latin America, for the first time incorporating materials from the Chilean, Chinese, Israeli, and AlgerianÂ€ archives, and scholarship largely unavailable in English. All chapters thus integrate previously neglected regions, actors, and topics into a global perspective on the foreign policies of the Elysée in the 1960s.Â€ The concluding chapter of the volume argues that there was far more toÂ€Gaullist foreign policy than simply mere posturing. De Gaulle’s ambitiousÂ€ grand design to overcome the bipolar order of the Cold War had a significantÂ€ worldwide impact at the time, and it still reverberates today.Â€ vii

viii

Editors’ Preface

This re-evaluation of de Gaulle’s global agenda promises a new and better understanding of one of the radical European challenges to U.S. leadership during the Cold War, but also of the complex international policymaking of the 1960s. Approaching the period in the framework of international history proper does make a difference: It places French policies in a broader context and above all reveals that the East–West confrontation was much more than a bilateral conflict. Zurich and Washington, January 2010

1 Introduction: De Gaulle and Gaullism in France’s Cold War Foreign Policy Mark Kramer

During the first quarter of a century after World War II, no West European political leader—not even Konrad Adenauer—could rival the international stature of Charles de Gaulle. Born in 1890, de Gaulle gained prominence in the 1930s as a military theorist (albeit one whose views met stiff resistance in the hidebound French Army) and then earned much greater renown in the early 1940s as commander of the Free French Forces resisting German occupation.1 From mid-1944 to early 1946, de Gaulle served as president of France’s provisional government after the ouster of the disgraced Vichy regime. He waged an unsuccessful battle against the proposed constitution for the Fourth Republic, arguing that it gave too much power to the legislature and crippled the president. In late 1946, after the constitution for the Fourth Republic was narrowly approved in a referendum, de Gaulle left the political fray, seemingly disillusioned. Over the next decade he remained active in party politics (though with only mixed success) but otherwise stayed mostly at his country home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises.2 Not until 1957, after France’s humiliating retreat in Suez, did de Gaulle experience a clear turnaround in his political fortunes. In May 1958, after the ill-fated Fourth Republic entered its terminal crisis, de Gaulle steadily gained ascendance, winning pledges of loyalty from French military commanders in Algeria. On June 1 he was appointed acting French premier.3 When parliamentary elections were held in November 1958 for the newly created Fifth Republic, his supporters achieved a substantial majority. A month later, the Electoral College overwhelmingly chose de Gaulle as president of the Fifth Republic, a post he held until his final retirement from public life in April 1969. De Gaulle’s eleven years at the helm defined France’s role in the Cold War, as he became synonymous not only with the policy of grandeur but with the French state itself. 1

2

Mark Kramer

De Gaulle’s approach to the Cold War, and to foreign policy more generally, was shaped by his desire to restore France to the ranks of the world’s great powers and to forge a “European Europe”—a Europe that under French leadership would no longer be divided between East and West. Part and parcel of this conception was a curtailment of France’s military and economic dependence on the United States. De Gaulle accelerated the French nuclear weapons program (the force de frappe) despite international opposition, and in March 1966 he pulled French troops out of the integrated military command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), sparking a major crisis within the Western alliance. De Gaulle did not ultimately take France out of NATO’s political councils (though he repeatedly hinted that he might), but he did seek to distance his country as much as possible from the Western military bloc (especially the “AngloSaxon” powers) and to pursue a genuinely independent foreign policy and defense posture, establishing France once again as the chief “guardian of Europe” and a great power on the world stage. To be sure, some of the reorientation of French foreign policy had begun well before de Gaulle returned to power. France launched its own nuclear weapons program shortly after World War II, and the program subsequently was endorsed by every government of the Fourth Republic.4 When de Gaulle pushed ahead with France’s first nuclear test explosion in February 1960, he was merely reaffirming a decision made in April 1958 by the final Fourth Republic government, headed by Félix Gaillard. De Gaulle’s desire for an independent force de frappe (especially after his proposal for a trilateral NATO directorate was rejected) was therefore not radically different from the policies of the successive Fourth Republic governments. Nor did his espousal of an independent nuclear force amount to a call for absolute autarky. Under an “Agreement for Cooperation in the Operation of Atomic Weapons Systems for Mutual Defense Purposes” signed by the U.S. and French governments in July 1961, French nuclear weapons scientists apparently received at least a modicum of indirect advice from U.S. weapons specialists in the 1960s.5 Nonetheless, even though de Gaulle was not starting from scratch, he accelerated the existing trends and took new steps to attain a special status for France vis-à-vis the transatlantic alliance and the Cold War standoff. De Gaulle’s policy of grandeur became such an indelible part of France’s dealings with the outside world that most elements of it were preserved by his successors, including his erstwhile nemesis François Mitterrand. Even when de Gaulle’s immediate successor, Georges Pompidou, decided to lift the long-standing French veto on Britain’s application to join the European Economic Community (EEC), this move did not signal any erosion of France’s aspiration to be a leading world power and the dominant force in an integrated Europe. Instead, Pompidou’s action was motivated solely by

Introduction

3

a desire to overcome the increasingly bitter recriminations and near-paralysis of the EEC that had resulted from de Gaulle’s refusal to accept British membership. In a few more limited ways as well, French foreign policy did gradually change after de Gaulle—neither Pompidou nor Mitterrand shared de Gaulle’s penchant for flamboyant gestures or his obvious zest for antagonizing the United States—but in most respects the pattern under de Gaulle’s successors was one of continuity rather than discontinuity with Gaullist grandeur.6 Long after de Gaulle stepped down as president in 1969 and died a year later, the French government’s external behavior was still universally described as “Gaullist”—an adjective denoting France’s bid to reassert itself as a great power with global interests separate from those of NATO and the United States. *** The scholarly literature on de Gaulle’s presidency and foreign policy is immense. Thousands of books and articles have appeared in French, English, German, and other languages, and many new items are being published every year. The literature is so vast and is expanding so rapidly that even the largest bibliographies are bound to be incomplete. The continued outpouring of scholarship on French foreign policy under de Gaulle stems in part from enduring interest in his presidency and in part from the ongoing declassification of archival materials and the release of other primary sources, which allow for reassessments of key events and themes. Over the past ten to fifteen years, French scholars who have gained particularly good access to the French archives have produced outstanding overviews of France’s external relations during the de Gaulle era.7 Specialized studies of French military policy and programs under de Gaulle, especially the role of nuclear weapons in his thinking, the expansion of France’s weapons manufacturing sector, the uneasy state of civil-military relations in the wake of the “Generals’ Coup,” and the restructuring of the French high command after the pullout from Algeria, have also been proliferating.8 In addition to analyzing foreign policy “outputs,” numerous scholars have limned the policymaking process, showing how it influenced de Gaulle’s agenda and circumscribed or facilitated his actions.9 Despite the wealth of literature surveying various aspects of de Gaulle’s foreign policy, no comprehensive anthology of essays has yet appeared on France’s relations in 1958–1969 with countries around the world—countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well as Europe and North America. Most analyses of French foreign policy under de Gaulle have focused on a specific country or region or on a particular issue such as European integration, NATO, or decolonization.10 Books and articles about France’s bilateral ties with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), with Britain, and with the

4

Mark Kramer

United States have been so numerous that a bibliography of the literature on any of these topics would come to around 1,000 pages or more.11 In 1985 an anthology offering an array of international perspectives on de Gaulle’s foreign policy (as analyzed by French scholars rather than by scholars based in the relevant countries) was put out in Paris, but it appeared well before most of the relevant archival sources from the 1960s had become available either in France or elsewhere.12 That anthology had the further drawback of being relatively limited in its geographic scope, omitting any discussion of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. (On the other hand, the book did contain a useful chapter on de Gaulle’s controversial stance vis-à-vis Canada and another about French policy during the June 1967 Mideast war.) The editors of the current volume—Christian Nuenlist, Anna Locher, and Garret Martin—seek to provide a fuller and much more thoroughly documented picture. The thirteen essays that follow this introductory chapter are all based on pathbreaking, multicountry archival research by scholars well-versed in the latest historiography. Some of the authors reassess topics that have been discussed extensively in the past, whereas others deal with countries or issues that have been largely unexplored up to now. The volume as a whole presents a systematic evaluation of French policies around the globe and of international responses to de Gaulle’s actions. The chapter by Marie-Pierre Rey looks at Soviet policy toward France during the de Gaulle era, building on an earlier essay she published in French.13 Rey contends that Soviet officials were hopeful that they could use de Gaulle’s bid for greater independence as a wedge against NATO and the United States. As early as January 1958, before de Gaulle had even returned to power, the ruling Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) adopted a resolution vowing to “weaken the ties linking France with NATO and [to] strengthen the social and political tendencies in France that strive for greater independence from the United States.”14 The resolution had been inspired by the sharp rift that emerged between France and the United States in November 1956 during the Suez Crisis. Two weeks after the CPSU Presidium adopted its resolution, a Soviet diplomat who met with de Gaulle reported that the general had affirmed that “France’s dependence on the United States will not be eternal.”15 Thus, by the time de Gaulle was appointed premier in June 1958, Soviet leaders were distinctly optimistic about the prospects of working with him. For the first several years, however, as Rey points out, “Soviet hopes and calculations proved unfounded.” In particular, de Gaulle refused to go along with Moscow’s position regarding Germany, the issue on which “Soviet disappointment was keenest.” Not until 1966, after de Gaulle severed France’s military ties with NATO and demanded the removal of U.S. troops from French soil, did Soviet leaders once again become hopeful that growing tensions in U.S.–

Introduction

5

French relations would “push de Gaulle closer to the USSR.” De Gaulle’s highly publicized trip to the Soviet Union in the early summer of 1966, culminating in a joint declaration and other agreements, seemed to bear out Moscow’s optimism. Rey argues that the French president’s effort to forge a rapprochement with the Soviet Union was part of “an ambitious attempt to overcome the Cold War and the division [of Europe] into blocs.” But tensions between France and the USSR resurfaced in 1967 and 1968 when, as Rey notes, de Gaulle began “calling on the [East European] satellites to refuse submission to Moscow.” The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 marked “the end of [de Gaulle’s] dreams of overcoming the Cold War” and came as a bitter disappointment to him. For the Soviet Union, too, the rapprochement with France ultimately failed to produce most of the anticipated benefits. By the time de Gaulle left office, according to Rey, “Soviet disillusionment with him had been a long time coming.” If nothing else, the experience made clear that the USSR’s security goals in Europe depended far more on Washington and Bonn than on Paris. In the next chapter, Carine Germond explores the up-and-down relationship between France and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the late 1950s and 1960s. Initially, de Gaulle worked closely with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to strengthen the amicable bilateral ties that had evolved in the 1950s. This effort culminated in the Elysée treaty of January 1963, which laid out a framework of bilateral friendship and cooperation. From that point on, however, the room for further improvements of relations diminished. Germond argues that despite the historic reconciliation between the two countries, “France and Germany proved unable to achieve consensus on most [EEC] and world issues during de Gaulle’s presidency.” As a result, “the Franco–German alliance, as originally envisioned by de Gaulle, remained largely unfulfilled during his presidency.” The main reason for the lack of further progress, according to Germond, was the basic “conflict between the Gaullist and West German foreign policy orientations.” De Gaulle was hoping that the FRG would join him in his effort to counter the “Anglo-Saxons” and sever most ties with NATO, but neither Adenauer nor his successor, Ludwig Erhard, was willing to curtail West Germany’s close links with the United States and NATO. Erhard’s “preference for Washington rather than Paris” placed inherent limits on how far the French–FRG partnership could go. Erhard also opposed de Gaulle’s attempts to forge a privileged bilateral relationship with West Germany at the expense of the EEC. The advent of Kurt Kiesinger as West German chancellor in 1966 sparked renewed hope in Paris of steady improvements in relations with the FRG. Some modest gains did indeed occur, but on balance, as Germond notes, “profound divergences on key foreign policy issues persisted.” The pursuit of Ostpolitik by Kiesinger and his foreign minister, Willy Brandt, initially heartened de Gaulle, who saw the policy as

6

Mark Kramer

conducive to his own promotion of “détente, entente, and cooperation.” But Germond points out that even though French and West German leaders saw eye-to-eye on the need for overtures to the Eastern bloc, “the Franco– German ‘consensus’ on Ostpolitik came to a brutal end [in August 1968] with Moscow’s suppression of the Prague Spring,” an event that de Gaulle blamed partly on the FRG’s “activism” in Czechoslovakia. By early 1969, Kiesinger had come to believe that “as long as de Gaulle governs, there is not much [we] can do with France.”16 De Gaulle thus failed to achieve either of his major goals in policy toward the FRG—an “independent Western Europe with the Franco–German link at its core,” and a “Franco–German partnership within a European Community under French leadership.” De Gaulle’s general policy on European integration is the focus of the next chapter, by N. Piers Ludlow, who argues that the French president’s rhetoric often diverged from the concrete actions he took vis-à-vis the EEC. De Gaulle’s barbed public comments led many to believe that the general “despised [the EEC’s] supranational institutions,” but Ludlow contends that “the reality of French behavior toward the supranational institutions throughout the 1958–1969 period was . . . very different from that implied by these public attacks.” The de Gaulle era actually witnessed “a close pattern of cooperation with the supposedly despised and illegitimate European Commission.” This cooperation, Ludlow avers, suited France’s commercial interests. Because of France’s key role in the EEC, the French government enjoyed considerable leverage in intra-EEC negotiations and was wont to insist on financing and administrative arrangements that disproportionately benefited France. De Gaulle obtained lucrative subsidies for French farmers and blocked Britain’s application to join the EEC, thus forestalling any challenge to France’s preeminence within the Community. The resulting surge of French agricultural and industrial exports to EEC member-states, Ludlow writes, “contributed significantly to a French economic boom that, until 1968 at least, did much to bolster the confident and assertive stance that Gaullist France sought to adopt on the world stage.” Nonetheless, over time, as Ludlow notes, “the better France did, the more its European partners would conclude that France needed [to preserve] Europe”—a trend that undercut the credibility of French threats to pull out of the EEC and thereby reduced France’s negotiating leverage. Although de Gaulle continued to engage in brinkmanship to secure advantageous terms—most notably when he provoked the so-called Empty Chair crisis of 1965—“few of de Gaulle’s counterparts [any longer] believed that France would actually withdraw from the EEC.” By the mid-1960s, as Ludlow puts it, “France needed Europe as much as Europe needed France.” Hence, the other EEC member-states could be more “steadfast in resisting de Gaulle’s institutional demands.” For a while the desire to avoid another crippling standoff caused all the EEC countries, including France, to “eschew

Introduction

7

the type of forceful diplomacy that had led to the [Empty Chair] breakdown,” but efforts to avert another prolonged impasse came to an end in late 1967 when de Gaulle again blocked Britain’s attempt to join the EEC. This veto plunged the EEC into a nearly fatal crisis for the rest of de Gaulle’s time in office. Ludlow concludes that “de Gaulle’s tactics so wounded and offended many of his partners that French European successes became subject to a law of diminishing returns. . . . Resentment at French behavior and mistrust of [de Gaulle] mounted steadily, thwarting his ambitions for European political union, undermining the effectiveness of Franco–German cooperation, condemning the EEC to a succession of increasingly extreme diplomatic crises, and ultimately bringing the Community to total paralysis by the end of the decade.” In the next chapter, Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist discuss how NATO was able to contain the damage from de Gaulle’s decision in 1965– 1966 to pull French troops out of the alliance’s integrated military command. As early as February 1958, de Gaulle had expressed his dissatisfaction with NATO to a U.S. journalist: “If I governed France, I would quit NATO. NATO is against our independence and our interest.”17 In September 1958, a few months after de Gaulle was appointed prime minister, he sent his now-famous memorandum to the U.S. and British governments proposing to establish a new security framework within NATO consisting of France, the United States, and Britain as leaders of the alliance. De Gaulle regarded this proposal as an alternative to a situation in which “the whole show is effectively being run by the United States,” but neither the Americans nor the British were willing to pursue the idea.18 In subsequent years, the NATO governments and officials at the alliance’s headquarters in Paris increasingly sensed that de Gaulle was going to pose a more direct challenge to NATO. Serious planning began both in Paris and in the fourteen individual capitals to try to limit the fallout. These preparations were crucial in giving allied governments confidence that they could weather the storm. Locher and Nünlist point out that by late 1965 the consultations among allies revealed that “France was isolated in NATO.” Because French diplomats provided ample warning to the other NATO countries that de Gaulle intended to pull French forces out of NATO’s joint military command, the French president’s démarche on March 7, 1966 hardly came as a surprise. For a while, the crisis did spark considerable anxiety that NATO’s survival might be at stake, especially after de Gaulle’s landmark trip to Moscow in mid-1966, which caused some U.S. and British officials to worry that the Soviet Union would try to woo other West European countries. Ultimately, though, no country followed France’s lead, and concerns about NATO’s resilience proved unfounded. The lengthy preparations spearheaded by Brussels and by U.S., British, and West German officials in 1965 and early 1966 enabled the alliance to fend off de Gaulle’s challenge without any lasting

8

Mark Kramer

detriment. Indeed, far from weakening NATO, the French president’s decision to lay down the gauntlet proved to be a catalyst for action that actually strengthened the alliance in the long run. Locher and Nünlist contend that the U.S. government’s “systematic behind-the-scenes consultations of allies” and NATO’s other “comprehensive preparations before [France’s] actual withdrawal” in March 1966 turned what could have been a catastrophe for the alliance into a rare moment of opportunity. Close coordination well in advance of de Gaulle’s announcement “facilitated both the smooth acceptance of the French withdrawal in 1966 and the revitalization of NATO in 1966–1967.” The next chapter, by Carolyne Davidson, examines the often fractious relationship between Gaullist France and the United States. Davidson argues that de Gaulle’s aversion to NATO “forced the United States to recognize the tension between the control it wanted . . . in Western Europe and the multilateralism on which its credibility rested.” Gaullist opposition to U.S. hegemony in the alliance dogged every U.S. president from Dwight Eisenhower through Lyndon Johnson. In de Gaulle’s view, the basic problem was that Americans could not conceive of relinquishing their domination of the alliance or of accepting France as a genuine equal. Davidson contends that U.S. leaders, especially John F. Kennedy, often did have trouble finding the right balance between “being a partner in an alliance in which all states were ostensibly equal” and “exercising control in Western Europe when it mattered.” Tension between Paris and Washington became acute during the Kennedy administration, when de Gaulle not only denounced U.S. preponderance within NATO but also sought to exploit the growing U.S. balance-of-payments deficit. During the Johnson administration the expansion of France’s nuclear force de frappe, coupled with the French pullout from NATO’s integrated military command and de Gaulle’s demand that U.S. forces be removed from French soil, ensured that bilateral tension remained at a high level. Johnson was able to deflect some of the Gaullist onslaught by quietly shelving U.S. plans to create a Multilateral Force (MLF) for NATO. The MLF, which would have given U.S. allies (including West Germany) a share of control over NATO’s long-range nuclear forces, had been proposed as a way of burnishing the U.S. role in Europe, but the controversy that emerged around it ended up detracting from U.S. leadership and playing into de Gaulle’s hands. Johnson’s acquiescence in the demise of the MLF kept a bad situation from becoming worse. What helped the U.S. position even more was the Johnson administration’s deft handling of the crisis posed by France’s move away from NATO in 1965– 1966. Working closely with allied countries, the United States used the crisis as an opportunity to rejuvenate NATO through the adoption of the 1967 Harmel Report, which, as Davidson notes, codified “an American-led NATO embracing both deterrence and détente.” Davidson gives high marks to

Introduction

9

Johnson, who she says “was far more flexible than Kennedy” in dealing with both NATO and France.19 According to Davidson, “Johnson found— and accepted—the limits of a democratic alliance. . . . If Johnson had chosen to berate Charles de Gaulle publicly, to withdraw (with no more than symbolic effect) NATO Article V protection in the event of an attack on France, or to demand immediate financial compensation for the costly withdrawal of U.S. troops and the relocation of the supreme allied military headquarters from Paris to Mons in 1967, he would have undermined the democratic spirit of NATO as a voluntary alliance.” Another aspect of de Gaulle’s stance vis-à-vis NATO and the EEC comes up in James Ellison’s chapter, which examines the antipathy that developed between Gaullist France and the United Kingdom. De Gaulle had long viewed Britain as a stalking horse for the United States, and he also worried that the UK might displace France as the leader of an integrated Europe. Ellison shows that as ties between Paris and London waxed increasingly acrimonious in the 1960s, British leaders came to see the French president as “more of an enemy than an ally.” Officials in London did everything they could to weaken de Gaulle’s influence in Europe and to bolster NATO as a counterweight to Gaullist France. But Britain’s leverage in dealing with de Gaulle was inherently limited because the British government had determined that UK membership in the EEC would be crucial both economically and politically. Ellison stresses that “as long as Britain’s future was dependent on EEC entry, and as long as de Gaulle barred it, British governments faced a French obstacle of fundamental significance for Britain’s national and international standing.” Even though the UK failed to gain admission to the EEC until after de Gaulle left office, British leaders were successful in their other major goal of safeguarding NATO against the French president’s assaults. The reinvigoration of NATO in the face of de Gaulle’s challenge, and the maintenance of a hegemonic U.S. role in the alliance, were, as Ellison writes, major “setbacks for de Gaulle’s greater ambitions.” British officials were instrumental in the process leading to the Harmel Report, and, as Ellison notes, they “played a decisive part” in persuading de Gaulle to acquiesce in the report. They accomplished this latter feat by convincing U.S. officials that some of de Gaulle’s proposals for reform in NATO (especially regarding the pursuit of détente with the Eastern bloc) were sensible and could be accommodated without any adverse effect on the alliance. The NATO governments’ acceptance of the Harmel Report came only a few weeks after de Gaulle had vetoed Britain’s EEC application for a second time. Ellison concludes that by the late 1960s, in the wake of de Gaulle’s second veto of British entry and the adoption of the Harmel Report, “Britain’s newly enthused interest in European integration and its support for NATO’s multilateralism chimed with the anti-de Gaulle mood present in transatlantic relations.”

10

Mark Kramer

The next five chapters deal with French policy toward countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The essay by Yuko Torikata explores de Gaulle’s attempts to serve as a mediator in the Vietnam War in 1964–1966, the years when U.S. military involvement was sharply escalating. Torikata shows that although de Gaulle “was quite serious about making peace in Vietnam, each of his diplomatic actions was simultaneously designed to contribute to his other objective of enhancing France’s grandeur.” De Gaulle worried that the deepening U.S. embroilment in Vietnam would intensify Washington’s pressure on NATO allies (including France) to build up their own conventional forces and thereby make up for any U.S. troops that were diverted to Southeast Asia. In addition, as Torikata contends, de Gaulle believed that “by mediating peace, [he] could promote France’s image as an equal and respected partner of the United States.” The rapidly escalating U.S. military effort in Vietnam seemed an inauspicious backdrop for French peace diplomacy, but de Gaulle was confident that his overtures to the Communist states involved in the conflict—the Soviet Union, China, and North Vietnam—would give him greater negotiating leverage with all sides, especially the United States. Torikata contends that “by pursuing rapprochement with the Eastern bloc, de Gaulle was trying to extract concessions from the United States by increasing his bargaining power as a go-between.” But in fact the opposite proved to be the case. The more that France’s relations with the Communist governments improved, the more suspicious that U.S. officials became of the French president’s motivations. Torikata points out that “de Gaulle’s overtures to the Communist powers ended up generating tension with the United States and reduced the acceptability of France’s proposal for mediation.” The Johnson administration’s steady escalation of the war hardened the resolve of North Vietnam and China and made them even more uncompromising. China, in particular, “never failed to apply pressure” and urge the North Vietnamese to seek an outright military victory. Thus, de Gaulle’s peace mediation ended up having no lasting impact on any of the combatants. In late summer 1966, having failed to achieve any progress, de Gaulle spoke in Phnom Penh before 100,000 people and declared that the Vietcong guerrillas were engaged in “national resistance” and that “France is totally confident that the United States will not be able to bring about a military solution.”20 The Phnom Penh speech, which won praise from Third World and Communist governments, antagonized the United States and thus signaled that de Gaulle had abandoned any further effort to serve as a peace mediator. Torikata concludes that “de Gaulle sacrificed good relations with the United States to gain more influence among the Communists and to demonstrate his political independence from the United States.” The French president was thus able to take his failed policy and convert it into at least a partial success.

Introduction

11

In the next chapter, Qiang Zhai scrutinizes de Gaulle’s policy toward China both before and after the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between France and the PRC in January 1964. Initially, French ties with the Guomindang government on Taiwan inhibited any improvement of France’s relations with the Communist government in China, but de Gaulle soon affirmed that he was willing to sacrifice all links with the government in Taipei. A greater stumbling block was posed by the PRC’s strong political and military backing for the separatist guerrillas in Algeria, who set up a provisional government which Beijing promptly recognized. Qiang Zhai argues that the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, regarded the Algerian independence fighters as the latest in “a powerful emerging trend of national independence movements,” who could be enlisted in his struggle against the “revisionist” Soviet Union. Rather than trying to devise a face-saving exit for France, Mao repeatedly urged the Algerian revolutionaries to strive for a decisive military outcome. France’s retreat from Algeria in 1962, humiliating though it was, opened the way for progress in Franco–Chinese relations. De Gaulle hoped that an improvement of ties with Beijing would give him valuable leverage in his efforts to mediate a peace settlement in the Vietnam War. Mao, for his part, shared de Gaulle’s aversion to a world dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union. Qiang Zhai writes that Mao was intent on forging “a broad international united front of all countries and groups that opposed American–Soviet hegemony” and that sought to “reconfigure global politics and establish a multipolar world.” This description applied equally to de Gaulle, who, like Mao with China, wanted France to play a great-power role independent of the U.S.–Soviet standoff. Over U.S. objections, the French government extended diplomatic recognition to the PRC on January 27, 1964, followed a few months later by the exchange of ambassadors.21 Qiang Zhai convincingly argues that France’s establishment of diplomatic relations with China “reflected the convergence of their strategic interests,” especially their desire to “maintain their respective influence in world order,” their “resistance to American–Soviet hegemony,” and their hopes of “creating a multipolar international system.” But whether Qiang Zhai is justified in saying that the “new relationship introduced complexity and instability into the Cold War system” is more doubtful. France’s recognition of the PRC caused a brief stir in international political circles, but over the longer run de Gaulle gained very little. Despite the French president’s hope of working with the PRC to secure a peace settlement in Vietnam, Mao maintained an ultramilitant stance toward the war and exhorted the North Vietnamese and Vietcong to continue fighting for victory rather than seeking a negotiated settlement. Moreover, the extreme radicalization of Chinese foreign policy during the first two years of China’s Cultural Revolution (starting in August 1966) caused Sino–French relations to deteriorate significantly, not only because

12

Mark Kramer

Chinese officials were promoting Maoist revolution in francophone Africa but also because Mao avidly supported French students in their violent protests against de Gaulle in May 1968. The French government swiftly retaliated by cracking down on Maoist political groups and blocking the dissemination of Maoist political literature. Gadi Heimann’s chapter shifts the discussion to the Middle East, explaining how the crisis engulfing Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon in July–August 1958—shortly after de Gaulle returned to power—presaged the tension that marred French–Israeli relations during and after the June 1967 Mideast War. The 1958 crisis underscored the importance of each side’s misperceptions of the other. Israeli officials mistakenly thought that de Gaulle, like his U.S. and British counterparts, regarded Soviet-backed nationalist leaders and subversives as the chief threat in the Middle East. The Israelis were aware of de Gaulle’s antipathy toward Egyptian President Gamal abdel Nasser, and they erroneously assumed that this meant the French leader shared their view that the Soviet Union and its Arab proxies, rather than the United States and Britain, were France’s chief rivals in the Middle East. Israeli officials had long hoped that the major Western powers (the United States, Britain, and France) would reinforce their presence in the Middle East, and they welcomed the joint U.S.–British intervention in Lebanon and Jordan. By contrast, de Gaulle, who failed to grasp the depth of Israeli leaders’ concern about their country’s survival amid hostile Arab neighbors, was concerned only about France’s relative standing in the Middle East. French officials had not been consulted about the U.S.–British intervention before troops from the two countries landed, and de Gaulle was angered by the exclusion of France and staunchly opposed to any outcome that would strengthen U.S. and British positions in the region while leaving out France. Heimann notes that de Gaulle “agreed with the invasion itself” as the only means of bolstering the governments in Jordan and Lebanon against radical elements, but “he expressed strong opposition to the fact that this was not done in coordination with France.” The French leader realized that France “did not have sufficient resources to compete effectively” with the United States and the Soviet Union for influence in the region, and he therefore sought “an arrangement in which each [superpower] would neutralize the other and create a kind of vacuum from which France could benefit.” The French had long been the chief supplier of weaponry to Israel, and the Israeli government hoped to strengthen its security relationship with France by forming an alliance against radical pan-Arab forces backed by Moscow. But Israel’s support for a greater U.S. and British military presence in the region ran contrary to de Gaulle’s agenda, and he declined the Israeli government’s bid for a full-fledged alliance. Heimann writes that “the incompatibility between the French and the Israeli goals did not lead to tension in relations between the two states, let alone a break,” but this was mainly

Introduction

13

because France provided material and political support to Israel even while turning down the proposal for an alliance. According to Heimann, Israel and France continued to have a “broad basis for cooperation” over the next several years, but the crisis had highlighted the two countries’ fundamentally divergent assessments of U.S. and British actions in the region. This divergence, though limited at the time, was a harbinger of the deep rift that emerged in 1967. The next chapter, by Jeffrey James Byrne, explores de Gaulle’s policy toward Algeria, discussing not only the war itself (which was instrumental in de Gaulle’s return to power) but also its aftermath.22 Debunking the selfcongratulatory account in de Gaulle’s memoirs, Byrne shows that the French leader failed both in his original war aims and in his implementation of the March 1962 Evian accords that ended the war. The counterinsurgency campaign under de Gaulle, as French troop levels in Algeria rose to 600,000 by 1959, initially made some headway, but ultimately the components of de Gaulle’s political-military strategy “failed to satisfy either the European or the Muslim community” in Algeria, forcing the besieged French president to end the war on terms that previously would have been deemed unacceptable. When the Evian accords were signed in 1962, de Gaulle presented them as a new model for North–South cooperation untarnished by the superpowers, but in fact the settlement represented far-reaching concessions by de Gaulle, including the granting of full independence and full Algerian control of energy resources in the Sahara. Byrne points out that the government of the newly independent Algeria, headed by leaders of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) guerrilla army, committed itself to “economic nationalism, unfettered independence, and monolithic Arabism,” in contrast to de Gaulle, who was hoping for “economic interdependence, limited sovereignty, and multicommunal federalism.” The years after the Evian accords, Byrne shows, “witnessed the steady dismantling of French economic [and political] interests, culminating in the nationalization of Algeria’s oil and gas in 1972.” De Gaulle went quietly along with the “piecemeal obliteration of Evian” and never candidly acknowledged that his entire “policy in Algeria was under constant assault from the [FLN’s] revolutionary agenda.” The mass exodus of nearly all of the loyalist community (pieds-noirs) from Algeria, the stepped-up withdrawal (under duress) of French military forces from Algeria, the transfer of France’s nuclear weapons test site from the Sahara to the South Pacific, the wholesale nationalization of French property, and the acrimonious disputes over French oil companies’ rights underscored that “the real content of cooperation fell far short of the grand aims aired by its architect.” Byrne concludes that although the Evian accords had “constituted a central plank of de Gaulle’s ambitious strategy to restore France’s global influence,” they were a “failure” when judged by “de Gaulle’s own ambitious goals.” The final symbolic blow to de Gaulle came when he died in 1970,

14

Mark Kramer

and the new leader in Algeria, Houari Boumedienne, pointedly declined to go to France for the funeral. Guia Migani’s chapter, building on a book she published in 2008, explains how decolonization proceeded in Sub-Saharan Africa after spreading there from North Africa.23 Migani points out that by the time de Gaulle returned to power in mid-1958, “French authority in the colonies was in crisis.” Initially, de Gaulle sought a new relationship with the colonies in the form of a Franco–African Community that would supplant the Union française established in 1946. The new arrangement, codified in September 1958, gave the colonies the option of full independence. Guinea immediately embraced full independence, and the other territories followed suit in 1960, undermining the viability of the Franco–African Community, which was replaced by a patchwork of bilateral and multilateral accords. Migani argues that “during the decolonization process de Gaulle aimed to maintain French influence in Sub-Saharan Africa” through continued large-scale assistance, but in July 1961 the French president publicly acknowledged that “there is no alternative to decolonization,” regardless of the precise outcome.24 By that point, France had begun to compete for influence in Sub-Saharan Africa with other countries (especially the two superpowers) and international organizations, notably the EEC. Migani contends that when de Gaulle devised a new framework of relations with francophone Africa, he “tried to assume the role of mediator between North and South,” hoping to overshadow the United States and the Soviet Union. French economic, cultural, and military assistance to its former colonies continued at a significant level. Migani argues that even though de Gaulle’s initial goal of a Franco–African Community proved ephemeral, “the independence of the African states contributed to a new orientation of [France’s] foreign policy.” Migani credits de Gaulle with having “profoundly transformed [France’s] relationship with the Sub-Saharan African states” within just a few years, minimizing the damage that might otherwise have ensued. The penultimate chapter, by Joaquín Fermandois, covers a topic that has gone largely unexplored in the literature: de Gaulle’s policy toward Latin America, especially Chile. Focusing on de Gaulle’s extended visit to ten Latin American countries in September–October 1964, Fermandois highlights the interaction between the French president’s domestic and external priorities. De Gaulle, Fermandois argues, “required a demonstration of his significance on the global stage” in order to “bolster his image in French politics with a view to the presidential elections of December 1965.” De Gaulle’s wartime reputation and his desire to offset U.S. hegemony ensured that he would be given a warm reception in Latin America. Fermandois notes that the French president’s “acceptance of the decolonization process” in Sub-Saharan Africa and his ending of the war in Algeria eliminated any potential obstacles to his visit. In a detailed account of de Gaulle’s visit to

Introduction

15

Chile, Fermandois concludes that the visit “was the most important event in the entire history of Chilean–French relations. . . . From the French point of view, the visit was a complete success.” Fermandois contends that “de Gaulle’s presence [in Latin America in 1964] supported the yearnings of a continent that did not want to be identified entirely with U.S. policies or with Marxist views of world order.” The goodwill that de Gaulle earned in Latin America from his visit persisted through the rest of his presidency and contributed, at least in a small way, to his policy of grandeur. The final chapter, by Garret Martin, seeks to distill some broad thmes from de Gaulle’s policies in far-flung parts of the world, concentrating in particular on the question of whether de Gaulle had a grand strategy to end the bipolar division of the world. Martin argues unequivocally that “de Gaulle did have a grand design, one that centered on recapturing France’s great-power status and overcoming the Cold War order in Europe.” According to Martin, de Gaulle regarded the Cold War as “an abnormal state of affairs” and “perceived the bipolar division of the world as an anomaly and one that was inherently unstable, as opposed to past multipolar systems that could more easily create an equilibrium.” This notion that a stable equilibrium was more likely in a multipolar than a bipolar system was at odds with the writings of some scholars of international relations, who saw a bipolar system as inherently more stable.25 But de Gaulle’s push for a multipolar world, regardless of the particular rationale offered, was tied up most of all with his desire to restore France as a great power. Some observers, as Martin notes, have argued that the broad aim of restoring French grandeur did not actually yield a grand design. In the views of some, de Gaulle relied mostly on improvisation, and according to Andrew Moravcsik, the general often was guided more by domestic exigencies than by foreign policy goals. Martin contests these characterizations, arguing that de Gaulle’s “traditional quest for great-power status for France” was intimately connected with his “radical attempts to challenge the Cold War order.” According to Martin, de Gaulle had an overweening desire to “avoid any form of subordination, be it to another state or within an international organization. [France as] a great power had the right to act according to its interests, even if this meant irritating allies.” Hence, de Gaulle’s emphasis on the need for an independent French nuclear arsenal. Similarly, de Gaulle’s wariness of NATO and his opposition to British membership in the EEC stemmed from his “fear that the United States, because of its might, could be tempted to try to dominate its European allies.” Martin claims that de Gaulle not only “consistently strove to overcome the division of Europe into two antagonistic blocs” but also “aimed to establish a sort of pan-European security system” whose “two main pillars would of course be France and the Soviet Union.” According to Martin, de Gaulle’s policies in the Third World and his efforts to mediate a settlement of the Vietnam War

16

Mark Kramer

also reflected his larger foreign policy strategy. Martin concludes that de Gaulle’s “ambitious grand design to overcome the Cold War bipolar order had a significant worldwide impact at the time and still does today.” Taken as a whole, the thirteen chapters give readers a solid basis for considering two major sets of questions about de Gaulle’s foreign policy: First, how successful was de Gaulle in achieving his aims? Did he merely end up demonstrating that NATO could thrive without France and that France was not truly the great power he claimed it was? How did the other aspects of de Gaulle’s foreign policy discussed in this book—his abortive efforts to work closely with the Soviet Union and China in mediating a settlement to the Vietnam War, his inability to prevent the collapse of French influence in Algeria, his oversight of France’s independent nuclear weapons program, his relative success in handling decolonization in Sub-Saharan Africa, and his laudatory reception in Latin America—color perceptions of France’s global standing? Was de Gaulle’s steadfast opposition to a U.S.- and Soviet-dominated world order—a position widely supported in the Third World—sufficient to restore French grandeur? To what extent, if any, did de Gaulle actually mitigate superpower domination of the Cold War international system? Second, to what extent was de Gaulle guided by a conscious strategy to overcome the Cold War and achieve a unified Europe that would include the Soviet Union? Garret Martin, Marie-Pierre Rey, and several other contributors argue that de Gaulle did in fact have a clear strategy for overcoming the Cold War and that he actively pursued it: Others such as Jeffrey Byrne are less sure, seeing de Gaulle as mainly trying to gloss over the failure of his policies in Algeria. The book does not provide ironclad answers to either of these sets of questions, but it does enable readers to ponder them more clearly and comprehensively. *** Finally, in retrospect, one might ask whether the reorientation of French foreign policy in the 1960s could have occurred in largely the same manner under someone other than de Gaulle. Suppose that the general had declined to return to public life after 1946. The Fourth Republic would undoubtedly still have collapsed in the late 1950s, and a Fifth Republic with a stronger presidency would likely still have emerged, albeit perhaps in somewhat different form. A leader of the new Fifth Republic who lacked de Gaulle’s colorful personality and penchant for bluntness would probably not have had as visible a presence on the international scene, but this does not necessarily mean that France’s foreign relations from the late 1950s through the late 1960s would have been fundamentally different if someone other than de Gaulle had become president in 1958. To the extent that Realpolitik has been the standard motif of French foreign policy over the

Introduction

17

past few centuries (apart from the ideologically charged years of the French Revolution), one might argue that in this respect there was nothing particularly distinctive about de Gaulle. Even though he occasionally gave vent to moralistic rhetoric, he was in fact an avid practitioner of Realpolitik, eschewing sentimentality and focusing his energies on the promotion of “a certain idea of France” (une certaine idée de la France). Indeed, “Gaullist” would be an apt description of the “units” depicted in Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics, the seminal “neorealist” text on international relations.26 Waltz’s book emphasizes the structure of the international system and refers to individual states as mere “units” that have a strong incentive (because of the systemic pressures they face) to act in accordance with Realpolitik.27 A French leader other than de Gaulle in the late 1950s and 1960s might well have behaved in roughly the same manner. Hence, one cannot automatically assume that a “Gaullist” reorientation of French foreign policy would not have occurred even in the absence of de Gaulle. To try to assess how much de Gaulle himself mattered in France’s change of direction, it is worth noting six features of the post-1945 international system that helped to shape French foreign policy from the early years of the Cold War through the end of de Gaulle’s presidency: • the debilitating impact of World War II on European colonial empires and the growing pressure for decolonization; • the dramatic ascendance of the United States, which emerged from the war in an immensely more powerful position both globally and in Europe; • the concomitant ascendance of the Soviet Union, which, despite suffering appalling human and material losses in the war, emerged at the end as the dominant European military power; • the total defeat of Germany in 1945, resulting in the four-power occupation and subsequent bifurcation of German territory; • the gradual division of Europe and East Asia into two rival military blocs, one led by the United States and the other by the Soviet Union; and • the U.S.-assisted drive for European economic integration, which took on a life of its own with the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. Each of these factors was bound to have a far-reaching impact on French foreign policy after 1945, establishing parameters in which all postwar French leaders operated. In combination, the six factors facilitated some French actions but impeded or precluded others. No French leader who might have come to power in 1958—not de Gaulle nor any plausible alternative—would have had unlimited leeway to define France’s place in the

18

Mark Kramer

world. That said, the chapters in this book make clear that even if we take full account of the structural changes resulting from the war and its aftermath, the course of France’s Cold War policy might have been markedly different if de Gaulle had not returned as president in 1958. He left a large, distinctive imprint on French foreign policy that endured throughout the Cold War and even after. Most likely, no other French leader would, or could, have taken France in the same direction. To be sure, some of the policies embraced by de Gaulle were merely a logical continuation of what had come before. This was true, for example, of France’s development of an independent nuclear weapons program, which, as noted above, had been launched shortly after the war and supported by the Fourth Republic. Similarly, the French parliament’s rejection of the accord for a European Defense Community in 1954 signaled incipient French dissatisfaction with the structures of NATO and with the apparent U.S. desire to keep France from acquiring its own nuclear weapons. Doubts in France about the country’s ability to rely on NATO—and especially on the United States—increased all the more in the wake of the humiliating French experience during the 1956 Suez crisis, when the United States took a firm stance against French and British efforts to dislodge Nasser through military force. No matter who had come to power in Paris in 1958, the trauma of Suez would have instilled greater wariness of relying on NATO. De Gaulle’s pursuit of closer relations with the FRG also owed a good deal to the Fourth Republic’s policies. By the time de Gaulle took office, the historic reconciliation between France and (West) Germany was well advanced and was reflected in international structures as far back as the ECSC. The Elysée treaty merely codified and strengthened trends that had been under way for some fifteen years. De Gaulle’s inability after the Elysée pact to achieve further progress in French–FRG relations was closely connected with his aversion to NATO, but this did not undo the close bilateral relationship that had emerged. In dealing with the FRG, de Gaulle benefited from the major achievements of the Fourth Republic. The pressure for decolonization after the Second World War was another factor that would have shaped French policy in Africa in the late 1950s and 1960s no matter who had been leading the country. The Fourth Republic governments, reflecting broad public and elite sentiment, had sought to preserve France’s colonial possessions and to stave off decolonization, but as early as May 1954 the French authorities yielded at Dien Bien Phu and accepted a full-scale retreat from Indochina, which gained independence under the July 1954 Geneva accords. By the time de Gaulle returned to power in mid-1958, the pressure for decolonization in Sub-Saharan Africa was growing against the backdrop of the war in Algeria. Even though French elites and the French public were still in favor of maintaining most of the

Introduction

19

colonies, any leader who had come to power in Paris in mid-1958 would have been forced to confront the issue.28 Nonetheless, despite the constraints and policies that de Gaulle inherited from the Fourth Republic, his breaks with the past and the distinctive patterns of his foreign policy were at least as notable as the continuities. In Algeria, for example, he inherited a complex, negative situation that could easily have gone in a much worse direction under someone else. De Gaulle’s eventual policy of extricating France from Algeria was flawed and, to a degree, improvisational, but the point to be stressed about it is that it was clearly his policy. The same is true of his bombastic pronouncements and his antagonistic approach toward NATO, the United States, and Britain. De Gaulle’s ability to project his “certain idea of France” and to gloss over his numerous failures enabled the French public to believe that France mattered more in the world than it actually did. De Gaulle was particularly adept at depicting weakness as strength and putting the best face on setbacks. In the meantime, the French economy was rapidly growing, based in part on the major benefits de Gaulle had gained from the EEC in the face of strenuous resistance. Even though his cachet in both domestic affairs and foreign policy had fizzled by the time he resigned in April 1969, he left France in a stronger position than when he began his presidency. When he died in November 1970, he was one of the few remaining larger-than-life figures from the Second World War—a stature he had exploited as best he could in his foreign policy. In some sense, he remains larger than life in France and in French foreign policy to this day, and the chapters in this book help readers to understand why.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ For an insightful and meticulously researched biography, see Eric Roussell, Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Gallimard, 2002). â•‡ 2.â•‡ Matthias Waechter, Der Mythos des Gaullismus: Heldenkult, Geschichtspolitik und Ideologie 1940 bis 1958 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006), pp. 317–453. â•‡ 3.â•‡ René Rémond, 1958: Le retour de De Gaulle (Brussels: Ed. Complexe, 1998), pp. 117–138. â•‡ 4.â•‡ Dominique Mongin, La bombe atomique française, 1945–1959 (Brussels: Bruylant, 1997). â•‡ 5.â•‡ Pierre Mélandri, “Aux origines de la coopération nucléaire franco-américaine,” in Maurice Vaïsse, ed., La France et l’atome: Études d’histoire nucléaire (Brussels: Bruylant, 1994), pp. 267–281; Richard Ullman, “The Covert French Connection,” Foreign Policy, No. 75 (Summer 1989), pp. 3–33; André Bendjebbar, Histoire secrète de la bombe atomique Française (Paris: Le cherche midi éditeur, 2000), pp. 309–320; and Maurice Vaïsse, “Aux origines du mémorandum de septembre 1958,” Relations internationales, No. 59 (Autumn 1989), pp. 297–300.

20

Mark Kramer

â•‡ 6.â•‡ On this point, see Tamara Keating, Constructing the Gaullist Consensus: A Cultural Perspective on French Policy toward the United States in NATO (1958–2000) (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2004). â•‡ 7.â•‡ See, for example, Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle, 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998); Maurice Vaïsse, La puissance ou l’influence? La France dans le monde depuis 1958 (Paris: Fayard, 2009); and Philip H. Gordon, A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). â•‡ 8.â•‡ For insightful analyses of several key topics, see the essays in Maurice Vaïsse and François Bedeaux, eds., Armement et Ve République: Fin des années 1950, fin des années 1960 (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2002). On de Gaulle’s military thinking both before and during his presidency, see Pierre Messmer and Alain Larcan, Les écrits militaires de Charles de Gaulle: Essai d’analyse thématique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1985). â•‡ 9.â•‡ Paul Godt, ed., Policy-Making in France: From de Gaulle to Mitterand (London: Pinter, 1989); Philip Thody, The Fifth Republic: Presidents, Politics, and Personalities (New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 4–36; and Alfred Grosser, Affaires extérieures: La politique de la France, 1944–1984 (Paris: Flammarion, 1985). 10.â•‡ For a varied sample of these sorts of studies, see Frédéric Bozo, Deux stratégies pour l’Europe: De Gaulle, les Etats-Unis et l’Alliance atlantique 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, Fondation Charles de Gaulle, 1996); Erin R. Mahan, Kennedy, de Gaulle, and Western Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); Constantine A. Pagedas, Anglo-American Strategic Relations and the French Problem, 1960–1963: A Troubled Partnership (London: Frank Cass, 2000); Michael Sutton, France and the Construction of Europe, 1944–2007: The Geopolitical Imperative (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), pp. 85– 175; Guia Migani, La France et l’Afrique sub-saharienne, 1957–63: Histoire d’une décolonisation entre idéaux eurafricains et politique de puissance (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008); Paul Legoll, Charles de Gaulle et Konrad Adenauer: La cordiale entente (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004); Corine DeFrance and Ulrich Pfeil, eds., Der Elysée-Vertrag und die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen, 1945–1963–2003 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2005); Manfred Seinkühler, Der deutsch-französische Vertrag von 1963: Entsehung, diplomatische Anwendung und politische Bedeutung in den Jahren von 1958 bis 1969 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2002); Marine Lefévre, Charles de Gaulle du Canada français au Québec (Montreal: Leméac, 2007); Miriam Rosman, La France et Israël, 1947– 1970: De la création de l’état d’Israël au départ des vedettes de Cherbourg (Paris: H. Champion, 2009); Bernard Tricot, ed., L’éstablissement de relations diplomatiques entre la France et la République populaire de Chine (27 janvier 1964) (Paris: Fondation Charles de Gaulle, 1995); L’Amérique contre De Gaulle: Histoire secrete, 1961–1969 (Paris: Éditions du seuil, 2000); and (for an African perspective) Saloum Dakté, Sekou Touré face au Général de Gaulle (Dakar: Éditions feu de brousse, 2007). 11.â•‡ See, for example, Deter Menyesch and Bérénice Manach, eds., France-Allemagne: Relations internationales et interdépendances bilatérales—une bibliographie, 1963–1982 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1984). 12.â•‡ Elie Barnavi and Saül Friedländer, eds., La politique étrangère du général de Gaulle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1985). 13.â•‡ Marie-Pierre Rey, “De Gaulle, l’URSS et la sécurité européene, 1958–1969,” in Maurice Vaïsse, ed., De Gaulle et la Russie (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2006),

Introduction

21

pp.Â€213–227. For other recent studies of Soviet policy toward France during the de Gaulle era, see Mikhail Narinskii and Maurice Vaïsse, eds., Les crises dans les relations franco-soviétiques, 1954–1991 (Paris: Pedone, 2009); Marina Azarkanyan and Aleksandr Chubaryan, Sharl’ de Goll’, 1890–1970 (Moscow: Institut Vseobshchei Istorii, 2000); and Julie M. Newton, Russia, France, and the Idea of Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 14.â•‡ “Vypiska iz protokola No. 872 Prezidiuma Tsentral’nogo Komiteta KPSS,” Resolution (Top Secret), January 21, 1958, in Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii (AVPRF), Fond (F.) 013, Opis’ (Op.) 49, Portfel’ (Por.) 11, Papka (Pap.) 277, Delo (D.) Listy (Ll.) 2–3. 15.â•‡ “Zapis’ besedy s gen. Sharlem de Gollem, 6 fevralya 1958 g.,” Memorandum No. 93 (Secret), to Moscow from Soviet Ambassador Sergei Vinogradov, February 7, 1958, in AVPRF, F. 013, Op. 49, Por. 4, Pap. 276, D. 8, Ll. 47–50. 16.â•‡ “Hintergrundgespräch Kiesingers mit Herbert Kremp and Lothar Rühl im Bundeskanzleramt,” January 23, 1969, in Archiv der christlich-demokratischen Partei, Nachlaß Kiesinger, I–226–A008. 17.â•‡ C. L. Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p. 198. 18.â•‡ Remark recorded by U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in a memorandum to President Dwight Eisenhower, December 15, 1958, in Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Dulles-Herter, Box 10. The memorandum summarizes a private conversation between Dulles and de Gaulle at a NATO summit. 19.â•‡ The most authoritative study of this matter—Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003)—also offers a glowing appraisal of the Johnson administration’s management of the crisis. 20.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Discours et messages, 7 vols. (Geneva: Éditions Édito-Service, 1970), vol. V, p. 76. 21.â•‡ For an illuminating discussion of this event, see Garret Martin, “Playing the China Card? Revisiting France’s Recognition of Communist China, 1963–1964,” Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 10, no. 1 (Winter 2008), pp. 52–80. 22.â•‡ An immense amount of scholarship on this subject continues to appear every year. For a small sampling of recent studies, see Pierre Vallaud, La guerre d’Algérie, vol. 2: 1958–1962: La marche à l’indépendance (Paris: Acropole, 2005); Benjamin Stora, Le mystère De Gaulle: Son choix pour (Paris: Laffont, 2009); Jacques Simon, Algérie: L’abandon sans la défaite, 1958–1962 (Paris: Harmattan, 2009); Frank Renken, Frankreich im Schatten des Algerienkrieges: Die Fünfte Republik und die Erinnerung an den letzten grossen Kolonialkonflikt (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2006); Florence Beaugé, Algérie, une guerre sans gloire: Histoire d’une enquête (Algiers: Chihab, 2006); Michèle Cointet, De Gaulle et l’Algérie française, 1958–1962 (Paris: Perrin, 1995); Matthew James Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Quest for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Roger Lajoie-Mazenc, La guerre de là-bas: Anciens d’Algérie—Un demi-siècle de parcours du combattant (Firmi, France: R. Lajoie-Mazenc, 2009); and Bernard Crochet and Gérard Piouffre, La guerre d’Algérie (Paris: Éditions de Lodi, 2009). 23.â•‡ Guia Migani, La France et l’Afrique sub-saharienne, 1957–1963: Histoire d’une décolonisation entre idéaux eurafricains et politique de puissance (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008).

22

Mark Kramer

24.â•‡ “Allocution radiotélévisée prononcée à l’Elysée, 12 juillet 1961,” in de Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. III, pp. 329–330. 25.â•‡ Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Stability of a Bipolar World,” Daedalus, vol. 93, no. 3 (Summer 1964), pp. 881–909; Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), pp. 163–176; and Kenneth N. Waltz, “War in Neorealist Theory,” in Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Raab, eds., The Origins and Prevention of Major Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 44–48. After the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Waltz said he had been “mistaken” in “conflating peace and stability.” He averred that rather than being more stable, bipolar systems are merely less war-prone than multipolar systems. See Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security, vol. 18, no. 2 (Fall 1993), p. 45. 26.â•‡ Waltz, Theory of International Politics. 27.â•‡ Waltz acknowledges that under conditions of anarchy (i.e., in the absence of a world government that can enforce international order), states “are free to do any fool thing they choose,” but he emphasizes that “they are likely to be rewarded for behavior that is responsive to structural pressures and punished for behavior that is not.” Expectations of these costs and benefits should in the end, according to Waltz, cause states to heed structural pressures when deciding “to do some things and to refrain from doing others.” See Kenneth N. Waltz, “Evaluating Theories,” American Political Science Review, vol. 91, no. 4 (December 1997), p. 915. 28.â•‡ This point is stressed by authors of widely different perspectives such as Anthony Clayton, The Wars of French Decolonization (New York: Longman, 1994); Catherine Hodeir, Stratégies d’empire: Le grand patronat colonial face à la décolonisation (Paris: Belin, 2003); and Alain Ruscio, La décolonisation tragique: Une histoire de la décolonisation française, 1945–1962 (Paris: Éditions sociales, 1987).

I Europe

2 De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow Marie-Pierre Rey

Introduction In 1958, after a long period in the desert, General de Gaulle came back to politics and from the start he affirmed his desire to question some of the principles and practices defended by the Fourth Republic. His credo of putting at the heart of his activity the independence and grandeur of France was obviously not new to the leaders of the Soviet Union. Since 1944, during his visit to Moscow to sign a treaty of alliance and assistance with the USSR, de Gaulle had proclaimed his will to restore France’s national independence and his intention to balance transatlantic ties with a trusting relationship with Moscow. But in 1958, the international situation was quite different from that of 1944: the wartime grand alliance had collapsed, the Cold War had set in, and Franco–Soviet relations had significantly deteriorated. To protest against the ratification of treaties establishing the European Defense Community (EDC), the Soviets in 1955 had denounced the bilateral treaty signed in 1944; one year later, the Suez Crisis gave rise to sharp Soviet criticism of French imperialism, while the Soviet repression in Budapest aroused consternation and anger in France. Finally, in 1957, France adhered to the Treaty of Rome, much to the regret of Soviet diplomacy, which did not cease criticizing the European Economic Community (EEC) project, considering it a noxious instrument in the service of West–European and American interests.1 In this strained context, how was the return of de Gaulle to power analyzed by Soviet diplomacy? Was it seen as a favorable opportunity—or on the contrary, as harmful? Was the French president perceived as a hostile leader or as a potentialÂ€ally? What conceptions did Soviet decision-makers 25

26

Marie-Pierre Rey

have of him and what impact did these conceptions have on Soviet diplomacy? Finally, did these conceptions evolve over the period from 1958 to 1969, and if so, as a result of what factors?2 To try to respond to these questions, we will first focus on the period between 1958 and 1964. Marked by ambivalent perceptions mingling presuppositions that were ideologically hostile and considerations that were pragmatic, the Khrushchev years were the first phase of a rapprochement that ultimately had few concrete effects. On the contrary, starting in 1964– 1965 and until the General left office in 1969, the new geopolitical situation and de Gaulle’s views of the new Soviet leaders in power favored the establishment of a trust unprecedented in the history of East–WestÂ€ relations—which will be the object of the second part of this chapter.

1958 to 1964: The Soviets Regard de Gaulle with Ideology and Pragmatism Even before his return to the political scene, de Gaulle aroused great interest among Soviet decision-makers. While burdened by a certain number of hostile and stereotyped judgments dictated by ideological considerations and the weight of the Cold War, these decision-makers were not long in betting on a Gaullist uniqueness that they perceived as potentially useful. Even though in 1944 the General had gone to Moscow to sign that bilateral treaty, and just after the Second World War had brought Communist ministers into his government, in 1958 Soviet observers were generally hostile to him, and most did not expect his return to power. For these observers, the very circumstances of his return to power could only be an ill omen, and very quickly de Gaulle was described as an apprentice dictator linked to the big business bourgeoisie. In the weeks that followed his becoming president, the Soviet embassy in Paris dealt the following verdict in a report to the Ministerstvo Inostrannych Del (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, MID): “On May 13, 1958 in Algiers, there was a successful military-fascist putsch used by the great French bourgeoisie to install an authoritarian dictatorship in France led by de Gaulle.”3 On June 29, 1958, Kliment Voroshilov, then President of the Presidium, affirmed in a meeting with the United Press Agency that with de Gaulle in charge, relations between France and the USSR could only get worse.4 Due to a crudeness ill-suited to diplomatic customs, Voroshilov’s declaration aroused the MID’s disapproval and he was obliged to apologize before the Presidium. Nevertheless, de Gaulle widely appeared to the current ruling circle as a pillar of French imperialism and as a classic representative of the authoritarian right. Neither his position back in 1944 nor his opposition to the ratification of the treaty establishing the EDC in 1954 (although that

De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow 27

opposition was shared with the Soviet government and the French Communist Party) was counted to his credit. This hostility was also detectable in Nikita Khrushchev’s perception of the French leader. In 1962, the Secretary-General of the CPSU did not hesitate to declare during a Politburo meeting devoted to foreign policy: “What is de Gaulle? The same thing as Guy Mollet. After de Gaulle, evidently, it will be Guy Mollet, if de Gaulle is not assassinated and raging extremists come into power, quite simply fascists.”5 Yet, within this chorus of stereotyped and hostile judgments, some in the MID expressed different views. In 1956, while Khrushchev was more reserved about de Gaulle, Sergei Vinogradov, the Soviet ambassador in Paris, began to wager on the General’s future, now affirming that de Gaulle “is the only French political personality capable of distancing himself from the Atlantic Alliance.”6 At the end of 1957, Vinogradov began to enter into contact with de Gaulle via some of the advisors of the French leader.7. To Vinogradov (and this view was gradually shared by other diplomats in the foremost European office of the MID in charge of French questions), de Gaulle as a convinced nationalist could play a useful role of “party spoiler” on the Western stage—and thereby serve the interests of Soviet diplomacy in advancing its own objectives. In a context of peaceful coexistence, Khrushchev’s diplomacy proclaimed grand ambitions. The settlement of questions linked to European security— with the German issue in the foreground—remained, as it was after World War Two, the prime objective of Soviet diplomats. And for Khrushchev, this settlement had to occur through the freezing of European frontiers, through the legal recognition of the political and territorial status quo inherited from Potsdam, and without any challenge to the Oder–Neisse border. But for Khrushchev, as for the diplomats at the MID and experts in the International Department of the Central Committee, the German menace was henceforth compounded by two other threats: “Atlanticism,” an expression referring to the military and political tutelage exercised by the United States over the Old Continent via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and “Europeanism,” an expression designating the Communitarian process. For the USSR, in effect, the dynamism of both the Atlantic Alliance and the EEC tended to structure Western Europe and to organize it into a political, military, and economic bloc that distanced the USSR from a continent where it thought it had a “natural” right to be influential. Also, in parallel with the actions undertaken on the German question, it sought to weaken European unity and to harm the legitimacy of the Atlantic Alliance in order to bring about its demise.8 To achieve this, Gaullist diplomacy, by its independent stance, could possibly prove inadvertently helpful. As of January 1958, a protocol adopted by the Central Committee of the CPSU echoed this hypothesis by affirming that it should do everything to

28

Marie-Pierre Rey

“weaken the ties uniting France to NATO and to strengthen the social and political tendencies in France that aspire to greater independence from the United States.”9 This theme also appeared in filigree in the meetings that Vinogradov regularly organized with the leaders of the French Communist Party (FCP). Tossed around in these meetings was the issue of de Gaulle, his character, his convictions, his choices in foreign policy; recurrently the interlocutors wondered if he was capable of becoming an effective ally and aiding Soviet diplomacy in weakening NATO and obtaining the gradual disengagement of the Americans from European soil. On February 1, 1958, during a very long meeting in Cannes, Ambassador Vinogradov and the Secretary General of the FCP, Maurice Thorez, were able to review France’s domestic and foreign situation and to discuss once again the personality of de Gaulle. Thorez stressed de Gaulle’s keen sense of the national interest; in an aside, he recalled that during the “events of Hungary” neither the General nor his close advisors (including Minister of Culture André Malraux, Thorez specified) had made any anti-Soviet statement. This very fulsome conversation quickly had an impact on Soviet foreign policy; five days later, on February 6, Vinogradov met de Gaulle, whom he skillfully flattered about his nationalism; and the future French president declared—a statement that Vinogradov relayed immediately in his report to the MID—that “France’s dependence vis-à-vis the United States would not be eternal.”10 A few months later, when de Gaulle had just been named prime minister, Thorez, in another meeting with Vinogradov in June 1958, supported “regular contacts” with de Gaulle that might be likely to foster a Franco–Soviet rapprochement, and later counterbalance Franco– American relations. Thorez soon got Vinogradov’s assent.11 The relatively welcoming attitude of Vinogradov, Thorez, and the European Department of the MID was strengthened in 1959 thanks to the declarations and positions taken by de Gaulle. In the spring of 1959, Soviet decision-makers saluted the start of France’s disengagement from NATO; at the press conference of March 25, when the French president declared himself favorable in the long term to a reunification of Germany that would take place within the existing borders,12 and favorable in the short term to a gradual normalization of relations between East and West Germany.13 Both declarations were warmly approved.14 In September 1959, Khrushchev told Ambassador Maurice Dejean in Moscow that “he was pleased with the declaration by General de Gaulle. He stressed that only General de Gaulle, with the courage that was specific to him, could have made such a declaration.”15 However, at the same time, other Gaullist positions were perceived as hostile by the Soviets: his attachment to establishing a Franco–German rapprochement and his desire (proclaimed in the spring of 1959) for France to

De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow 29

acquire nuclear weapons, at a time when Soviet propaganda was calling for general disarmament,16 irritated Soviet leaders and provoked virulent criticisms, if not threats, from them.17 But, despite these differences, Soviet decision-makers, in search of support from Western Europe, were rather more open with respect to Gaullist diplomacy. In June 1958, a certain number of “signals” were sent to the French authorities. After de Gaulle was appointed prime minister, Vinogradov sent him a letter from Khrushchev calling for a “tightening of bilateral ties and a more independent policy by France.”18 And throughout the Algerian crisis, Soviet decision-makers opted for a low profile, even when this discretion, which ran contrary to their own ideological convictions, created a dilemma in relation to their Third World allies, as Khrushchev implicitly admitted in September 1959, in a conversation with Pierre Sudreau, French minister of construction, during his visit to Moscow. Khrushchev had just declared his support for a rapprochement with France, and then mentioned the Algerian question, underlining the “favorable treatment” that the French government was benefiting from: “Our discretion over the Algerian question is far from being understood by all the Algerians, since on all other questions relating to colonial policy, we have fought, and we do fight, firmly.”19 This favorable treatment is largely explained by the crucial importance that the Soviets were then giving to European issues (the Berlin Crisis was not resolved and a Four-Party summit was foreseen for the spring of 1960) and by their desire to obtain the support of the French President in these difficult negotiations. Isolated in its dialogue with the West, the Soviet Union was counting on help from France in exchange for its moderation on anticolonialist declarations and demands; the Algerian card was thus an important source of leverage.20. The French were perfectly aware of the reason for this Soviet benevolence over the Algerian issue. In October 1959, Dejean stated to Khrushchev. “General de Gaulle has charged me to tell you that he is very satisfied with the position adopted by the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, V. V. Kuznetsov, at the General Assembly of the United Nations. Kuznetsov did not raise the Algerian question during the discussion, and that leads us to think that the Soviet Union does not want to embarrass France and put it in a difficult situation.”21 But Soviet hopes and calculations proved unfounded. While behaving with kindness and consideration toward Khrushchev when he came to France in April 1960, de Gaulle refused to discuss the issue of the status of West Berlin and the possibility of signing a peace treaty with the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Having no regard for Soviet hopes, the French president thus remained close to the positions taken by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and firmly attached to the Western camp. And he also proved an inflexible ally of Adenauer during the Berlin Crisis of 1958; during the U-2 affair, which compromised the summit that was

30

Marie-Pierre Rey

supposed to take place in Paris in May 1960, de Gaulle equally gave firm support to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.22 The firmness of French positions soon provoked disillusionment and readjustments on the Soviet side. In effect, after the failure of the Paris summit, Khrushchev opted for far harder positions over Algeria: in August 1960, speaking at the United Nations, he virulently denounced French colonialism and decided to recognize the Algerian provisional government de facto, while during the second half of 1960 the Soviet press orchestrated a violent anti-French campaign.23 Moreover, the French Communist Party, on orders from the MID, launched into harsh criticism of the French president’s Algerian policy.24 Nevertheless, although they were disappointed by French shifts and increasingly critical of de Gaulle, who was showing none of the anticipated lapses in his solidarity with the American and West German governments, Soviet decision-makers did not give up on establishing privileged ties with him. In order to do so, they promoted the idea of pan-European cooperation from 1960–1961, which seemed to echo the Gaullist theme of a Europe extending from the Atlantic to the Urals. On September 12, 1960, in a letter addressed to de Gaulle by the intermediary of Ambassador Vinogradov, Khrushchev made himself the advocate of a “pan-European cooperation” that could lead gradually to the birth of a “grand Europe.”25 Ten days later, in a second letter addressed to the French president, he developed his conception of this cooperation, proposing the creation of a pan-European organization that, respecting the Charter of the United Nations, would work towards the disappearance of the two military alliances and greater commercial and cultural links between the two parts of Europe.26 Finally, on May 17, 1963, in an even more deliberate manner, Khrushchev sent the French government an enthusiastic note that resembled a seduction operation towards France, trying to promote a Franco–Soviet privileged relation and to weaken the Franco–German rapprochement which, after the signature of the Elysee Treaty, was passing through trouble after the preambule voted by the Bundestag. It is no exaggeration to say that if the USSR and France, as great powers of the European continent, together pronounced on the essential issues upon which the future of Europe depends, there would be no force capable of rising up to undertake reshaping the map of Europe. Relations of friendship between the Soviet Union and France might become the linchpin that would reunite Eastern Europe and Western Europe, and generally aid in the establishment of peaceful cooperation among nations.27

Nevertheless, this call for rapprochement and this attempted seduction would only have limited effects, since de Gaulle and the Quai d’Orsay were

De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow 31

more than reserved in the face of the various propositions from Khrushchev. Some concrete accomplishments did take place: On April 2, 1960, during Khrushchev’s trip to Paris, a banking protocol and one on scientific cooperation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy were signed. Then in 1963, a first protocol for cultural exchanges over two years was concluded.28 But on the political level, the advances were nonexistent. On the German question, while de Gaulle in fact favored the freezing of existing European borders, he was not favorable to an institutionalized recognition of the existence of two German states: this institutionalization would amount to perpetuating the logic of blocs at the heart of Europe when he wished precisely to challenge this bipolar logic. It would be incomprehensible to the West German authorities and could only deal a severe blow to the rapprochement between France and Germany. It was exactly on this point that Soviet disappointment was keenest: De Gaulle’s meetings of September 1958 at his home in Colombey with Adenauer, the Berlin Crisis of November 1958 that united the French and West Germans in the same intransigence toward the Soviets, the unfolding of the Geneva Conference in the spring of 1959 (during which French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville refused once again any official recognition of two German states),29 and finally, Adenauer’s trip to France and de Gaulle’s to the FRG in 1960—all these events confirmed the fact that for de Gaulle, the Franco–German rapprochement was the priority, whereas the Franco– Soviet dialogue remained peripheral. Persistent differences were also observed over European questions as a whole. On the strategic level, de Gaulle held to the idea that France should possess a nuclear arsenal and so he refused to sign the Moscow Treaty of 1963 on limiting nuclear tests. He was not a priori hostile to any disarmament plan, but he insisted on the necessity of envisaging East–West disarmament as a gradual process framed by rigorous multilateral supervision. Meanwhile the Soviets rejected the establishment of any effective system of supervision and inspection, considering that once trust was established, states would naturally arrive at control measures. The two points of view were clearly not compatible. There were similar divisions on pan-Europeanism. For de Gaulle, panEuropean cooperation was meaningless unless it allowed the gradual loosening of the Soviet stranglehold over Eastern Europe. But, after the repression of Budapest in 1956 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, there was no sign of a lightening of Soviet tutelage, far from it—which pushed the General to a less dilatory attitude to pan-Europeanism, which aggrieved the Soviets. Finally, another sore point for the Soviets was that de Gaulle’s independence had at no point endangered Euro–Atlantic cohesion, and during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, de Gaulle even proclaimed unfailing solidarity with the United States.

32

Marie-Pierre Rey

When in 1964 Khrushchev was forced to resign, it was clear that the hopes initially placed by the Soviets on a rapprochement with General de Gaulle had not led to any concrete results. Still, the period 1958 to 1964 had been marked by mutual interest and goodwill, which would lead to an unprecedented rapprochement between the USSR and France in 1966–1969.

The USSR and de Gaulle 1964–1969: Tempted to Rapprochement30 A New Approach Benefiting Franco–Soviet Rapprochement Khrushchev was ousted in October 1964 by a troika (Leonid Brezhnev, Nikolai Podgorny, Alexei Kosygin) that upon its arrival to power, renounced some of Khrushchev’s postulates and questioned several of his diplomatic orientations. For Brezhnev, as for Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, it was no longer possible to nurture illusions about the disappearance of the EEC or NATO. Rather, their existence had to be admitted in order to establish a dialogue capable of facilitating the settlement of outstanding European issues, an orientation which at the same time would not prevent Soviet decision-makers to do their best to weaken Western organizations. Moreover, it was time to relaunch the project of a conference on European security, first proposed by Vyacheslav Molotov in 1954, but stalled under Khrushchev. To move forward in this project, the support of France could be useful. Finally, while the USSR was experiencing a clear decrease in its economic growth rate, the Soviet leaders had to try to develop economic and commercial exchanges with the West, since recourse to importing manufactured goods, the purchase of key ready-made factories, and the transfer of technology from the West could contribute to the country’s economic modernization. For this new strategy to work, West–European assistance was necessary—hence the particular attention paid once again to General de Gaulle and French diplomacy. To these structural considerations were added more opportunist perspectives: indeed, by the end of 1964, French and Soviet diplomats shared the same hostility for the MLF project.31 And on this sensitive matter, the Soviet leaders were in quest of a support which, coming from a great European military power, could be particularly valuable. Starting in October 1964, the new decision-makers set aside their critique of the French strike force and increased their gestures of goodwill to Gaullist France. Nicolas Patolichev, Minister of Foreign Trade, was in Paris from October 23 to November 1, 1964 and signed a commercial agreement for a 60 percent increase in trade over the next five years, and for a substantial rise in industrial orders from France. This goodwill toward France was also evident in the signing on March 22, 1965 of the SECAM agreement on

De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow 33

cooperation over color television, which committed the two countries to a joint project on a major scale. Finally, in May 1965, a bicultural protocol, as well as cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, was concluded in Moscow. Within a few months, one witnessed an accelerated pace of ministerial meetings between the French and Soviet governments: rapprochement was being realized in concrete texts. On the political level, contact also increased from July 1965 onward, on the Soviet side’s initiative, as confirmed by a note written by the Soviet embassy in Paris favorable to regular political cooperation with France.32 At a moment when Franco–American relations were deteriorating (after criticizing U.S. intervention in Santo Domingo, de Gaulle disapproved of the American intervention in Vietnam and attacked the International Monetary System that assured and accentuated the supremacy of the dollar), Soviet decision-makers continued, as under Khrushchev, to see French independence as favorable to their interests. A note by the Soviet embassy in France at the end of 1965 claimed that French foreign policy “destabilizes the Western camp in its current organization and objectively weakens the United States.”33 But, the novel fact in the second half of 1965 was that Soviet decision makers, in search of support for the conference on European security, endeavored, as stressed in his memoirs by Yuri Dubinin,34 then an embassy advisor in France, to rally French diplomacy to the project. Received at his request by de Gaulle on July 5, 1965, Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin, who had succeeded Vinogradov, asked the French President for “concerted action” by France and the USSR on European security. And when he met Couve de Murville on the July 28, he expressed “his concern to see our relations progress, especially on the question of Germany and on European security, where we should take a concrete step.”35 Yet, in the face of this offensive, de Gaulle remained prudent. The points of convergence between the two states were not negligible: Paris and Moscow still refused to tolerate West Germany acquiring nuclear weapons, they were jointly hostile to the American plan for the Multi Lateral Force (MLF), and they shared the same attachment to European borders.36 But, for de Gaulle (as for Couve de Murville), these points would not obscure the fact that the long-term normalization of East–West relations should not lead to opportunistic and hasty positions susceptible of harming Western solidarity. While the plan for a European conference could settle some unresolved questions, it also presented serious risks: on the one hand, such a conference was likely to ratify the division of Germany and give the GDR full international legitimacy, and on the other hand, the conference might tackle disarmament proposals from the East that did not encompass Soviet territory and would leave the French in the cold. 37 Consequently, French diplomacy opted for a dilatory attitude that was disappointing to the Soviets, as illustrated by the very vague commu-

34

Marie-Pierre Rey

niqué on European issues adopted on November 2, 1965 at the end of Maurice Couve de Murville’s visit to the USSR.38 But, the year 1966 would significantly change the situation and rekindle Soviet hopes. The 1966 Turning Point: Toward New Relations? The French government announced on March 7, 1966 that it was withdrawing its armed forces from NATO’s integrated military command, confirming to the world its concrete will to disengage from American tutelage. De Gaulle had been pondering this decision since 1958, as he told Vinogradov,39 but it had become inevitable since the Pentagon’s adoption of the strategic doctrine of limited response, and it was precipitated by the war in Vietnam. For the French president, the European continent was no longer being guaranteed U.S. aid in the event of a conflict with the USSR, on the one hand, and on the other, it risked becoming involved by the Atlantic Alliance in a conflict that did not concern it, specifically in a Sino–American conflict to which the Vietnam War might possibly lead. De Gaulle’s decision was poorly understood by the U.S. government and by a large part of French opinion—his own majority disapproved of choices that placed the country in a situation that was strategically more fragile visà-vis the USSR.40 But this decision was soon saluted by the Soviet troika who saw it as a historic decision and an opportunity they should seize. In Soviet eyes, the deterioration of Franco–American relations could only push de Gaulle closer to the USSR. It was in this context that during the French president’s trip to the USSR in the summer of 1966, they tried by pomp and circumstance to seduce him and to make an exemplary model of Franco–Soviet relations. De Gaulle’s trip to the Soviet Union from June 20 to July 1, 1966 was indeed characterized by splendor and cordiality.41 Although no foreign dignitary had previously been so doubly honored, de Gaulle was invited to visit the aerospace base at Baikonur, where he witnessed the launch of a satellite, and at the Kremlin he met all the main figures of the Soviet staff headquarters. And he was the first Western head of state to give a speech that was broadcast live, and thus uncensored, on Soviet television. This mutual cordiality and trust rapidly had concrete and beneficial effects. For while in the course of the early political discussions de Gaulle had spoken out against maintaining the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe and had reaffirmed the necessity and inevitability of a union of the European continent, at the same time he did agree with his hosts on two points: refusing atomic weapons to both Germanys, and a definitive recognition of the Oder–Neisse borderline. Similarly, while the French president refused to sign “a treaty of assistance and friendship” with the Soviet side, he accepted some significant institutional extensions to his stay.

De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow 35

Signed on June 30, 1966, the “joint declaration” foregrounded the major points of political convergence between the two countries (deploring the situation in Vietnam, pronouncing in favor of disarmament, and calling for the normalization of European issues—although Moscow regretted the absence of explicit recognition of the GDR) and it established a new framework to foster the development of a political dialogue. The two countries promised to collaborate regularly at the presidential and ministerial levels on major international problems, without imposing any periodicity on these consultations; they decided to “establish between the Kremlin and the Elysée a line of direct communication.”42 Finally, to foster a takeoff in economic and commercial exchanges, they planned for the creation of a joint commission. Two other accords were also concluded during the presidential trip. The “agreement on scientific, technical and economic cooperation” defined the forms that cooperation should take, enumerated the sectors to be covered, and established a joint commission, the “Great Commission” to promote cooperative operation that would meet alternately in Paris and in Moscow at least once a year. Moreover, a ten-year agreement on “cooperation for the study and exploration of space for peaceful purposes” was concluded, leading to an ambitious program for collaborative work in space science, spatial meteorology, and the study of telecommunications by the intermediary of artificial earth satellites. Thus space became the emblematic flagship of bilateral scientific collaboration. Within a few days, therefore, arrangements for dialogue and cooperation that were completely unprecedented in East–West relations were put in place43 and these arrangements were crucial from a political point of view as well as from a symbolical one. Indeed, by calling for “détente, entente and cooperation” and by promoting a concrete rapprochement with the USSR, de Gaulle was engaging France in an ambitious attempt to overcome the Cold War and the division into blocks.44 In the following months, these arrangements were strengthened even more. During Kosygin’s trip to France in December 1966, a bilateral Chamber of Commerce was created, along with a Small Commission (structured into joint working groups) to guarantee a concrete follow-up to cooperative operations. Henceforth the time was for “détente, entente and cooperation” and for Franco–Soviet relationsÂ€to be amicable and fertile, as de Gaulle stressed in his televised speech on December 31, 1966. So, attached to overcoming the hostility and prejudices inherited from the Cold War, and participating in the political field as much as in the economic and cultural fields, Franco–Soviet relations thus appeared at the end of 1966 as unrivaled in the broader East–West dialogue. The wager made by Soviet decision-makers on the personality of General de Gaulle and his independent stance now appeared to be a winning bet. Still, despite this undeniable success and despite the mutual goodwill expressed on both

36

Marie-Pierre Rey

sides, the political dialogue soon faced a number of obstacles that it could not overcome. Toward a Less Euphoric Future? Throughout the period 1966–1969, de Gaulle’s foreign policy, very critical of the United States, was viewed favorably in Moscow. Similarly, French positions during the Six Day War (de Gaulle firmly condemned Israeli aggression) were well appreciated by Soviet decision-makers. But, on European questions, the entente was less clear: Soviet leaders were not long in feeling some disappointment over a Gaullist diplomacy that they judged dangerous, due to its unpredictable nature and incapable of promoting their own approach to European issues. The Gaullist idea of a Greater Europe running from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains had at first pleased the Soviets—they saw it as a means of distancing the United States from the Old Continent—but it began to disturb them as of 1967–1968, when General de Gaulle became the promoter of this idea during trips to Eastern Europe, clearly calling on the satellites to refuse submission to Moscow. In September 1967, in Gdansk, he summoned the Polish people to shake off Soviet tutelage and recover their independence, quickly drawing an objection on the part of Polish leader Wladislaw Gomulka; in May 1968, this time in Romania, he adopted the same theme. For de Gaulle, if relations with Moscow were essential, it did not prevent France from also seeking a rapprochement with the Popular Democracies and seeking to relax the stranglehold on these nations. But quite evidently, these stances calling for the independence of satellites clashed with a Soviet strategy that had been patiently elaborated since 1945, and they were not long in arousing anguish and tension in Moscow. In 1968, the Czechoslovak reform movement was observed with interest and sympathy in Paris but in the first weeks of July, de Gaulle privately expressed his anxiety and his pessimism, predicting a Soviet armed intervention.45 And on the August 20th, when at 1:30 a.m., de Gaulle was personally informed by Zorin, the Soviet ambassador in Paris, of the coming invasion,46 this was, at least in a short term, the end of his dream of overcoming the Cold War and the division into blocks.47 At the same time, from the Soviet point of view, the anticipated benefits of the rapprochement with France did not seem to bear fruit on the European terrain. The declaration signed on June 30, 1966 did mention the need for European cooperation and specified that unresolved problems would be tackled within a European framework, which would be a first step toward an agreement in principle on the opening of a conference on European security. On the French side, however, despite Soviet benevolent attitude to de Gaulle during the French May crisis,48 caution dominated, as the

De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow 37

diplomats of the Quai d’Orsay themselves recognized. In May 1968, a memo written by the Eastern European Office entitled “On the USSR and European Security” stressed the following: The USSR and its partners submitted their proposal to the governments of Western Europe on the occasions of many ministerial visits that took place in 1965. The principle of a conference on European security was accepted, with various kinds of nuances and always under the condition of adequate preparation by Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Italy, and Holland. Of all the countries mentioned in the joint communiqués signed with the Communist states, France has adopted the most circumspect attitude.49

In the following months, the prudent (if not wait-and-see) attitude of the French authorities persisted, despite the rallying of the Atlantic Community to the project. In June 1968, the NATO Council meeting in Reykjavik agreed in principle to the idea of a European conference, though making two prior stipulations: a tangible improvement in the East–West climate regarding issues in suspense—including foremost the German question, and the acceptance by the USSR of East–West negotiations on the reduction of weapons in Europe. This last point was suggested by the American representatives: at a time when the U.S. Congress was increasing the pressure for a reduction of U.S. forces stationed in Europe, it seemed more judicious to “sell” this possible withdrawal to the Soviets rather than to offer it to them. Hesitating over an offer of negotiations on arms reductions that took them by surprise, the Soviets did not respond immediately, hostile to any idea of double negotiations that might lead to risky bargaining. They preferred to relaunch the project of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) with a new communiqué, written as the outcome of a meeting of member-states of the Warsaw Pact meeting in Budapest in March 1969, which did not arouse favorable reactions on the part of Western diplomats. For the latter, the Soviet bloc was still aiming at the legalization of the GDR and the institutionalization of the two German states in their current frontiers;50 consequently, the member-states of NATO preferred to stick to the conditions enunciated in June 1968 in Reykjavik, specifically an improvement in the East–West climate and the acceptance by the USSR of negotiations on reduction of armed forces in Europe. Although it appeared relatively consensual within NATO, this second condition aroused the determined opposition of French diplomacy: for General de Gaulle, indeed, there could be no question of bloc-to-bloc discussions about a possible reduction of armed forces in Europe, since on the one hand this would amount to reviving the bipolar logic he rejected, and on the other hand it would mean engaging in a process that in time would risk harming France’s strategic independence. Moreover, in the president’s view, the evolution of the European context—marked by the tragedy of the

38

Marie-Pierre Rey

Prague Spring and the clear ideological hardening that characterized all the popular democracies afterward—did not seem propitious for dialogue with the East. And nor was it a moment for concessions, as explicitly expressed by Ambassador Roger Seydoux in Moscow in an April 1969 conversation with the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikolai Kozyrev. When Kozyrev solicited a Franco–Soviet conversation in commitment to the European conference,51 Seydoux refused to go along: I recalled that in Paris this appeal [from Budapest] had been seen as a favorable sign, that its moderate tone had been appreciated, as well as the evident will to ameliorate East–West relations. Still, people wondered about the objectives that might be fixed at the envisaged conference and about the problems posed by the participation of certain states that would be included. We also wondered if the process of détente, delayed by the events in Czechoslovakia, was sufficiently advanced to be able to convene it with any chance of success. In effect, it is better to have no conference at all than to have a meeting that ends in failure. On the other hand, while the French government wished for détente, which it had been the first to propose and to work for, it was not favorable to negotiations taking place between two groups of states that would result in the consolidation of the existing blocs. Instead of discussing bloc to bloc, it was necessary, in order to continue the policy of détente, to use the bilateral route, as Paris had done for three years with Moscow—and successfully, on the whole. In short, we could certainly not reject the principle of a European conference, but convening it would encounter many obstacles and it would have to be prepared with great care before one could dream of such a gathering.52

From now on, barely three years after President de Gaulle’s trip to the USSR, he appeared to be the most reserved of the Western leaders in the face of the Soviet plan for a conference on European security. Soviet disillusionment with him had been a long time coming, but their hopes were now abandoned. Thus, whereas in 1958 and still more after 1964, Soviet leaders had seen the independent stances of General de Gaulle as a trump card benefiting Soviet foreign policy and therefore they had actively worked for rapprochement, by 1969 they now had to accept that the results of this strategy were mixed. Certainly the Franco–Soviet rapprochement, steered by a common anti-Americanism, had achieved concrete agreements that made Franco– Soviet relations appear unique within the larger East–West context. But, at no moment did this rapprochement allow the Soviets to advance on European questions any more than it contributed durably to challenging Western solidarity. And it was perhaps the awareness of this failure that brought them in the following years to diversify their Western interlocutors—by establishing a privileged dialogue with Washington and by reacting favorably to the Ostpolitk of German Chancellor Willy Brandt. At the same time, for

De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow 39

de Gaulle, the rapprochement was disappointing because in the short term, it was unable to overcome the division of Europe into blocks and to prevent the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. However in a longer term, the Franco–Soviet rapprochement initiated by de Gaulle paved the way for a renewed Franco–Soviet dialogue during Pompidou’s Presidency which was to play a key role during the CSCE negotiations.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ See Marie-Pierre Rey, “Le retour à l’Europe? Les décideurs soviétiques face à l’intégration ouest-européenne, 1957–1991,” Journal of European Integration History 11, no. 1 (2005), pp. 7–27. â•‡ 2.â•‡ For an overall view of Franco–Soviet Relations during peaceful coexistence and détente, see Thomas Gomart, Double détente, les relations franco–soviétiques de 1958 à 1964 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2003); Julie M. Newton, Russia, France and the Idea of Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Marie-Pierre Rey, La Tentation du Rapprochement: France et URSS à l’heure de la détente 1964–1974 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1991), and Le dilemme russe: la Russie et l’Europe occidentale d’Ivan le Terrible à Boris Eltsine (Paris: Flammarion, 2002). â•‡ 3.â•‡ Archives of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs (AVP RF), referentura po Francii, (f. 136), opis 46, papka n°269, delo n°4. The document is quoted without any precise date by Evgenia Obitchkina in her chapter “L’URSS et la décolonisation de l’Algérie et de l’Afrique noire sous de Gaulle,” in De Gaulle et la Russie, ed. Maurice Vaïsse (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2006), p. 142. â•‡ 4.â•‡ See A.A. Fursenko, Rossiia i Mezhdunarodnye Krizisy seredina XXogo veka (Moscow: Nauka, 2006), p. 195. â•‡ 5.â•‡ Quoted in Fursenko, Rossiia, p. 192. â•‡ 6.â•‡ Quoted by Philippe Bernert in Le Journal de Genève, March 11, 1965. â•‡ 7.â•‡ See the meeting between Jacques Chaban-Delmas and Ambassador Vinogradov, December 22, 1957, AVP RF, referentura po Francii, opis’ n°48, por n°11, papka n°279, delo n°4, Zapisi besed posla (Reports from Ambasssador’s meetings). â•‡ 8.â•‡ For a precise view of Soviet perceptions of the EEC and diplomatic consequences of these perceptions, Rey, “Le retour à l’Europe?” â•‡ 9.â•‡ Excerpt from protocol no. 872 adopted on January 21, 1958 by the Central Committee of the CPSU, AVP RF, referentura po Frantsii, opis n°48, por n°11, papka n°277. 10.â•‡ Minutes of the February 6, 1958 meeting between Vinogradov and de Gaulle, sent on March 7, 1958, n° 93, AVP RF, referentura po Francii, opis’ n°48, por n°4, papka n°276. 11.â•‡ Minutes of June 27, 1958 meeting between Vinogradov and Thorez, sent on February 3, 1959, n° 205, AVP RF, referentura po Francii, opis’ n°49, por n°11, papka n°280, politicheskie voprosy (About Political Questions). 12.â•‡ In particular for the Oder–Neisse border. 13.â•‡ A large excerpt from this press conference can be found in Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: Le Souverain (Paris: Le Seuil, 1986), p. 311.

40

Marie-Pierre Rey

14.â•‡ 12 Minutes of September 12, 1959 meeting between Khrushchev, Sudreau and Dejean, sent on October 27, n°2450, AVP RF, referentura po Francii, opis’ n°49, por n°3, papka n°279. 15.â•‡ Minutes of September 12, 1959 meeting between Dejean and Khrushchev. 16.â•‡ On February 13, 1960, the first French nuclear test was detonated at Reggane in Algeria. 17.â•‡ See, for example, the article written by M. Nekrassov and published in Pravda on January 19, 1963: “Not only is the French desire to acquire an independent nuclear force unrealistic and dangereous, but France could not use its nuclear weapons without being destroyed herself.” 18.â•‡ Minutes of a September 12, 1959 meeting between Khrushchev and Sudreau, sent on October 27, n°2450, AVP RF, referentura po Francii, opis’ n°49, por n°3, papka n°279. 19.â•‡ Ibid. Author’s emphasis. 20.â•‡ This link which implicitly appears in the Soviet archives that I consulted is also defended by Evgenia Obitchkina in her chapter “L’URSS et la décolonisation de l’Algérie et de l’Afrique noire sous de Gaulle,” in De Gaulle et la Russie, pp. 141–145. 21.â•‡ Minutes of a October 16, 1959 meeting between Khrushchev and Dejean, AVP RF, referentura po Francii, opis’ n°49, por n°3, papka n°279. 22.â•‡ Even if, privately, he disagreed with Eisenhower’s management of the crisis. 23.â•‡ See, for example, the TASS statement on December 14, 1960 and the article published in Izvestia, on November 19, 1960. See also SSSR I strany Afriki, 1946– 1962, Dokumenty i materialy (Moscow: Nauka, 1963), pp. 133–34, quoted by Evgenia Obitchkina, “L’URSS et la décolonisation de l’Algérie et de l’Afrique noire sous de Gaulle,” p. 145. 24.â•‡ Minutes of December 3, 1960 meeting between Duclos and Vinogradov, sent on December 21, 1960, n°2348, AVP RF, referentura po Francii, opis’ n°50, por n°4, papka n°282. 25.â•‡ Minutes of September 12, 1960 meeting between de Gaulle and Vinogradov, ibid. 26.â•‡ Khrushchev’s letter to de Gaulle, September 30, 1960, n°1921, ibid. 27.â•‡ Quoted by Philippe Devillers, in Espoir (Paris, 1972), p. 42. 28.â•‡ Marie-Pierre Rey, Tentation du Rapprochement, France, pp. 20–21. 29.â•‡ See Couve de Murville’s statement on May 14, 1959 at the Geneva conference, quoted in Gomart, Double détente, p. 270: “There are, if we can say so, two Germanies. There is Eastern Germany and Western Germany. But to go from recognizing this fact, which is evident, to saying that the French Government recognizes the so-called government of Eastern Germany, is a step that I personally cannot take.” 30.â•‡ This refers to the title of my book La tentation du rapprochement. 31.â•‡ For an analysis of de Gaulle’s policy toward the MLF and French–Soviet convergences on this matter, see Frédéric Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and the Atlantic Alliance (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), p 110. 32.â•‡ See Mikhail Narinsky, “Le retrait de la France de l’organisation militaire de l’OTAN vu de Moscou,” in De Gaulle et la Russie, p. 163. 33.â•‡ The exact date of the note is not mentioned. See Narinsky, “Le retrait de la France de l’organisation militaire de l’OTAN vu de Moscou,” p. 164.

De Gaulle, French Diplomacy, and Franco–Soviet Relations as Seen from Moscow 41

34.â•‡ See Yuri Dubinin, Moscou-Paris dans un tourbillon diplomatique, témoignage d’un ambassadeur (Paris: Imaginaria, 2002). 35.â•‡ Quoted in a note from the Sous-Direction d’Europe orientale, Quai d’Orsay, October 22, 1965, in the Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affaires (AMFAE), Europe, 1961–1965, URSS, box 1933. 36.â•‡ See telegram n°200, sent by Charles Lucet to the French embassy in Moscow after Couve de Murville’s trip to USSR in November 1965, which states, “the French and Soviet position are aligned when it comes to German borders and armament.” AMFAE, Europe 1961–1965, URSS, box 1933. 37.â•‡ See the two Rapacki plans and the Gomulka plan of 1963. 38.â•‡ Communiqué of November 2, 1965, AMFAE, Europe 1961–1965, URSS, box 1933. 39.â•‡ See supra. 40.â•‡ Cf. the heated debates that took place at the National Assembly on 13, 14 and April 20, 1966. 41.â•‡ For a precise and detailed description of this trip, see Rey, Tentation du Rapprochement, p. 427. 42.â•‡ The full declaration can be found in Les relations franco–soviétiques, 1965– 1976: documents et matériauxÂ€(Paris–Moscow, Politizdat—La Documentation Française, 1976), p. 33. 43.â•‡ On the organization and the specifics of these arrangements, see Rey, La tentation du rapprochement, pp. 277–84. 44.â•‡ For a discussion of the balance sheet of de Gaulle’s East–West policies, see Frédéric Bozo, “France, ‘Gaullism,’ and the Cold War,” in Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 2, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 45.â•‡ See Lacouture, De Gaulle, p. 547, and Rey, Tentation du Rapprochement, pp.Â€62–63. 46.â•‡ See Hervé Alphand, L’Etonnement d’être, Journal, 1939–1973, (Paris: Fayard, 1977) p. 512. 47.â•‡ For a recent and stimulating study of the diplomatic and strategic consequences of 1968, see Vojtech Mastny, “Was 1968 a Strategic Watershed of the Cold War?,” Diplomatic History 29, no. 1 (2005), pp. 149–177. 48.â•‡ As analyzed by Vladislav Smirnov in his paper “La crise de 1968 au miroir de la presse soviétique,” in De Gaulle et la Russie, pp. 171–77, Soviet leaders remained benevolent to de Gaulle, accusing French Trotskyist movements to intend to destabilize France. After de Gaulle’s May 30, speech which contained direct attacks against communism, Soviet leaders began to be a little bit more critical but this did not change their general perception of de Gaulle. For them the French crisis was a secondary question. 49.â•‡ AMFAE, Europe, Organismes internationaux et grandes questions internationales, sécurité, 1966–1970, box 2034. 50.â•‡ See the excerpt from the call from Budapest of March 18, 1969, quoted and commented in the note of the Direction des Affaires Politiques européennes of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, May 12, 1969, AMFAE, Europe, Organismes internationaux et grandes questions internationales, sécurité européenne, 1966–1970, box 2035.

42

Marie-Pierre Rey

51.â•‡ Telegram nos. 1911–1913 from Roger Seydoux, April 17, 1969, AMFAE, Europe, organismes internationaux et grandes questions internationales, sécurité européenne, 1966–1970, box 2035. 52.â•‡ Ibid.

3 A “Cordial Potentiality?” De Gaulle and the FrancoÂ�–German Partnership, 1963–1969 Carine Germond

Europe is the combined affair of the French and the Germans together. [. . . ] Alone we don’t have the means to lead Europe. But, together, we can. —Charles de Gaulle to Konrad Adenauer, March 10, 1966

Introduction Most of Charles de Gaulle’s biographers have stressed the central influence of Germany on his formative years, his military and political career.1 His social milieu, his intellectual and military formation and his own thoughts on French and German conflictive history led him for a long time to see in Germany the principal threat.2 Yet, the post-1945 world dominated by the ideological conflict between the two superpowers in which Europe, let alone France, had little say, as well as the rise of the communist danger, stressed the common strategic destiny of France and Germany. Because de Gaulle viewed a divided Germany as a key factor in the European balance of power, a Franco–German entente, designed to form the core of a new power constellation, became a prerequisite for his design of an independent Europe that would reassert itself in the international arena. When de Gaulle came back to power in June 1958, the Franco–German rapprochement was at an advanced stage and, since the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, embedded in the new institutions of European integration. Yet, his return to the Elysée Palace caused a radical change in relations between Paris and Bonn both in form and content. In German chancellor Konrad Adenauer de Gaulle found the 43

44

Carine Germond

appropriate partner to push forward the idea of a privileged partnership— albeit one of unequal partners—and to “weave a network of preferential ties with Germany,”3 which the Elysée treaty of January 22, 1963 formally organized and legally underpinned. De Gaulle’s vision of a Franco–German European hard core was shortlived, though. In his press conference of September 9, 1965, less than two years after seeking collaboration with Adenauer’s successor, Ludwig Erhard, de Gaulle denounced Franco–German cooperation as being merely a “cordial potentiality.”4 Again in January 1967, he complained to the new German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger that the treaty had been implemented “but, above all, in the form of exchanges and finer feelings and as a potentiality.”5 In spite of the progressive building-up of a “bilateral acquis,” France and Germany proved unable to achieve consensus on most community and world affairs during de Gaulle’s presidency, although this was an explicit objective of the Franco–German treaty. The inability of both partners to agree on key European and international issues regularly translated into bilateral and European crises that revealed the underlying conflict between the Gaullist and German foreign policy orientations. Except for the account of witnesses,6 the recent scholarly literature on Franco–German relations in de Gaulle’s era stops at the signature of the Elysée treaty or shortly thereafter.7 Moreover, although new connections between European integration, East–West relations and, its co-related issue, German reunification, conferred a new importance to and opened new perspectives for a Franco–German institutionalized bilateralism as instituted by the Elysée treaty, there is no comprehensive analysis of the interconnections of these phenomena. Based on research conducted in France and Germany, this chapter proposes to “bilateralize” and to reevaluate Franco–German interactions and dynamics in Europe from Erhard’s investiture in October 1963 to de Gaulle’s resignation in April 1969, a critical period during which the still fragile Franco–German “couple” was constantly put to the test. I argue that, more than de Gaulle’s “cordial potentiality,” the Franco–German partnership was a “cordial disagreement.” As a result, the Franco–German alliance, as originally envisioned by de Gaulle, remained largely unfulfilled during his presidency.

A Difficult Partnership: de Gaulle and Erhard, 1963–1966 When Ludwig Erhard arrived at the federal chancellery in October 1963, a chapter of Franco–German relations was closed. Paris had become Bonn’s privileged partner in Europe although Washington remained an irreplaceable ally for Germany. Institutional implementation of the Elysée treaty had

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

45

started well with the first meetings organized between the heads of states and government, the ministers and their administration. Erhard, the longtime federal minister for Economics, was by no mean a complete stranger in Paris where his pro-American and economically liberal reputation had preceded him.8 Atlanticist tendencies of the new government were further amplified by Gerhard Schröder’s remaining at the Auswärtiges Amt, the German foreign ministry. Worse still, Erhard had been a supporter of the interpretative preamble to the Elysée treaty which re-specified the axioms of German foreign policy—European integration within the European Communities (EC), enlargement of the existing EC, cooperation with(in) the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United States—in clear contradiction with de Gaulle’s ambitions for a Franco–German partnership. Erhard was not opposed to Franco–German cooperation per se and certainly acknowledged its specific responsibilities in Europe, but he refused any exclusive bilateral alliance that would become a substitute for a wider Europe.9 Therefore, relations between de Gaulle and Erhard were characterized by a deep disagreement over the function of the Franco–German partnership in Europe. On a personal level, de Gaulle and Erhard found it hard to connect. The pragmatic Erhard was exasperated by the visionary de Gaulle,10 while the latter refused to consider his counterpart as a statesman.11 They were “two worlds,” indeed.12 In spite of reservations on both sides of the Rhine, cooperation seemed to start under good auspices. Erhard took care to emphasize in his governmental declaration his commitment to Franco–German cooperation.13 He also handled relatively well the difficult exercise of balancing friendship with both Paris and Washington as the French ambassador acknowledged.14 His first trip as chancellor was to Paris so to show the continuity of German policy toward France. These first contacts between de Gaulle and Erhard were marked by the contrast between courteous dialogues and profound disagreements on substance. The conflicts were numerous: from the “Argoud affair”15 or Kennedy’s proposal of a Multilateral Force (MLF)16 to the delaying tactics of the German government in agricultural negotiations at Brussels in December 1963 or to Bonn’s bitter reaction to France’s recognition of Communist China in January 1964.17 On the first anniversary of the signature of the Franco–German treaty, a more realist approach had replaced the initial optimism on both sides of the Rhine. The Quai d’Orsay, the French foreign ministry, showed increased frustration and impatience over Bonn’s pro-American tendencies and its reservations about an exclusive Franco–German entente.18 The Auswärtiges Amt did not shy away from publicly criticizing the lack of results of bilateral consultations.19 At their biannual summit meeting in Bonn in July 1964, de Gaulle saw his hope for a Franco–German core of a Europe playing the role of a third power shattered by Erhard’s unwillingness to accept his vision. Angered by the chan-

46

Carine Germond

cellor’s pro-American stance and disillusioned by Franco–German cooperation,20 de Gaulle came to Bonn determined to make Erhard choose between Paris and Washington.21 In a controversial attempt to rally the German partner, he proposed to State Secretary Karl Carstens a (vague) German participation in the French Force de frappe.22 In the concluding session, de Gaulle made a vibrant plea for closer Franco–German cooperation that was left unanswered by Erhard and Schröder. De Gaulle’s bullying efforts had been in vain, not because the Germans did not understand the general’s intentions—in a confidential note, Carstens said de Gaulle had never before expressed so clearly his aspiration for Franco–German union within a ‘European Europe,’ independent from the United States23—but because they could not agree to them.24 “I remained a Virgin” was de Gaulle’s summary of the meeting.25 The July 1964 summit crisis escalated with de Gaulle’s press conference of July 23, in which he painstakingly enumerated all areas of disagreement between Paris and Bonn: defense, the Atlantic alliance, Ostpolitik, frontiers and nationalities, China, Asia, Africa, Latin America, the EEC and the common agricultural policy (CAP).26 More than a simple catalog of the shortcomings of bilateral cooperation, it was an all-out indictment of Erhard’s foreign policy. Henceforth, de Gaulle systematically hindered Erhard whose political leadership was increasingly contested by the “Gaullists” and the “Atlanticists” within his own party.27 De Gaulle first opposed the chancellor’s project for a re-launch of the discussions on a European political union which Erhard had tirelessly supported since his investiture.28 Erhard wanted a political counterweight to economic integration, whose supranational “drifts” he—as de Gaulle— disapproved.29 Yet, their attitudes towards the project and its intended consequences differed profoundly.30 Erhard expected it to strengthen the EuroAtlantic partnership while de Gaulle insisted on independence; Erhard imagined a “Europe of the Free and the Equal” while de Gaulle intended it to be under French leadership. Thus, Erhard’s campaign earned little support in Paris where de Gaulle repeatedly expressed his skepticism at a new initiative. Even Adenauer’s proposal of a Franco–German Union as a first step toward a political Europe—made to de Gaulle on July 3, 196431 and immediately watered down by Schröder with a bilateral study commission32—met with France’s halfhearted support since Erhard specified that the aim was not “to do a Europe à deux.”33 The German proposals, established in close cooperation with the French, were eventually presented on November 4, 1964. Erhard’s plan, which drew on the failed Fouchet Plans of 1962, was a valuable attempt to reconcile French intergovernmentalism with German federalism but failed to bridge the diverging viewpoints.34 De Gaulle, disappointed by the failure of the Fouchet plans and of the Elysée treaty, had lost interest in political cooperation. Although he had agreed at the Franco–German summit in Ram-

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

47

bouillet in January 1965 to partake in an EC summit conference, he declined the Italian government’s invitation two months later, using the handy pretext of forthcoming CAP negotiations.35 Even though de Gaulle lukewarmly supported Erhard’s initiatives, he evidently did not believe in their success and, moreover, estimated the institutional viewpoints of the Six—particularly those of France and Germany—to be too different to be harmonized. France’s delaying attitude toward Erhard’s European activism also resulted from de Gaulle’s intention to keep his “hands free” in order to assert France’s independence. Indeed, the general viewed the emergence of a political Europe as a potential obstacle to his “détente, entente, and cooperation” policy with the Eastern Bloc that he started to actively pursue from the mid-1964 and accelerated in the course of 1965. In the EEC, Franco–German confrontations occurred more frequently, predictably on the CAP. General de Gaulle, who had made the CAP a “sine qua non condition of France’s participation to the EEC,”36 had forced a reluctant Erhard to adopt successively in December 1963 and December 1964 a series of market regulations for essential agricultural products.37 Facing critical negotiations in mid-1965, de Gaulle allowed the talks on financing the CAP to collapse. The ensuing “Empty Chair Crisis” not only revealed France’s growing isolation in the EEC but also the profound discrepancy between France and Germany on economic and institutional development of the European Communities (EC). The failure of Franco–German consultations, both at lower and higher diplomatic levels, prior the decisive meeting of June 30, 1965, along with the inflexible attitudes on both sides of the Rhine, were important factors for triggering the conflict.38 Franco–German efforts to reach a compromise stumbled over differing views on President of the European Commission Walter Hallstein’s proposals of March 1965, especially the strengthening of the European institutions—the Commission and the European Parliament, which de Gaulle denounced as a “technocratic, stateless and irresponsible areopagus”39—and the duration of the transition period. The lack of genuine bilateral cooperation aggravated the conflict which shifted from a disagreement over an agricultural-political aspect of European integration to an institutional crisis since de Gaulle had decided to challenge the transition to qualified majority voting by January 1966, as he revealed in his press conference of September 9, 1965.40 Maurice Couve de Murville, the French foreign minister, is thus partly right when he claims that the 1965 crisis resulted from the impossibility for French and Germans to harmonize their views at their summit meeting in mid-June 1965,41 although this opinion was discarded by the German negotiators, Schröder and State Secretary Rolf Lahr.42 The German government, no longer willing to give in to Gaullist blackmailing, rejected de Gaulle’s “reciprocal prerequisites,” i.e., French promised support to re-launch political talks between the Six in exchange

48

Carine Germond

of a German agreement on the CAP. But de Gaulle underestimated Erhard’s resolution “to wait for as long as necessary to give our agreement to the CAP until France consents to the realization of the customs union and fiscal harmonization,”43 both of which were of particular interest for Germany. The Empty Chair Crisis also revealed the superficiality of the Franco–German rapprochement obtained at Rambouillet six months earlier. The Luxembourg compromise of January 30, 1966 partially solved the institutional questions while the work program adopted in May and July, which gave priority to agricultural issues but guaranteed progress in other industrials areas, satisfied both France and Germany. The Franco–German partnership had nonetheless been a collateral victim of the 1965 crisis. In March 1966, de Gaulle went against another axiom of the FRG’s foreign policy when he withdrew French forces from NATO, the integrated military structure of the Atlantic Alliance. Franco–German conflicts over military integration were certainly not new. Already 1964 saw de Gaulle’s growing opposition to the MLF,44 mostly because Erhard’s support of the U.S. project highlighted his preference for Washington rather than Paris. De Gaulle’s proposal of July 1964 to Carstens was in fact designed to “loosen the ties that exist between us and the United States and replace them by an even closer tie with France,” as the state secretary suspected.45 France’s 1966 withdrawal from NATO was by far more radical than earlier partial withdrawals and represented, to the German government, a serious threat to the cohesion of the West and to the FRG’s security. Beyond the wider geostrategic calculations of de Gaulle’s decision,46 France’s withdrawal posed an immediate problem to Paris and Bonn: the status and mission of the French forces stationed in Germany (FFG) under France’s WWII victor status, the Potsdam agreement of 1945 and regulations agreed between Germany and the Western Allies in the 1950s. George-Henri Soutou has stressed that the FFG issue was decisive for de Gaulle’s decision to remain in the Atlantic Alliance as France would otherwise have been forced to withdraw its forces from Germany, thus losing its military control (and one of its prestige attributes) over the German partner.47 Indeed, the French archives show that the French government was determined to keep the FFG stationed in Germany based on the previous accords, notably the 1954 Paris agreements, though a German agreement would be necessary, at least symbolically:48 “It would be a political rather than a legal decision” noted the Pactes division.49 Bonn’s attitude toward the FFG problem was ambiguous, if not contradictory.50 The federal authorities affirmed that they wanted the FFG to remain on German territory, yet they had two preliminary demands that exasperated Paris. While the French insisted on bilateral talks, the Germans demanded negotiations not only between France and Germany, but also between France and the fourteen NATO partners to determine the exact

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

49

mission of the FFG in case of a conflict (especially with regards to the forward defense). Moreover, Germany considered the treaties ruling the FFG’s situation as a “political and legal unity.”51 Accordingly, it argued that the Paris agreements of 1954 no longer applied to France since it had withdrawn from NATO. Hence a new status needed to be negotiated, which should clearly state Germany’s sovereignty and subordinate the FFG’s stationing to Bonn’s approval. Bonn’s insistence on the “legal void” created by France’s withdrawal eventually alerted the French services, which suspected an attempt to undermine France’s “reserved rights” in Germany: If we allow the legal basis of our presence in the FRG to be questioned, we risk appearing, notably in the Soviet Union if not in Great Britain and the United States, as accepting a limitation of the responsibilities that we took upon ourselves for the peace settlement in Germany. In other words, we need to fear that to abandon the Convention of October 23, 1954 would infringe upon our status as a victorious power of the Third Reich and the rights that ensue to our benefit.52

De Gaulle’s repeated stance that France was not demandeur and that, should the Germans decide otherwise, it would withdraw its forces, was essentially tactical. He could not lose control over the evolution of the German question, as he prepared to travel to Moscow and needed France’s grandeur to be solidly underpinned.53 The six-month exchanges of notes and memoranda between Paris and Bonn over the FFG’s status eventually ended in December 1966 with an agreement between Paris and a new German government who had made the resolution of this problem the prerequisite of an ambitious program to re-start the stalled Franco–German engine. Franco–German conflicts also developed over East–West détente and its correlated issue, German reunification, since Erhard’s Germany could not follow France on the path lay down by de Gaulle. The French president had early on proposed a “Europe from the Atlantic to the Ural.”54 This new European order, in which the German question would be ultimately solved, would only be achieved progressively, but France, with Germany’s participation, was to play a key role. Paris would use détente to establish itself as a privileged interlocutor with the Soviet Union, who held the key of the German problem. Hence, France would be in a better position to promote what de Gaulle summarized in his famous triptych “détente, entente, cooperation,” defining the three stages that would govern France’s relations with Eastern Europe. Reunification was also a core element of the new chancellor’s foreign policy and, during all his chancellorship, he actively pursued this objective. Erhard’s activism produced a series of initiatives, which had an unequal destiny. An audacious plan “to buy reunification,” which Erhard developed in December 1963, was rapidly discouraged by the Western Allies;55 a “Peace

50

Carine Germond

Plan,” presented in January 1964 by Schröder, was deemed uninteresting and soon discarded; the secret invitation of Nikita Khrushchev, preceded by a visit to Bonn of his son-in-law, Aleksei Adzhubei, led to nowhere as the Soviet general secretary was dismissed before he could come to Bonn. At the end of 1964, the Auswärtiges Amt was forced to acknowledge that their efforts had been in vain.56 Erhard was also overtaken by de Gaulle’s Eastern overtures: While Germany clung to the Hallstein doctrine and its “policy of movement,”57 Gaullist France surged ahead and actively courted the East bloc. At the Franco–German January 1965 Rambouillet summit, Erhard, whose previous initiatives had not been concerted with France, changed tactics and suggested that de Gaulle take the lead.58 A month later, during a press conference, de Gaulle went back at length over the question of East–West relations and reunification, which he defined as the “European problem par excellence”59 that should be solved with the agreement of the Europeans neighbors of Germany. Yet, in May 1965, the Germans pushed the idea of an Allied tripartite declaration whose text met with France’s predictable reservations and was soon abandoned but at the cost of another noticeable cooling of Franco–German relations. De Gaulle’s note of February 4, 1966 highlighted his exasperation over the German reluctance to admit the basics—recognition of all the borders agreed at Potsdam, in particular the German–Polish Oder–Neisse line,60 and renunciation to nuclear armament (including by way of the MLF): “We note that the Germans do not take the path of reunification.”61 Chancellor Erhard’s last attempt, the Peace Note of March 25, 1966, was more symbolic than practical as the Germans did not alter any of their position on the frontiers. Confronted with the failure of his Eastern policy toward the end of his mandate, Erhard strove to get closer to Paris and, during the July 1966 summit meeting—a month after de Gaulle’s trip to Moscow during which he relentlessly took Bonn’s defense— evoked the possibility of a closer Franco–German cooperation, even a common Ostpolitik.62 But he left office before he could implement anything. The idea was, however, not lost on his successors.63

Disillusioned Cooperation: de Gaulle and the Grand Coalition, 1966–1969 The replacement of Erhard’s government by a grand coalition formed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), positively altered bilateral relations. The composition of the new government was indicative of its foreign policy orientation. Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, a Christian-Democrat, who had served as the representative of the Federal Government for cultural affairs within the cooperation framework of the

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

51

Elysée treaty, clearly stood for the revival and improvement of Franco– German relations. Kiesinger’s nomination was thus viewed as a “French victory”64 and French officials hoped that the new government would implement both the letter and spirit of the treaty. Foreign Minister and ViceChancellor Willy Brandt symbolized the will to develop détente and relations with the East although his party, the SPD, had emphasized in a programmatic paper the need to increase Franco–German cooperation in various fields.65 De Gaulle and Brandt had also good personal relations that were based on mutual esteem, their common experience of resistance and exile and, perhaps, as Maurice Vaïsse suggests, a shared nonconformism.66 As a result, de Gaulle and Couve de Murville expected bilateral cooperation to be easier than under Erhard.67 This positive judgement seemed to be confirmed by the grand coalition’s first initiatives. Kiesinger’s governmental declaration detailed the possibilities to strengthen Franco–German cooperation. He also skillfully balanced relations with both Paris and Washington in terms that were sufficiently allusive (if not elusive) so they could bridge German positions vis-à-vis NATO and de Gaulle’s independence policy and reconcile the “Gaullists” and “Atlanticists” of his party.68 Meeting with de Gaulle and Couve de Murville in Paris in December 1966, Brandt stressed his government’s desire to re-start bilateral cooperation.69 Though their motives were not necessarily identical, both coalition partners agreed on the need to improve relations with Paris. But, Chancellor Kiesinger personally supervised and coordinated German efforts to intensify bilateral cooperation. The chancellery believed that the treaty constituted the framework to strengthen Franco– German collaboration.70 Kiesinger and Brandt thought that a procedural improvement would facilitate an intensification of cooperation,71 and thus submitted a series of institutional innovations in 1967 to “revive the original intentions of the Franco–German treaty.”72 The core idea of the grand coalition’s proposals was not only to improve bilateral dialogue but to change the institutional practice of Franco–German relations. Their expectations were soon disappointed. The climate between Paris and Bonn thawed rapidly but the eagerly awaited change was still a long time coming. The decisions agreed upon at the Franco–German summit meeting of July 12–13, 1967 were implemented, although the new institutional consultation mechanisms they created could not hide very long the fact that profound divergences in key foreign policy issues persisted.73 The grand coalition found that determination was not enough to cooperate with Paris while de Gaulle realized that a Francophile German government did not mean an unconditional support of his foreign policy. In the EEC, a revitalized Franco–German entente had stirred hopes that it would help overcome the European stagnation and achieve progress toward both deepening and widening, but the new “couple” was soon confronted

52

Carine Germond

with problematic issues. The first was the “Hallstein problem,” a legacy of the empty chair crisis, which threatened to delay the implementation of the Merger Treaty signed in April 1965. De Gaulle was determined to get rid of Hallstein because he disliked the latter’s tendency to “think of himself as the president of the supranational government.”74 Franco–German discussions on Hallstein’s possible nomination as the head of the new Single Commission had led, by the time the grand coalition took office, to a stalemate. Aware that the deadlock over Hallstein not only threatened the bilateral rapprochement, as sought by his government, but had also become increasingly counterproductive to European integration, Kiesinger sought a compromise acceptable for each parties.75 In the first half of 1967 and after some confusion, the eventual compromise was a shortened tenure of Hallstein. Even though a Franco–German clash had been avoided, Hallstein’s inglorious abandonment by the grand coalition left a bitter taste in Bonn.76 The invitation of the Italian government early in January 1967 to convene in Rome a summit conference to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Rome treaties revived the political cooperation issue, which, after the aborted Venice summit of spring 1965, had been relegated to the background of the community agenda. As with past German governments, European integration was the linchpin of the grand coalition’s foreign policy. Both Kiesinger and Brandt favored closer political cooperation among the Six, but they preferred to improve political cooperation between Paris and Bonn first. Yet, they welcomed the Italian invitation but with few illusions about progress on political cooperation as long as Gaullist France remained opposed to supranationality.77 At Rome, the Franco–German entente, slightly disrupted by the quarrels about Hallstein, was restored. The mutual support that de Gaulle and Kiesinger showed during the summit accounted for the mention of a new summit conference, prepared by the foreign ministers, in the final communiqué.78 The return of the question anglaise in fall 1966, however, had resurrected an old Franco–German contentious issue and would delay the convention of a new summit of the Six until December 1969. In spite of a rapprochement on the issue of transatlantic relations, mainly due to the weaker atlanticism of the new German leaders and the relatively good relations of de Gaulle with Richard Nixon, Bonn could not convince Paris to accept enlargement of the European Community. The grand coalition was still in favor of a British EEC membership and Community enlargement; but, as Piers Ludlow points out, what had changed was that neither Kiesinger nor Brandt was willing to provoke a showdown with General de Gaulle over the British question.79 Although de Gaulle mostly resorted to economic arguments, it was obvious that he opposed the British application politically as a threat to French influence in Europe. Moreover the Francophile grand coalition had revived hopes in Paris that the Elysée

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

53

treaty could be more than just a cooperation framework and eventually embody this nucleus of the Europe européenne de Gaulle envisioned. Both foreign ministries had a similar analysis of Britain’ economic state, yet they drew opposite conclusions of its implications for the Community. While the French estimated that Britain should first bring order into her economy and finances before adhesion negotiations could start—as a proof of her commitment to join the Community—the Germans believed that Britain’s entry would act as a powerful factor for economic modernization.80 The British membership not only blocked the EEC’s integration agenda— “indeed, stagnation was not overcome” recalled Brandt81—but damaged the Franco–German relationship too. The initially promising rapprochement initiated by the grand coalition soon faded away.82 Kiesinger’s pro-French attitude certainly guaranteed that Bonn would not confront Paris too directly. But the Chancellor received little recognition for his dedication. To his “open door policy,”83 the French responded with delaying and obstructive tactics.84 Kiesinger not only failed to bring de Gaulle around, but the Chancellor’s willingness to compromise likely encouraged the general in his policy. As a German diplomat concluded in April 1968, “The FRG did not succeed in arguing concessions out of France in any essential European issues by way of consultations. The outside demonstration of solidarity of the federal government spares France isolation and encourages it to continue in the hitherto policy.”85 De Gaulle’s seemingly unmovable opposition to British membership also increased tensions between CDU and SPD and gradually undermined Kiesinger’s political influence in the grand coalition. Thus, the 1968 Franco–German trade arrangement scheme was a “test” for Kiesinger’s pro-French policy.86 At first, it seemed a promising initiative. Indeed, Paris co-sponsored the idea of a commercial arrangement idea with the bilateral declaration of February 16, 196887 but then rejected subsequent German efforts to turn it into anything more concrete. Brandt’s succeeding proposals of March and September 1968 were a valuable attempt to satisfy the French, the British and the anglophile European partners all together, but given the inflexible attitude of each country his plan was likely to fail.88 Even when the Franco–German entente produced positive outcomes, such as the February declaration, it met with suspicion amongst the other European partners who feared a Franco–German fait accompli. As Lahr reminisced, “the saddest is that, when the Franco–German friendship treaty actually works, it is a motive of distrust for the others.”89 Bonn’s uncomfortable mediating role therefore never fulfilled its objectives. President de Gaulle had succeeded in delaying enlargement but at the cost of France’s almost complete isolation in Europe and another cooling of relations with Bonn. The deadlock was lifted at the Hague conference in December 1969 when Georges Pompidou, in exchange of German support on CAP’s financing reform, agreed to enlargement.90 This was less due to Bonn’s broker

54

Carine Germond

skills than to France’s interest in the continuation of the CAP and concerns at Germany’s increased self-confidence in the EEC and in Eastern Europe. Ostpolitik was a key element of the new entente between Paris and Bonn. Brandt was a proponent of a more proactive Ostpolik. The grand coalition gradually renounced the obsolete Hallstein Doctrine and subscribed to de Gaulle’s “détente, entente and cooperation” policy—with certain essential restrictions, notably the frontiers issue, as Bonn’s indignant reaction to the French president’s declarations in Polish Zabrze in September 1967 highlighted.91 Egon Bahr, the chief of the strategy office in the Auswärtiges Amt, combined the Gaullist triptych formula with the Tutzing slogan of 1963 (“change through rapprochement”) in “rapprochement, entente and cooperation,” a manifest proof of the Gaullist influence on German Ostpolitik thoughts.92 Accordingly, the French government encouraged and actively supported German efforts. For instance, it gave a helping hand—the so-called “shielding operation”—when the grand coalition resumed diplomatic relations with Romania in January 1967. At the same time, there was an effort to harmonize geo-strategic conceptions over the long term as evidenced with the creation of a Franco–German study committee for security and defense in Europe in the 1970s in July 1967, which was charged with the elaboration of common studies on the long-term geopolitical evolutions—including the German question—that would affect Europe’s security and defense in the next decade.93 But, the Franco–German rapprochement on Ostpolitik was undermined by several ambiguities. Though similar in their concepts—the gradual establishment of a new pan-European order—they ultimately acted on completely different premises. As early as January 1967, Bahr was aware of the operational limits set to common Franco–German initiatives in Ostpolitik and recommended that Germany alone should take the decisive steps.94 Also, for Brandt and Bahr, Paris’ role was limited to a moral and political support as to facilitate Bonn’s moves in the East. On the contrary, de Gaulle saw the grand coalition’s Ostpolitik as fulfilling his détente policy and he knew that his détente-entente-cooperation scheme largely depended on the FRG’s ability to normalize its relations with Eastern Europe. Hence, there was never a complete adequacy between the French and German approach to Ostpolitik. Moreover, if bilateral political cooperation on Ostpolitik worked relatively well—it was extensively discussed in each bilateral discussion—economic rivalry in Eastern Europe increased. While encouraging German Ostpolitik initiatives, de Gaulle was undermining France’s—often illusory—mediator position between the West and the East. Indeed, the more Bonn asserted itself in Eastern Europe, the more it became the privileged interlocutor. The Franco–German “consensus” on Ostpolitik brutally came to an end with the Prague Spring in the summer 1968. During their biannual meeting in Paris in September, de Gaulle blamed German “activism” in Czechoslovakia for the Soviet invasion while also reproaching Bonn its lack of solidar-

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

55

ity with France: “We do not have the impression that you have done much, in practice, for French and Germans to show solidarity above all in their existence, in their feelings and their activities.”95 Twenty years later, a close collaborator of Chancellor Kiesinger described this summit “as the tensest of the overall six consultation talks between Kiesinger and de Gaulle.”96 Kiesinger was “broken down, appalled and in an almost pitiable condition” and “faced the ruins of his policy toward France,” wrote Bahr to Brandt a few days after the summit.97 De Gaulle’s unjustified harsh reaction was an indication of weakness rather than of force. The economic and monetary difficulties, which France faced after the social unrests of May 1968, had brought to light the ever-more obvious German prowess in this areas and the waning French Grandeur. The refusal of the federal government to reevaluate the German Mark during the November monetary crisis had reinforced French angst in front of a more powerful, independent and self-confident Federal Republic Also, de Gaulle resented the pro-Atlantic and pro-integration reorientation of the grand coalition, which, after the Czech events, demanded a reinforcement of NATO and of the EC, notably by way of enlargement. But, more fundamentally, de Gaulle realized that Germany was escaping his control. By pursuing a proactive Ostpolitik, the FRG no longer was a mere object of the Cold War. Paris had to acknowledge Bonn’s gradual emancipation from historical constraints, its growing ability to translate economic prowess into political power, its will to take upon its responsibility and not solely rely on its allies. As a result, the general attempted to move closer to the United Kingdom in a clumsy initiative, the controversial “Soames Affair,” and tried to regain political leeway in the EC. In the spring 1969, disclosures from the Quai d’Orsay seemed to indicate that the French Government was considering a new European initiative towards enhanced political cooperation among the Six. 98 Bonn’s reaction to these indications was moderate.99 Only Chancellor Kiesinger, eager to exploit the sensible amelioration of Franco–German relations since the bilateral summit of March 1969, supported the French overture in which he saw a chance to promote his own idea of a Kerneuropa.100 De Gaulle’s unexpected resignation on April 28, 1969 disrupted any further initiative but was greeted with relief in Bonn. In January 1969, Kiesinger had already shared his profound disillusion with two journalists of the German Newspaper Die Welt: “as long as de Gaulle governs, there isn’t much to do in terms of France.”101

Conclusion The European crises of the 1960s owed much to the inability of Paris and Bonn to harmonize their positions. Franco–German (rare) agreements and

56

Carine Germond

(regular) disagreements revealed the depth of French and German dissent over European integration, transatlantic relations and détente. De Gaulle criticized Erhard for implementing “not the bilateral treaty but the unilateral preamble that changed all of its meaning.”102 From 1964–1965 on, he consequently abandoned his hope for an independent Western Europe with the Franco–German tandem at its core and re-directed its efforts toward the East in order to implement the reorganization of the European system he strove to achieve. The arrival of the grand coalition, eager to revive the Paris–Bonn axis and to implement a more practical Ostpolitik momentarily revived de Gaulle’s expectations. But, the noticeable improvement of relations under the grand coalition was superficial rather than substantial. Trying to reconcile the divergent French and German foreign policies amounted to “squaring the circle” as the two-time ambassador in Bonn, François Seydoux, remarked in his memoirs.103 The Elysée treaty thus ended up with a relative failure—the “cordial potentiality” deplored by de Gaulle—because the conceptions of the two partners on the function of the Franco–German partnership in Europe and on European unification were far too divergent. Although the treaty gradually developed into a stabilizing element of the Franco–German tandem, obstacles constantly arose in the way of the ambitious goals laid down in it. Its institutional tools failed to fulfill their prime objective, i.e., the convergence of Paris’ and Bonn’s foreign policy. The Quai d’Orsay rightly underlined that political differences between Paris and Bonn were the major obstacles that ultimately prevented them to “fully exploit all the potentialities of the treaty.”104 The latter became the cornerstone of a pattern of institutionalized cooperation but it failed to establish a Franco–German leadership in and of Europe, as de Gaulle wished. As a result, the French president’s design of a Franco–German partnership within a European Community under French leadership fell also short.

Notes â•‡â•‡ 1.â•‡ Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle (Paris: Seuil, 3 vol., 1984–1986), Eric Roussel, Charles de Gaulle, (Paris: Gallimard, 1990); Knut Linsel, Charles de Gaulle und Deutschland 1914–1969, (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1998); Peter Schunck, Charles de Gaulle: Ein Leben für Frankreichs Größe (Berlin: Propyläen, 1998); Peter Schunck, “De Gaulle et ses voisins allemands jusqu’à la rencontre avec Adenauer. Le problème politique et militaire d’une vie,” in Institut Charles de Gaulle, De Gaulle en son siècle, vol. V (Paris: la documentation française, 1992), pp. 32–42; Jean-Paul Bled, “L’image de l’Allemagne chez Charles de Gaulle avant juin 1940,” in Etudes Gaulliennes, no. 17 (1977), pp. 59–67; Jacques Binoche, “La formation allemande du général de Gaulle,” in Etudes Gaulliennes, no. 17 (1977), pp. 29–35. See also Pierre Maillard, De Gaulle et l’Allemagne: Le rêve inachevé (Paris: Plon, 1990).

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

57

â•‡â•‡ 2.â•‡ Bled, “L’image de l’Allemagne,” p. 17. â•‡â•‡ 3.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavour (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), p. 173. â•‡â•‡ 4.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Discours et messages [DM], vol. IV (Paris: Plon, 1970), p. 385. â•‡â•‡ 5.â•‡ Archives nationales [AN], 5 AG 1/163 and Akten zur auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland [AAPD], 1967 I, no. 14, pp. 64–77, here 66. â•‡â•‡ 6.â•‡ See the accounts of Maurice Couve de Murville, Une politique étrangère (Paris: Plon, 1971); Maillard, De Gaulle et l’Allemagne, Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 2 vols. (Paris: Fayard, 1994–1997); François Seydoux, Dans l’intimité franco–allemande: Une mission diplomatique (Paris: Edition Albatros, 1997); François Seydoux, Mémoires d’Outre-Rhin (Paris: Grasset, 1975); Herbert Blankenhorn, Verständnis und Verständigung. Blätter eines politischen Tagebuchs 1949–1979 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1976); Karl Carstens, Erinnerungen und Erfahrungen (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Bold Verlag, 1995); Paul Frank, Entschlüsselte Botschaft—ein Diplomat macht Inventur (Stuttgart: DTV, 1981); Heinrich Krone, Tagebücher—2. Band, 1961–1966 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2003); Hermann Kusterer, Der Kanzler und der General (Stuttgart: Neske, 1995); Rolf Lahr, Zeuge von Fall und Aufstieg: Private Briefe 1934–1974 (Hamburg: Albrecht Knaus Verlag, 1981), Horst Osterheld, Außenpolitik unter Ludwig Erhard 1963–1969. Ein dokumentarischer Bericht aus dem Kanzleramt (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1992). â•‡â•‡ 7.â•‡ See Ulrich Lappenküper, Die deutsch–französischen Beziehungen 1949–1963: Von der “Erbfeindschaft” zur “Entente élémentaire,” 2 vols. (München: Oldenburg, 2001); Eckart Conze, Die gaullistische Herausforderung: Die deutsch–französischen Beziehungen in der amerikanischen Europapolitik 1958–1963 (München: Oldenburg, 1995); Martin Koopman, Das schwierige Bündnis: Die deutsch–französischen Beziehungen und die Außenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1958–1965 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2000); Jeffrey Glen Giauque, Grand Designs and Visions of Unity: The Atlantic Powers and the Reorganization of Western Europe, 1955–1963 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002). â•‡â•‡ 8.â•‡ Couve de Murville, Politique étrangère; Maillard, De Gaulle, p. 226Â€; Etienne Burin des Roziers, Retour aux sources: 1962 l’année décisive (Paris: Plon, 1986), p. 144; François Puaux, “Les limites de la coopération politique franco-allemande depuis l’époque de Gaulle-Adenauer,” in Paris-Bonn. Ein dauerhafte Bindung schwieriger Partner, ed. Klaus Manfrass (Bonn: Thorbecke, 1986), p. 206; Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle II; Edgard Pisani, Le Général indivis (Paris: Albin Michel, 1974), p. 90. â•‡â•‡ 9.â•‡ See Karl Hohmann, Gedanken aus fünf Jahrzehnte (Düsseldorf: Econ Verlag, 1972). â•‡ 10.â•‡ Osterheld, Außenpolitik, p. 199. â•‡ 11.â•‡ Peyrefittte, C’était de Gaulle II, p. 287. â•‡ 12.â•‡ Archiv der christlich–demokratischen Partei [ACDP], I-028-076/1, Tagebuch Krone, 3./4.6.1964. â•‡ 13.â•‡ in Hohmann, Gedanken, p. 825. â•‡ 14.â•‡ Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des affaires étrangères, Paris [AD//MAE], EU 1961–1970, s/s RFA, vol. 1528, TGA de Margerie à MAE a/s Erhard, Bonn, 19 octobre 1963; AD/MAE, DECE, Papiers du Directeur Olivier Wormser, vol. 2, Note a/s du gouvernement Erhard, Paris, 25 novembre 1963.

58

Carine Germond

â•‡ 15.â•‡ Colonel Antoine Argoud was a former French officer and a leader of the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS), a clandestine pro-French Algéria organization, which sought to overthrow President de Gaulle early in the 1960s. Argoud was hiding in the Federal Republic where he was kidnapped in February 1963 by French special services. Argoud’s kidnapping provoked a diplomatic crisis between France and Germany. The federal authorities accused the French government of having violated the Federal Republic’s sovereignty and wanted Argoud to be trialled in Germany while de Gaulle resented the inaction of the German government, which had forced the French intervention. â•‡ 16.â•‡ On the MLF, see Koopman, Schwierige Bündnis; Georges-Henri Soutou, L’alliance incertaine: Les rapports politico-stratégiques franco-allemands, 1954–1996 (Paris: Fayard, 1996). â•‡ 17.â•‡ Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes [PAAA], B 21, Bd. 535, Aufzeichnung betr. Anerkennung Rot-Chinas durch Frankreich, Bonn, 23. Januar 1964. â•‡ 18.â•‡ Documents Diplomatiques Français [DDF], 1964 I, Doc. 75, Note de la S/DEC a/s application du traité franco-allemand, 6 février 1964, p. 165; AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, s/s RFA, vol. 1600, Note a/s de l’application du traité du 22 janvier 1963, Paris, 25 juin 1964. â•‡ 19.â•‡ Per Fischer, “Des consultations politiques,” in Documents, 5 (1964), pp. 6–14. â•‡ 20.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle II, p. 257. â•‡ 21.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/162, Tête-à-tête entre le général de Gaulle et le chancelier Erhard du 3 juillet 1964 (matin), AAPD, 1964 II, no. 180, pp. 713–23, here p. 715. â•‡ 22.â•‡ AAPD, 1964 II, no. 187, pp. 768–77. â•‡ 23.â•‡ PAAA, B 150, Bd. 32, Vermerk von St.S. Carstens an Schröder betr. Deutschlands außenpolitische Lage nach dem de Gaulle-Besuch vom 3./4. Juli 1964, St.S. 1280/64I geh., Bonn, 6. Juli 1967. â•‡ 24.â•‡ AAPD, 1964 II, no. 210, pp. 884–93. â•‡ 25.â•‡ Krone, Tagebücher, p. 309; Kusterer, Der Kanzler und der General, p. 419. â•‡ 26.â•‡ De Gaulle, DM IV, pp. 229f. â•‡ 27.â•‡ On the internal divisions of the CDU/CSU between the pro-French and the pro-American wing, see to Klaus Hildebrandt, “‘Atlantiker’ verus ‘Gaullisten’: Zur Außenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland während der sechziger Jahre,” in Revue d’Allemagne 23, no. 4 (1990), pp. 583–92; Tim Geiger, Atlantiker gegen Gaullisten: Außenpolitischer Konflikt und innerparteilicher Machtkampf in der CDU/CSU, 1958–1969 (Munich: Oldenburg, 2008). On the wider German domestic debate on de Gaulle’s foreign policy, see Reiner Marcowitz, Option für Paris? Unionspartien, SPD und Charles de Gaulle, 1958 bis 1969 (Munich: Oldenburg, 1996). â•‡ 28.â•‡ See Carine Germond, “La France et l’Allemagne face à l’Europe politique dans les années 1960,” in Le couple France-Allemagne et les institutions européennes, ed. Marie-Thérèse Bitsch (Brussels: Bruylant, 2001), pp. 206ff.; Carine Germond, “Les projets d’union politique de l’année 1964,” in Crises and Compromises: The European Project 1963–1969, ed. Wilfried Loth (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2001), pp.Â€109–18. â•‡ 29.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/161, CR de la séance élargie, 22 novembre 1963Â€; AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, Questions Internationales Européennes [QIE], carton n°1956, traduction des principaux passages de la déclaration d’Erhard devant le Bundestag, 9 janvier 1964.

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

59

â•‡ 30.â•‡ Jeffrey Vanke, “The European Collaborations of France and Germany, 1963– 1969,” in Crisis and Compromises, pp. 94–99. â•‡ 31.â•‡ DDF, 1964 II, Doc. 6, pp. 15–18, here p. 16; AAPD, 1964 II, no. 184, pp. 749–55, here p. 750. â•‡ 32.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/162, entretien Couve de Murville-Schröder, 4 juillet 1964; AAPD, 1964 II, no. 185, pp. 755–66. â•‡ 33.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/162, entretien de Gaulle-Erhard, 4 juillet 1964; AAPD, 1964 II, no. 187, pp. 768–77. â•‡ 34.â•‡ Refer to footnote no. 29. â•‡ 35.â•‡ Déclaration de Alain Peyrefitte, in Cahiers mensuels de documentation européenne, n°4 (avril 1965), p. 1. â•‡ 36.â•‡ See de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope, p. 159, Pisani, Le Général indivis, p. 63Â€; Alain Prate, La France en Europe (Paris: Economica, 1995), p. 43f. â•‡ 37.â•‡ See Hans von der Groeben, Aufbaujahre der Europäischen Gemeinschaft: Das Ringen um den Gemeinsamen Markt und die Politische Union (1958–1966) (BadenBaden: Nomos, 1982), pp. 148–53. â•‡ 38.â•‡ For complete details of Franco–German negotiations, refer to Carine Germond, “Le couple France–Allemagne et la crise de la chaise vide, 1965–1966,” in Quelle(s) Europe(s)? Nouvelles approches en histoire de l’intégration européenne, ed. Katrin Rücker and Laurent Warlouzet (Brussels: PIE-Peter Lang, 2006), pp.Â€79–96. â•‡ 39.â•‡ De Gaulle, DM IV, p. 379. â•‡ 40.â•‡ Ibidem, pp. 380–81. â•‡ 41.â•‡ Couve de Murville, Politique étrangère, p. 263. See also AD/MAE, SG-EM, vol. 26, Note a/s des conditions dans lesquelles ont été rompues, le 30 juin, les négociations sur le règlement financier et la responsabilité particulière de l’Allemagne, Paris, 1er février 1966. â•‡ 42.â•‡ PAAA, B 150, Bd. 156, Drahterlass Nr. 2884 von St.S. Lahr betr. deutsche Haltung zur gegenwärtigen EWG-Kontroverse, Bonn, 9. July 1965. â•‡ 43.â•‡ PAAA, B 150, Bd. 52, Aufzeichnung betr. Darstellung und Analyse der derzeitigen französischen Außenpolitik und Vorschläge für unser Verhalten, Bonn, 11. Mai 1965. â•‡ 44.â•‡ Soutou, L’alliance incertaine, p. 269. â•‡ 45.â•‡ AAPD, 1964 II, no. 210, p. 886. â•‡ 46.â•‡ See Garret Martin, “‘To Link Or Not To LinkÂ€ ?’ 1966 and the Changes in France’s European Policy,” in Quelle(s) Europe(s)?, pp. 285–97. â•‡ 47.â•‡ Soutou, L’alliance incertaine, pp. 291f. â•‡ 48.â•‡ AD/MAE, Pactes, vol. 261, Note a/s de la présence des troupes françaises en Allemagne, DAP, Service des Pactes, Paris, 25 février 1966, Note a/s inventaire des problèmes soulevés par notre retrait des organismes militaires OTAN et la suppression de l’implantation étrangère en France, DAP, Services des Pactes, Paris, 4 mars 1966, Note pour M. Alphand, 4 mars 1966; AD/MAE, Pactes, vol. 261, Fiche de Deudon, conseiller juridique au Commandement en chef des FFA à M. le Général, chef d’Etat-Major du CCFFA, 15 janvier 1966. â•‡ 49.â•‡ AD/MAE, Pactes, vol. 261, Note a/s de l’Alliance, 9 mars 1966. â•‡ 50.â•‡ AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, s/s RFA, vol. 1463, TGA de Seydoux à MAE a/s conférence de presse de von Hase, Bonn, 15 mars 1966, n°1474/77, TGA de Sey-

60

Carine Germond

doux à MAE, Bonn, 16 mars 1966; AD/MAE, Pactes, vol. 262, TGA d’Aumale à MAE a/s déclarations de Schröder et débat au Bundestag, Bonn, 21 mars 1966. â•‡ 51.â•‡ AD/MAE, EU 1963–1970, s/s RFA, TGA de Seydoux à MAE, Bonn, 12 mars 1966, n°1448/53. â•‡ 52.â•‡ AD/MAE, Pactes, vol. 263, Note pour le service des Pactes a/s des problèmes de l’OTAN (fondements juridiques de la présence des FFA), 213/JJB, 22 avril 1966. â•‡ 53.â•‡ Soutou, L’alliance incertaine, p. 295. â•‡ 54.â•‡ See Alain Larcan, “‘L’Europe de l’Atlantique à l’Oural,’” in De Gaulle et la Russie, ed. Maurice Vaïsse (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2006), pp. 181–98. â•‡ 55.â•‡ Benedikt Schönborn, La mésentente apprivoisée: De Gaulle et les Allemands, 1963–1969 (Paris: Puf, 2007), pp. 253–61. â•‡ 56.â•‡ AAPD, 1964 II, no. 400. â•‡ 57.â•‡ Franz Eibl, Politik der Bewegung. Gerhard Schröder als Außenminister, 1961– 1966 (Wien: Oldenburg, 2001). â•‡ 58.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/162, CR de l’entretien entre de Gaulle et Erhard, 19 janvier 1965. â•‡ 59.â•‡ De Gaulle, DM IV, p. 338. â•‡ 60.â•‡ See de Gaulle’s press conference of March 25, 1959, in which he declared that the reunification of the two fractions in one Germany that would be free was the “normal destiny” of the German people provided it accepts the existing borders, “in the West, in the East, in the North and in the South.” In De Gaulle, DM III, pp. 84–85. â•‡ 61.â•‡ AD/MAE, Secrétariat Général-Entretien et Messages [SG-EM], vol. 26, Exposé de de Gaulle sur l’Allemagne, 4 février 1966. â•‡ 62.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/163, CR de l’entretien entre de Gaulle et Erhard, 21 juillet 1966; Osterheld, Außenpolitik, p. 332. â•‡ 63.â•‡ PAAA, B 2, Bd. 132, Vermerk von St.S. Carstens betr. Möglichkeiten der deutsch–französischen Zusammenarbeit, St.S. 2015/66, Bonn, 17. Oktober 1966. â•‡ 64.â•‡ AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, s/s RFA, vol. 1386, TGA n°6310/10 de Seydoux à MAE, Bonn, 11 novembre 1966. See also Seydoux, Dans l’intimité franco–allemande, pp. 81–82; François Seydoux, “Eine französische Stimme zur Wahl des neuen Bundeskanzlers,” in Begegnungen mit Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Festgabe zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Dieter Oberndörfer (Stuttgart: DVA, 1984), p. 361. â•‡ 65.â•‡ ACDP, NL Schröder, I-483-020/1, Aufgaben einer neuen Regierung [o.D.]; AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, s/s RFA, vol. 1386, TGA de Seydoux à MAE a/s Programme du SPD, Bonn, 5 novembre 1966. â•‡ 66.â•‡ Einhart Lorenz, “Willy Brandt, Frankreich und die Emigration,” in Willy Brandt und Frankreich , ed. Horst Möller, Maurice Vaïsse (München: Oldenburg, 2005), p. 38; Maurice Vaïsse, “De Gaulle et Willy Brandt: deux non-conformistes au pouvoir,” in Brandt und Frankreich, p. 103. â•‡ 67.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle III, p. 193; Couve de Murville, Politique étrangère, p. 275. â•‡ 68.â•‡ Regierungserklärung von Bundeskanzler Kiesinger vor dem deutschen Bundestag am 13. Dezember 1966 (Auszug betr. Außenpolitik), in Europa-Archiv, 22 (1967), pp. D 17–18. â•‡ 69.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/163, entretien Couve de Murville-Brandt, 13 décembre 1966; AAPP, 1966 II, no. 396; AN, 5AG1/163, entretien de Gaulle-Brandt, 15 décembre 1966; AAPD, 1966 II, no. 398.

A “Cordial Potentiality?”

61

â•‡ 70.â•‡ Bundesarchiv Koblenz [BAK], NL Guttenberg, Bd. 154, Aufzeichnung von Boss an Kiesinger betr. Vorschläge für eine Intensivierung der deutsch–französischen Zusammenarbeit, Bonn, 5. Juni 1967. â•‡ 71.â•‡ BAK, NL Carstens, N 1337, Bd. 640, Aufzeichnung von Lahr betr. Möglichkeiten und Aussichten einer verstärkten deutsch–französischen Zusammenarbeit, Bonn, 5. Juni 1967. â•‡ 72.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/163, premier entretien de Gaulle-Kiesinger, 12 juillet 1967; AAPD, 1967 II, no. 261. â•‡ 73.â•‡ AD/MAE, SG-EM, vol. 31, Lettre de Couve de Murville à Brandt a/s relevé des décisions prises à Bonn par le général de Gaulle et le chancelier Kiesinger, les 12 et 13 juillet 1967, DAP, Paris, 12 octobre 1967Â€; AD/MAE, Pactes, vol. 322, Lettre de Brandt à Couve de Murville a/s coopération franco–allemande (traduction officielle), DAP, Paris, 23 octobre 1967, PAAA, B 150, Bd. 111, Brandt an Couve de Murville, BMA, IA1-80.11/3198I/67, Bonn, 16. Oktober 1967. â•‡ 74.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle II, p. 286. â•‡ 75.â•‡ See Philip Gassert, “Personalities and the Politics of European Integration: Kurt Georg Kiesinger and the Departure of Walter Hallstein, 1966/67,” in Crises and Compromises, pp. 265–84. â•‡ 76.â•‡ Lahr, Zeuge, p. 469. â•‡ 77.â•‡ PAAA, B 130, Bd. 2386a, Aufzeichnung betr. aktuelle europäische Fragen, Bonn, 18. April 1967. â•‡ 78.â•‡ AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, QIE, carton n°2723, Note a/s de la RFA et de la coopération politique; PAAA, B 21, Bd. 737, Leitlinien für die Gesprächsführung. â•‡ 79.â•‡ N. Piers Ludlow, The European Community and the crises of the 1960s (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), p. 137. â•‡ 80.â•‡ AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, s/s RFA, vol. 1641, Note a/s de l’attitude de la RFA à l’égard de la candidature britannique, Paris, 2 février 1968. â•‡ 81.â•‡ Willy Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsichten: Die Jahre 1960–1975 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campte, 1982), p. 205. â•‡ 82.â•‡ See Seydoux, Dans l’intimité, pp. 106–9. â•‡ 83.â•‡ BAK, NL Guttenberg, N 1397, Bd. 90, Vermerk von PSt.S. Guttenberg, 23.5.[1967]. â•‡ 84.â•‡ For further details, see Carine Germond, “The ‘Recalcitrant Partner’ and the ‘Honest Broker’: France, Germany and Britain’s Second Application to the EEC, 1966–1969,” paper presented at the IEHC, Helsinki, August 2006, accessible at www.helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers3/Germond.pdf. â•‡ 85.â•‡ ACDP, NL Schröder, I-483-086/2, Aufzeichnung von Frank, 26. April 1968. â•‡ 86.â•‡ AD/MAE, DE-CE, carton nr. 785, Lettre de Seydoux à MAE a/s problèmes relatifs à la candidature britannique de la Grande-Bretagne aux Communautés européennes, Bad Godesberg, 10 avril 1968. â•‡ 87.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/164, Déclaration commune franco–allemande à l’issue des entretiens des 15 et 16 février 1968 à Paris, MAE, Direction des services d’information et de presse, Paris, 16 février 1968. A German translation of the declaration can be found in Europa-Archiv, 23 (1968), p. D137. â•‡ 88.â•‡ Vorschläge der deutschen Regierung für eine handelspolitische und technologische Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Gemeinschaft und anderen europäischen Staaten, in Europa-Archiv, 23 (1968), pp. D141–45.

62

Carine Germond

See also Willy Brandt, Der Wille zum Frieden: Perspektiven in der Politik (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1972), pp. 212–20. â•‡ 89.â•‡ Lahr, Zeuge, p. 485. â•‡ 90.â•‡ Carine Germond and Henning Türk, “Der Staatssekretärausschuss für Europafragen und die Gestaltung der deutschen Europapolitik 1963–1969,” in Zeitschrift für Staats- und Europawissenschaft 1 (2004), pp. 73–79; Claudia Hiepel, “In Search of the Greatest Common Denominator: Germany and the Hague Summit Conference 1969,” in Journal of European Integration History 9, no. 2 (2003), pp. 63–81. â•‡ 91.â•‡ AD/MAE, Cabinet du Ministre, s/s Couve de Murville 1958–1968, Réactions allemandes au voyage du président de la République française en Pologne (6–12 septembre 1967), DAP, EU, S/DEC, Paris, 12 octobre 1967; PAAA, B 1, Bd. 336, Aufzeichnung betr. Staatsbesuch General de Gaulles in Polen vom 6-12.9.1967/ vorläufige Analyse, Bonn, den 14. September 1967. â•‡ 92.â•‡ Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung/Willy-Brandt-Archiv [FES/WBA], NL Bahr, Bd. 400, Thesen zur Osteuropapolitik, Mai 1967. â•‡ 93.â•‡ AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, s/s RFA, vol. 1457; PAAA, B 150 (the German minutes of the meetings and studies of the study committee are scattered in several files of this inventory). â•‡ 94.â•‡ FES/WBA, NL Bahr, Mappe 441, Aufzeichnung betr. Konsultation des Herrn Bundeskanzlers mit dem französischen Präsidenten am 13./14. Januar 1967, Bonn, 11. Januar 1967. â•‡ 95.â•‡ AN, 5AG1/164, entretien de Gaulle-Kiesinger, 27 septembre 1968; AAPD, 1968 II, no. 312. â•‡ 96.â•‡ ACDP, NL Kiesinger, I-226-A312, Vermerk betr. deutsch-französische Spannungen im Herbst 1968, Bonn, 30. November 1984. â•‡ 97.â•‡ FES/WBA, NL Egon Bahr, Bestand Planungstab/Vermerk Bahrs an Brandt, Bonn, 1. Oktober 1968. â•‡ 98.â•‡ PAAA, NL von Braun, Bd. 132, Aktenvermerk von von Braun betr. Europa, VSV (o.D.); PAAA, NL von Braun, Bd. 125, Aktenvermerk von von Braun, 17. April 1969 and Aktenvermerk von von Braun, 24. April 1969. â•‡ 99.â•‡ PAAA, B 21, Bd. 736, Aufzeichnung betr. Möglicher Vorstoß der französischen Regierung zu erneuten Bemühungen um politische Zusammenarbeit der Sechs, Abt. I, IA1-80.05/0, Bonn, 7. März 1969. 100.â•‡ See Henning Türk, “Kurt Georg Kiesingers Kerneuropakonzept”, in Europäische Gesellschaft—Grundlagen und Perspektiven, ed. Wilfried Loth (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2005), pp. 230–44. 101.â•‡ ACDP, NL Kiesinger, I-226-A008, Hintergrundgespräch Kiesingers mit Herbert Kremp and Lothar Rühl im Bundeskanzleramt, 23. Januar 1969. 102.â•‡ De Gaulle, DM V (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 101–2. 103.â•‡ Seydoux, Dans l’intimité , p. 25. 104.â•‡ AD/MAE, EU 1961–1970, s/s RFA, vol. 1648, Note a/s des relations franco– allemandes, Paris, 22 novembre 1966.

4 From Words to Actions: Reinterpreting de Gaulle’s European Policy Piers Ludlow

Introduction As far as Europe was concerned, Charles de Gaulle was a man of many words. His public declarations about the continent’s condition, place in the world, and future, began during the Second World War, punctuated his years in the political wilderness between 1946 and 1958, and continued throughout his eleven years at the Élysée presidential palace. Europe indeed became a staple of his regular but almost always attention grabbing press conferences. Those of May 1962, January 1963, July 1964, September 1965, and February 1966 are regarded as major milestones in the history of European integration during the Gaullist era.1 Likewise important portions of several volumes of his memoirs were devoted to the subject.2 Such public statements were, moreover, supplemented by innumerable more private comments—often in the form of deliberately provocative boutades or verbal hand-grenades—delivered to faithful ministers and visiting statesmen alike. Many of these leaked out in the course of the General’s lifetime—as may well have been the intention.3 Many others were diligently recorded by de Gaulle’s interlocutors and have been given pride of place in their recollections and memoirs devoted to the 1960s. The voluminous collections of Gaullist wit and wisdom published in the course of the 1990s by Alain Peyrefitte are probably the best known example of these last.4 These verbal outpourings, often beautifully crafted and delivered with de Gaulle’s inimitable mastery of the French language, have dominated both contemporary assessments of his European policy and much of the historiography about French European policy in the 1958 to 1969 period. This is all the more so given the persistent failure of his descendents to release 63

64

Piers Ludlow

most of his private working papers from his eleven years as French President. Other portions of the French administrative machine have, admittedly, complied with the customary thirty-year rule and permitted access to their archives. Much can therefore be established about French priorities, tactics and actions in Brussels with reference to files of the Quai d’Orsay, the Ministère des Finances, or the Secréteriat Géneral de Coordination Interministérielle (SGCI), not to mention the private collections of a number of the General’s closest collaborators, notably Maurice Couve de Murville and Michel Debré. But de Gaulle’s own voice remains frustratingly absent from most of these papers. Given the widely perceived notion that the president, and the president alone, determined the general thrust of French foreign policy and French European policy during the Gaullist years, this absence of de Gaulle’s own papers has forced many historians back to the General’s public and semi-public utterances. De Gaulle’s rhetoric thus still dominates historical assessments of what his country was up to in its European policy to an extent unparalleled amongst the president’s contemporaries in London, Bonn, Brussels or Washington. Two contrasting interpretations of the French leader’s European policy have emerged from this distinctive source-base. The first, associated with both de Gaulle’s former collaborators looking back at French policy making during the 1958–1969 period, and with Gaullist-leaning historians, paints a picture of the General as a hard-headed realist who rescued the European Economic Community (EEC) from a number of pitfalls into which his more idealistic fellow leaders would have otherwise stumbled but was also able to drive through a number of more positive European advances.5 In 1958, it was thus thanks to de Gaulle’s readiness to implement sweeping financial reforms, that France was able to comply with the tariff liberalization time-table foreseen by the Treaty of Rome in a way in which his Fourth Republic predecessors—for all their supposed “European” commitment—would in all likelihood not have been able to do. In November of that year, this same strain of tough-minded European “realism” led the French leader to put out of their misery the lengthy but illconceived negotiations over the British-inspired Free Trade Area scheme—a set of talks which might well have proved fatal to the nascent EEC had they been brought to fruition. De Gaulle’s determination to protect the still fragile European structures from a premature and potentially disastrous engagement with Britain and its Commonwealth and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) entourages also explain both the 1963 and the 1967 vetoes of British membership of the EEC. And a similar readiness to confront the uncomfortable realities other leaders shied away from explain the forceful diplomacy employed by the French in 1965–1966 to prevent a wholesale move by the EEC to the generalized use of qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers. Such a step would have been hazardous

From Words to Actions

65

in a Community lacking the mutual trust and solidarity which only a genuine political union would have created. Political union, according to the “loyalist” account, was the great disappointment of Gaullist European policy-making.6 De Gaulle’s vision of a political union, most clearly formulated in the 1961 Fouchet Plan, but outlined by him from at least 1959 onward, was a genuinely positive one which his partners were ill-advised to have rejected. A Europe equipped with the intergovernmental structures for foreign and defense policy coordination foreseen by de Gaulle would not only have been able to emancipate itself much earlier than proved the case from superpower dominance. It would also have anticipated by decades the forms of foreign policy cooperation devised since the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. The 1962 rejection of the Fouchet Plan by the Dutch and Belgians was thus not merely a source of disappointment to the French leader, but also a major opportunity lost by the whole of Western Europe. In the agricultural field, by contrast, the French did succeed in realizing their vision, enabling the EEC to equip itself with its first major common policy in the form of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This—flanked perhaps with the Association arrangements with the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific also devised during the 1960s and formalized in the Yaoundé and then Lomé accords— stands as a monument to the positive intent of Gaullist France’s European policy making. Overall, de Gaulle’s approach to integration was, thus forceful but effective, able to push the Community forward when necessary but also ready to prevent it from making erroneous advances which might have undermined the whole venture. A very different interpretation of the General’s intentions and impact emerges from the writings of those who have criticized his European policy. De Gaulle’s critics—and once again this includes both former adversaries looking back at the 1960s and more recent analysts of his actions—place a much greater emphasis on the basic divergence between de Gaulle’s European vision and that of most other European leaders.7 De Gaulle, it is argued, did not really believe in Community Europe. He hence accepted participation in a European project he had been bequeathed by his Fourth Republic predecessors only reluctantly and with ill-grace, and sought repeatedly to modify his inheritance. The most famous instance of this attempt to reform the EEC was the empty chair crisis of 1965–1966 when de Gaulle obliged his partners to accept a significant curtailing of supranationality in the 1966 Luxembourg Compromise. But a disregard for the basic rules and norms of communautaire behavior was also apparent in his two brutal vetoes of UK membership each of which prevented an enlargement of the Community which all of his partners eagerly desired. And for the most Machiavellian of interpreters, a similar desire to subvert the EEC was evident in the abortive Fouchet Plan of 1961. For had this

66

Piers Ludlow

seemingly innocent and pro-European plan been accepted by his partners, it would have been used by France not merely to drag Western Europe away from its Atlanticist foreign policy alignment close to the United States in the ongoing East–West conflict, but also to marginalize the existing Community structures in favor of the new, purely intergovernmental bodies situated in Paris which the Fouchet scheme was designed to bring into being. De Gaulle’s overall intent was thus to undermine the EEC and to strip its structures of the supranationality which had been its greatest originality and the key ingredient of its success. That the Community survived at all was due to the perspicacity of the Dutch and Belgians in seeing through the Fouchet Plan, the strength and solidarity of the “Five” (remaining members of the EEC) in their determination not to let France impose its will in the course of the Empty Chair Crisis, and the general inability of Gaullist France to win backing for its wider foreign policy from its Western partners. As it was, however, de Gaulle’s anti-EEC crusade did enough damage to the EEC to sap its vitality throughout the 1970s and early 1980s and to ensure that the promise and élan of its early years were only belatedly recaptured in the mid-1980s.8 This chapter will argue, however, that both of these readings of de Gaulle are too influenced by what he said rather than what he did at a European level. For while Gaullist rhetoric did matter—and was indeed specifically intended to have a major impact on his contemporaries (and perhaps even on future historians)—it did not necessarily match up with the way in which the French representatives were actually behaving in Brussels. An assessment of French European policy between 1958 and 1969 which supplements French declaratory policy with a detailed examination of the positions adopted by French representatives in Brussels—as they emerge from French government papers, but also the records of the other five Community member states and the archives of the Community institutions themselves—therefore provides a number of important new perspectives on de Gaulle’s European policy.

Abusing and Using Europe At the heart of the divergence between de Gaulle’s deeds and words existed the issue of supranationality and the power of the Community institutions. As far as de Gaulle’s public and private statements were concerned, there appeared to be little doubt that he despised supranational institutions and believed that political power could only legitimately be exercised by nation states. This was the thrust of the Gaullist critique of the European Defence Community.9 This was the message of the famous—or infamous—May 1962 press conference which was so scathing about pro-European “volapuk”

From Words to Actions

67

that several pro-European centrist ministers resigned from the French government in protest.10 And this seemed to be the underlying theme of the multiple verbal tirades launched by de Gaulle against the powers and institutional pretensions of the European Commission. These included the description of those who worked for the Brussels institution as “apatrides”— stateless individuals—and the terming of the European Commission itself as a colossal “technocratic aereopagus”;11 the series of disparaging remarks about the Commission and its German President, Walter Hallstein, in particular made in the run-up to the 1965 empty chair crisis12; and the wellknown portion of his memoirs in which he laid into the delusions of grandeur harbored by the Commission President. Walter Hallstein is the President of the Commission. He strongly believes in the idea of a super-state and uses all his skill to give to the Community this character and appearance. He has made Brussels, where he resides, his capital. There he is, complete with all the trappings of sovereignty, directing his colleagues and dividing tasks amongst them, served by many thousands of civil servants who are appointed, given responsibilities, promoted, and paid on the basis of his decisions, receiving the credentials of foreign ambassadors, insisting on full state honours during his official visits, eager, indeed, to advance the grouping of the Six which he believes destined to fulfil his ambitions.13

In 1965, however, the assault was widened to include the whole operation of the Community system. The September press conference attacked not only the European Commission but denounced the planned increase of majority voting within the Council of Ministers.14 De Gaulle’s message, moreover, seemed to be echoed by his foreign minister, Couve de Murville, who used a speech before the French National Assembly the following month to call for a “revision d’ensemble” and to outline a programmed of radical institutional reform.15 Given that French representatives were engaged at the time in a large-scale boycott of the Brussels process, and were refusing to resume cooperation within the Community structures unless and until their institutional grievances were addressed, it is little wonder that many of de Gaulle’s interlocutors believed the French president to be intent upon a radical alteration of the way in which the European institutions functioned. The empty chair crisis thus came to be perceived as a life and death struggle over the very survival of supranationality within the EEC.16 The reality of French behavior toward the supranational institutions throughout the 1958 to 1969 period was, however, very different from that implied by these public attacks. From 1958 onwards, the French developed a close pattern of cooperation with the supposedly despised and illegitimate European Commission. By the time the British applied to join the EEC in 1961, necessitating detailed negotiations amongst the Six about the way in which the Community should respond to this membership bid, the

68

Piers Ludlow

pas de deux between French national representatives and the Commission personnel involved in the enlargement talks had become so close and so effective that one observer compared it to the cooperation between the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor.17 The choice of analogy may of course have hinted at an awareness that this could be a combative as well as a cooperative relationship. Popes and Emperors had quarreled and fought one another for power as often as they had lined up together. But in the context in which it was made the assessment was clearly intended to underline the closeness and effectiveness of the relationship, and to capture the way in which both actors had different but complementary reasons to be firm toward the British. France’s determination to prevent the entry of new member states from destroying much of what had been agreed amongst the Six, dovetailed almost perfectly with the Commission’s treaty-given duty to protect the acquis communautaire and the sanctity of the European treaties. In the course of the fifteen months of negotiations between the Six and the applicants, the Commission and France had thus formed a formidable partnership insistent that the onus of adaptation lay with those states which wished to enter rather than with the Community. It was for the British, Danes, Irish and Norwegians to change their ways so as to conform to the EEC, and not vice versa. Much of the discomfort which the British in particular were to endure during the 1961–1963 bid was attributable to this joint French and Commission line.18 And it was a partnership only broken by France’s sudden—and totally non-communautaire—decision to veto the British application in January 1963. A similar and more enduring marriage of convenience also developed over the CAP. For France this was quickly identified as an economic necessity, not only a necessary complement to the industrial liberalization foreseen by the Treaty of Rome, but also a valuable mechanism for addressing the serious socioeconomic crisis confronting much of the country’s rural population.19 As Edgard Pisani, de Gaulle’s most effective minister for agriculture, would put it in somewhat apocalyptic terms, “to imagine for French agriculture the absence of the Common Market, is to imagine a revolution in France.”20 European funding would be needed to help French farmers cope with the rigors of postwar economic conditions. The European Commission meanwhile saw the CAP as its flagship policy, an initiative that would not merely demonstrate its policy-making prowess to the Six and to the world—under Treaty of Rome rules, it is the Commission which is responsible for proposing all Community legislation—but would also provide the institution with enduring responsibilities and a significant revenue stream in the years and decades ahead. This would go a long way to securing its future and advancing its long-term political ambitions.21 Furthermore, Hallstein and his colleagues were highly aware of the fact that completing a policy of such economic benefit to Gaullist France was likely to limit the ability of the Paris

From Words to Actions

69

government to attack either the Community as a whole or the Commission in particular. The Commission President spoke quite explicitly about the CAP as one of several “threads” making the Community fabric less vulnerable to any potential French attempt to tear it apart.22 The concrete result of these convergent interests was that France and the Commission became extremely close allies in most of the negotiations leading to the adoption of the CAP. In all but one of the crucial marathon talks which brought the agricultural regime into being, the Commission and France were on the same side of the argument, and able to cooperate very effectively in their efforts to pressurize the Germans in particular into swallowing a support system for European farmers of much greater interest to agriculturally exporting nations like France and the Netherlands than it was to agricultural importers like the Germans.23 The sole exception to this pattern of cooperation, revealingly, was the spring and summer of 1965 when the talks about how to pay for the CAP ended in acrimonious failure, triggering the French boycott of the EEC.24 And French reliance on Commission support went beyond merely acting together in the course of the lengthy and often acrimonious negotiations. For the French also played a significant role in supporting the allocation of significant powers of control to the Commission over the CAP. In 1964 for instance, French representatives in Brussels aggressively and successfully resisted a German attempt to prune the powers of the Commission-chaired management committees which ran the agricultural policy on a day-to-day basis.25 Supranationality, in other words, ceased to be an anathema to Gaullist France when it served to consolidate and accentuate the benefits for French farmers which had been secured through the CAP.

No Irrevocable Steps There did admittedly seem to be genuine change in 1965. Even before the outbreak of the empty chair crisis, de Gaulle’s representatives in Brussels launched a systematic attack on the European Commission’s independence of action and ability to represent the Community internationally.26 In the course of the crisis itself, de Gaulle and his lieutenants sought actual changes to the way in which the EEC worked. These included a ten-point wish list for the curtailing of Commission powers and a severe limitation of the extent to which majority voting would be used in future negotiations in the Council of Ministers.27 And after the crisis was resolved by means of the famous Luxembourg Compromise of January 1966, the French proved steadfast in their opposition to a renewal of Walter Hallstein’s mandate as Commission President.28 The stalemate between Bonn and Paris on this issue would only be broken in 1967 when the first Commission President

70

Piers Ludlow

resigned in disgust at the Federal Republic’s compromise suggestion that he might be reappointed for half rather than a full term. All of this would appear to suggest that in the 1965 to 1967 period at least, there was a Gaullist bite to go with the incessant Gaullist bark. Upon closer examination however, it is striking how careful the French remained even during this two year apogee of their crusade against supranationality. In the run-up to the empty chair crisis itself, French representatives do seem to have made a genuine if fruitless effort to avert a breakdown, scaling down their demands significantly in the search for agreement and seeking to buy off their Italian opponents at least by offering to reduce substantially the amount of money which Rome would have had to contribute to the CAP budget.29 During the crisis months themselves, moreover, the French were careful to moderate the effects of their symbolic withdrawal. They thus withdrew their permanent representative (i.e., their de facto ambassador to the EEC) but instructed his deputy to remain in Brussels. French representatives continued to attend those meetings of Brussels committees and working groups which were deemed to be about the ‘management’ (gestion) of the Community rather than the deepening of cooperation, and the French also showed a willingness to complete a limited amount of Community legislation during the months of the boycott by means of the Council of Ministers’ little-used written procedure.30 On those occasions, furthermore, when the General did decide to up the ante and remind his partners of how much was at stake, he appears to have made sure that he took steps which would not lead to an irrevocable breakdown. Thus in December 1965, his controversial decision not to allow the Community budget for 1966 to be approved through the written procedure was taken only once he had verified that an emergency mechanism existed which would allow the Community to survive the failure to agree a budget.31 Throughout the crisis, French forcefulness was thus accompanied by a strong element of caution designed to prevent too much damage being done to either the Community structures themselves or to relations between France and its European partners. Likewise, the French proved willing to end their boycott despite securing much less than they had initially demanded. The original “Decalogue” on Commission form was watered down to a much less aggressive and totally nonbinding “Heptalogue.”32 The compromise on majority voting left both the Treaty text and Council rules unaltered and merely acknowledged the difference of views between France and the Five on the question of whether majority votes could be taken on issues where “vital national interests” were deemed to be at stake.33 And while the French did prevent Hallstein from serving a new term, they dropped their insistence that Sicco Mansholt, the Vice President, be punished as well.34 Perhaps even more telling was their readiness to allow Emilio Colombo to be chosen as the ideal replacement for Hallstein.35

From Words to Actions

71

TheÂ€Italian minister turned down the job, but the mere fact that he was offered it at all does clearly indicate that none of the member states, France included, wanted the European Commission to be led by an ineffective cipher. Instead the French appeared to derive real satisfaction at the effectiveness shown by the European Commission in its role as principal European representative in the Kennedy Round of GATT negotiations which reached their climax in 1967.36 The intensity of de Gaulle’s verbal assault on supranationality was thus unmatched by French actions, even in the period of most intense confrontation between the Paris government and the Brussels institutions. Furthermore, the underlying caution of the French approach to the empty chair crisis suggests that the more extreme demands for widespread institutional change advanced by both the President himself and Couve de Murville ought to be seen as tactical ploys rather than as accurate indications of the type of Community which Gaullist France actually wanted to create. This gap between rhetoric and reality was quite deliberately maintained by the French. Ever since 1950, France had done rather well out of European integration. Such success was in part due to the undoubted skills of those who had represented French interests in European negotiations. It may also have constituted a reward for the country which had after all initiated the process with its Schuman Plan proposal. More important than either, however, had been France’s position as one of only two countries without which the integration experiment could not proceed—“Europe” had been built without Britain, and could have gone ahead without Italy or the Benelux states—and the only one of the central Franco–German partnership which had the international freedom of manoeuvre to walk away should it no longer believe the building of Europe to be in its interests. West Germany given its precarious international position and its need to live down the recent past could not afford to appear as the destroyer of the dream of a united Europe. France, as the 1954 failure to ratify the EDC had underlined, could take this risk. The result was well put by the Italian ambassador to Paris as he sought to explain the outcome of the Treaty of Rome negotiations in the course of which the French had managed to secure most of what they sought: “Europe cannot organize without France and, to get her in, prices must be paid which may seem exorbitant. As the soldiers say, France has the geography.”37 So strong a position was unlikely to endure indefinitely, however. The better France did, the more its European partners would conclude that France needed Europe and could hence no longer realistically threaten to withdraw. Germany, Italy and the Benelux states would consequently stop being willing to pay “exorbitant” prices. And the fundamental strength of the French negotiating position would be seriously undermined. De Gaulle’s rhetorical broadsides against European integration slowed this erosion of France’s bargaining power. For most of the early years of the

72

Piers Ludlow

EEC, his periodic tirades against the Commission and supranationality, and his repeated insistence that France needed to maintain les mains libres (free hands) in all that it did, helped mask the extent to which his country benefited from both the industrial liberalization process and the agricultural support system brought about by the Community. In late 1963, for instance, Sir Pierson Dixon, the British Ambassador to Paris and the former lead official during the 1961–1963 membership negotiations between Britain and the Six, was still predicting that the French president intended to demolish the whole Community structure, despite the fact that de Gaulle’s own ministers had privately warned the General a year earlier that were the EEC to collapse, France would lose more than any other member state bar Italy.38 Likewise an Italian cartoon from 1964 portrayed Europe as an elegant ocean going sailing ship, bedecked in the flags of the countries taking part. Two observers on the quay were admiring the vessel through a telescope, with one commenting to the other “The French flag? It keeps disappearing and reappearing.”39 Ongoing fears about de Gaulle’s intentions enabled the French leader credibly to threaten to leave the EEC were France not allowed to get its way in several of the key negotiations about the shape of European integration. In both 1963 and again in 1964, the French government was able to issue such threats at the height of delicate Brussels negotiations about the establishment of the CAP contributing in no small measure to the eventual success of French negotiators.40 By the mid-1960s admittedly de Gaulle’s counterparts amongst the Six were showing signs of seeing through the General’s charade. In 1964, Ludwig Erhard, the German Chancellor commented to the U.S. Ambassador in Germany George McGhee, that he did not any longer believe French threats of withdrawal since France was the country which gained most from the integration process.41 Revealingly, however, within weeks Germany had again caved in, bowing to pressure from France and others to allow a common price to be set for cereals—a central component of the CAP.42 More worryingly still for the French, in early 1965 three member states and the European Commission appear to have independently decided that so keen would France be to obtain the next, crucial, element in the EEC’s agricultural policy—the so-called financial regulation which would determine how Europe’s subsidy regime would be paid for—that Paris would be willing to pay a substantial quid pro quo. The German, Italian and Dutch positions in the run-up to the empty chair crisis, not to mention the stance adopted by the European Commission, all suggest a determination to call France’s bluff and force the French to make substantial concessions to their partners’ European priorities before being able to secure an advantageous CAP deal.43 The forcefulness of the French response—both the empty chair tactics themselves and the raft of institutional demands advanced by de Gaulle

From Words to Actions

73

and Couve de Murville in the autumn—served temporarily to restore the uncertainty about France’s European commitment and with it some of the strength of the French bargaining position. Few of de Gaulle’s counterparts believed that France would actually withdraw from the EEC. But such were the inherent risks involved in an exercise in brinkmanship of the sort being carried out by the French, and such was the damage to the Community’s effectiveness and prestige caused by the French boycott, that each member state became anxious to step back from the extreme tactics which had precipitated the crisis. While the Five member states other than France were thus fairly steadfast in resisting de Gaulle’s institutional demands, they did underline their desire to facilitate France’s return to normal Community cooperation. Furthermore, once a deal had been struck in Luxembourg that allowed each side to return to normal EEC activity with their heads held high, all of the member states, including the French, eschewed the type of forceful diplomacy which had led to breakdown in the summer of 1965. The negotiations about the CAP and the Kennedy Round held in the spring and summer of 1966 were thus characterized by a degree of flexibility and willingness to compromise which had been sorely missed a year earlier.44 In the meantime de Gaulle sought to reinforce the message about how France’s European commitment could not be taken for granted—a message aimed both at his domestic rivals who accused him of taking reckless risks with the French national interests wrapped up in European integration and at France’s European partners. The presidential election of campaign of 1965 was thus littered with Gaullist references to how well France would be able to do without the EEC.45 Once more, however, such rhetoric had little to do with reality. Indeed, the internal investigations carried out by the French civil service in the course of the crisis months seemed to point to the opposite conclusion. For not only had the French discovered how legally difficult it would be to withdraw entirely from the EEC even had they chosen to do so, but the multiple studies carried out by various ministries highlighted how much France had gained from European cooperation and how unlikely it was to be able to devise a comparably favorable set of arrangements in any other context.46 France needed Europe, as much as Europe needed France. Overall, therefore, the Gaullist approach to Europe, as it emerges from his actions and his words, rather than just the latter, can be said to have stood on its head Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy dictum about “talking softly and carrying a big stick.” In the 1960s France certainly did not talk softly. On the contrary, de Gaulle’s remarkable showmanship and sense of drama ensured that every one of his words was heard very clearly and analyzed with great attention by each of his interlocutors. But arguably this vociferousness was intended to conceal the extent to which Gaullist France did not, and could not, carry a big stick as far as Europe was concerned.

74

Piers Ludlow

French Achievements . . . In practical terms de Gaulle’s European policy accomplished much, especially in its early years. The president’s forceful rhetoric, backed up by arguably the most impressive set of diplomatic representatives that any of the founding member states were able to send to Brussels, and a widely admired and much copied administrative mechanism for ensuring that each of the French spokesmen adopted compatible stances in the multiple Community negotiations underway at any given time, helped push the early EEC towards a number of French priorities. Such success was perhaps most evident in agriculture, where the development of a working CAP despite its shaky treaty-base and the discomfort felt by several member states including the Federal Republic about too complex and expensive an agricultural support regime, was an extremely impressive accomplishment. Naturally France was not solely responsible. Any complete assessment of how the CAP came into being needs to factor in the role of the Dutch and the European Commission as well, not to mention the hesitations and tactical mistakes made by those like the Germans and Italians who were most ambivalent about the development of a grandiose European support system for agriculture.47 But without the forceful diplomacy which Gaullist France deployed in favor of the CAP, it is difficult to believe that it would have emerged by 1968 in the form that it took. Moravscik is hence right to emphasize the French role in promoting agricultural integration, even if he overstates the extent to which the quest for a CAP became the defining feature of French engagement with the EEC.48 Nor was French success confined to agriculture. French representatives were also central players in the emergence of a working association regime between the EEC and a number of African and Caribbean countries, most of them former French colonies. The signature of the Yaoundé Agreement in 1963 to supersede the provisions of part IV of the Treaty of Rome made obsolescent by the decolonization process, and then its eventual replacement in 1970 by the first Lomé accord, bear witness to France’s desire to use the Community structures to channel new money to Francophone Africa and to preserve and if possible expand the trade links between Europe and the former French empire.49 France also succeeded in negotiating other, special arrangements for those former colonies like Morocco and then Algeria which were not suitable for inclusion in the Yaoundé system. Still more importantly, the French were also able to exercise a strong influence over the pace and profile of the Community’s tariff removal programmed. They were thus very much in accord with the Commission’s 1960 proposal to accelerate the rate at which internal tariffs were dismantled, thereby differentiating de Gaulle’s regime strongly from Fourth Republic France at whose behest the original, highly cautious, timetable for tariff removal had

From Words to Actions

75

been drawn up.50 And they were also prominent amongst the architects of the EEC’s tough but positive engagement with the Kennedy Round negotiations in the GATT. Contrary to some of the more alarmist claims by de Gaulle’s opponents, there is no evidence to suggest that France ever desired the failure of the ambitious world trade talks. But what France did want, and largely obtained, was that the Community representatives in Geneva participated in the talks in a forthright manner, determined to protect the EEC’s commercial interests and not to show too much deference to the United States which had hitherto dominated all GATT rounds.51 In the view of the most comprehensive published assessment of the talks so far, this objective was largely accomplished.52 Furthermore the balance struck between achieving genuine liberalization in the industrial sector, but not much more than token change in world agricultural trade, was also in accord with French priorities. Just as important was the fact that French exporters, both industrial and agricultural, proved capable of seizing the opportunities presented by European integration. How much this was the result of the policies of the Gaullist government—or whether by contrast more credit should go to the economic modernization of France carried out under the much maligned Fourth Republic—is beyond the scope of a chapter focused on de Gaulle’s European policy, although the Pinay–Rueff reforms of 1958 were certainly important in releasing the untapped potential of the French economy. But what is beyond dispute is that economically the French made the most of their first twelve years of Community membership. As is well known France profited greatly from the CAP, displacing the Dutch as Europe’s largest agricultural exporter by the end of the decade and emerging as the greatest recipient by some margin of funds from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF).53 Vitally, however, this strong performance in agriculture was more than matched by the successes of French industry. Between 1957 and 1969, the total value of French exports to its EEC partners rose fivefold, the greatest part of this increase coming from rising manufactured exports rather than farm produce. This growth outstripped all other EC member states apart from Italy.54 And it contributed significantly to a French economic boom which, until 1968 at least, did much to bolster the confident and assertive stance that Gaullist France sought to adopt on the world stage. The commercial successes of de Gaulle’s European policy had a significance, in other words, that stretched beyond the specialized realm of EEC trade politics. De Gaulle also succeeded in preventing the EEC from developing in directions which he did not like. As far as the Community’s institutional development was concerned this meant resisting determined pressure from most of his partners—and the Dutch in particular—to allow a significant increase in the powers of the European Parliament.55 But it also meant

76

Piers Ludlow

pressing ahead with the fusion of the EEC Commission, that of Euratom, and the High Authority of the ECSC, as well as actively participating in the more general trend toward ever tighter control of the EEC’s development by the means of the Council of Ministers and its subordinate bodies, notably the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER).56 In policy terms, the French helped ensure that there was little progress towards the integration of transport policy (despite this having as much weight in the original Treaty as the common agricultural policy) and only rudimentary steps toward a European social policy. And most importantly of all the French were twice able to block Community enlargement.57 By so doing they helped preserve their own preeminence within the early EEC, guarantee that they and not the British would have the dominant role in shaping the direction of the early common policies, and cement the central role of French administrative culture in the way in which 1960s Brussels worked. Those authors who highlight the effectiveness of de Gaulle’s European policy do therefore have a genuinely strong case.

. . . vs. French Casualties Simply to accept this positive assessment of de Gaulle’s impact on the early EEC would be unwise, however. For while the General’s distinctive mixture of ‘shock words’ but more subtle if still forceful actions in Brussels certainly did contribute to the achievement of some of France’s European policy aims, they also played their part in the failure of one of his more cherished European ambitions. In a rapidly growing EEC, it is also questionable whether it was entirely necessary to press for French priorities with quite such single-minded determination. The Federal Republic, after all, also did very well out of 1960s Brussels despite its rather gentler (and more disorganized) approach and made far fewer enemies in the process.58 Furthermore, de Gaulle’s tactics so wounded and offended many of his partners, that French European successes became subject to a law of diminishing returns. Indeed de Gaulle’s European policy had brought the Community to a state of near paralysis by the end of the General’s years in power, and had ultimately to be jettisoned as unsustainable by his successor, Georges Pompidou. Those who criticize de Gaulle for the damage which he did to the nascent EEC also therefore have some merit in their case, even if they tend to overstate the long-lasting nature of the changes which he wrought. The first casualty of de Gaulle’s overly forceful tactics was his dream— shared by many other European leaders—of some form of European political union—i.e., a Europe capable of adopting a coordinated stance on the major foreign policy issues of the day. In 1960–1961 this seemed an attainable objective. The appeal of the idea was widespread—helping to

From Words to Actions

77

end Europe’s marginalization on the world stage had after all been one of the driving forces of the integration process since the outset—and de Gaulle’s proposals hit a receptive chord among many pro-Europeans.59 But the Fouchet Plan’s prospects were bedeviled by the widespread mistrust of de Gaulle. Admittedly this was not merely the result of the General’s ambiguous stance towards European integration. His unorthodox ideas about the cold war were also regarded with some alarm by his much more Atlanticist counterparts amongst the Five who feared that France would seek to use any new arrangements for foreign policy coordination to distance Western Europe from the United States. But central to the eventual failure of the scheme was the suspicion that the plan was intended to marginalize the supranational EEC institutions and replace them with an intergovernmental Europe des Patries.60 The disappointment of Gaullist hopes for a political Europe was thus closely linked to his outspoken rhetoric, whether on European integration or on the evolution of the cold war. A second casualty was Franco–German cooperation which never lived up to its full potential during the General’s Presidency. Rapprochement between Paris and Bonn was one of the great achievements of de Gaulle’s early years in power. The very public Franco–German honeymoon of 1962 was certainly built upon the solid foundations laid by Robert Schuman and others during the 1950s.61 But Adenauer’s state visit to France in the summer of 1962, de Gaulle’s triumphal tour of Germany that autumn, and the signature of the bilateral Élysée treaty in January 1963 seemed to take the efforts to overcome the decades of hostility between the two neighbors to an entirely new level.62 A real advance in cooperation between the two most powerful EEC member states seemed possible. But in the short-term at least this prospect was dashed largely by de Gaulle’s decision, days before the signature of the Franco–German treaty, publicly to oppose British EEC membership. This step was hugely unpopular in Germany, contributed significantly to Adenauer’s progressive marginalization by Erhard and Gerhard Schröder, neither of whom were as committed to Franco–German cooperation as the ageing Chancellor had been, and largely explains the German parliamentary fronde which resulted in the addition of a preamble to the Elysée treaty which reaffirmed the Federal Republic’s loyalty to the existing structures of Atlantic and European cooperation.63 Relations between de Gaulle and Erhard continued to fester, moreover, leading to a number of rather public disagreements and totally stymieing German efforts to restart the search for European political union.64 The full promise of 1962 and all that effective Franco–German cooperation could mean for the more general development of European cooperation would not be recaptured until the partnerships between Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Schmidt in the 1970s and François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl in the 1980s and early 1990s.

78

Piers Ludlow

De Gaulle’s approach also led to a build up of resentment against France and the proliferation of the type of hardline tactics which the French had pioneered in Brussels. The first sign that this was happening came in January 1963, when de Gaulle’s first veto of UK membership led to a series of extremely acrimonious exchanges and multiple threats of retaliation from France’s frustrated partners.65 In the event some skillful mediation by the Germans, facilitated by some emollient diplomacy from the French and the ongoing lure of policy success within the EEC, sufficed to cool tempers all round and to ensure that within a few months the Community was back at work much as before.66 A warning signal had nevertheless been posted about how disruptive forceful French behavior could be. This would be confirmed in 1965 when the tactics employed by the Germans, Italians, Dutch and Commission representatives in the crucial discussions about CAP finance owed much to the accumulation of resentment at France’s disproportionate success within the EEC, and to a belief that only an imitation of hard-hitting French diplomacy would prevent de Gaulle from securing yet another success.67 France could only respond to this new, more aggressive approach from its partners, by increasing the forcefulness of its own actions and beginning the six month boycott of the EEC Council of Ministers. This time it would take nearly a year before all involved abandoned their intransigence and rediscovered the ability to compromise.68 Final confirmation that de Gaulle’s approach had outlived its effectiveness would come in 1968–1969 with the crisis which beset the Community after the second veto of UK membership in late 1967. In marked contrast to 1963, the Six were not able to shrug off their disagreement about the second veto, leading to a situation in which several members of the Five plotted quite openly with the British, where the Dutch in particular systematically refused to permit any form of advance in Brussels, and where repeated attempts at German mediation signally failed to restore effective cooperation. De Gaulle’s successor, Georges Pompidou, would thus be obliged to lift France’s veto so as to enable the EEC to resume the forward movement which was needed were those multiple French interests wrapped up in the Community not to be seriously damaged by impasse amongst the Six.69 A deal linking the widening of Community membership to the completion and deepening of its cooperative activities would finally be struck at the Hague summit in December 1969 paving the way to the first enlargement of the EEC in 1973.70

Conclusion The track record of de Gaulle’s European policy is therefore much more mixed than most existing accounts imply. Once the actual behavior of the French in Brussels is analyzed alongside the rhetorical outpourings that have

From Words to Actions

79

tended, hitherto, to dominate assessments of de Gaulle, some of the traditional stereotypes do disappear. The French President was certainly not a systematic opponent of European integration, intent on undermining all that had been agreed in Brussels, and successful in his ambition to cripple supranational cooperation within the EEC. As has been argued in this chapter, his hostile rhetoric against supranationality and the activities, powers and prerogatives of the European Commission in particular was accompanied by a rather more subtle readiness to strike up a highly effective partnership with Hallstein and his colleagues and to accept supranational rules when it was in French interest to do so. Furthermore, the clearest apparent assault on the institutional arrangements of the early EEC—the empty chair crisis of 1965– 1966—was probably never intended to bring about a total transformation of the Community’s character, was characterized throughout by a persistent effort by the French not to allow the confrontation to spiral out of control, and was brought to an end by a compromise that fell well short of what Paris had seemingly demanded. This combination of talking loudly but not carrying a big stick proved reasonably effective for much of de Gaulle’s eleven years in power. France’s apparent ideological opposition to supranationality helped mask the extent to which the country was actually doing extremely well out of the EEC and was hence very unlikely to be able to implement its periodic threats of withdrawal. This ruse contributed significantly to the ability of French representatives to obtain many of their policy ambitions in Brussels. During the 1958 to 1969 period, the French not only managed to steer the EEC toward a highly advantageous CAP, but also realized many of their objectives concerning the Community’s association regime with the former French empire, the development of the Community’s tariff strategy, and the institutional evolution of the EEC. A strategy reliant on keeping his partners off balance proved decreasingly successful over time, however. Resentment at French behavior and mistrust of the General mounted steadily, thwarting his ambitions for European political union, undermining the effectiveness of Franco–German cooperation, condemning the EEC to a succession of increasingly extreme diplomatic crises, and ultimately bringing the Community to total paralysis by the end of the decade. Central to this declining effectiveness was the fundamental dispute between the French and their partners over whether the Community should be allowed to enlarge and bring in the British—arguably a much more serious and insoluble disagreement than the apparent divergence between the French and their partners over the institutional development of the EEC. De Gaulle’s departure in April 1969 did not come a moment too soon for the European integration process. For it was only with the General gone that Pompidou was able to rebuilt trust between France and its partners, and strike a comprehensive agreement which would allow the Community to both expand its membership and its field of activities in the course of the 1970s.

80

Piers Ludlow

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Discours et messages, vols. 3, 4, and 5 (Paris: Plon, 1970). â•‡ 2.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires d’espoir, vol. 1, (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 173–210. â•‡ 3.â•‡ See for instance John Newhouse, Collision in Brussels. The Common Market Crisis of June 30, 1965 (London: Faber and Faber, 1967), p. 145. â•‡ 4.â•‡ Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vols. 1–3 (Paris: Fayard, 1994, 1997, and 2000). â•‡ 5.â•‡ The leading historian in this school is Maurice Vaïsse, La Grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998). See also Institut Charles de Gaulle, De Gaulle en son siècle, vol. 5 (Paris: Plon, 1992). Amongst the many former collaborators to have recorded their memories, see esp. Maurice Couve de Murville, Une politique étrangère 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1971). â•‡ 6.â•‡ See Couve de Murville, Une politique, pp. 347ff. â•‡ 7.â•‡ Prominent amongst “contemporary critics” was Paul-Henri Spaak, Combats inachevées, vol. 2, (Paris: Fayard, 1969). Historians taking a similar, if inevitably somewhat more nuanced account, include Eric Roussel, Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Gallimard, 2002); Wilfried Loth and Robert Picht, De Gaulle, Deutschland und Europa (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 1991) and Hans-Dieter Lucas, Europa vom Atlantik bis zum Ural?: Europapolitik und Europadenken im Frankreich der Ära de Gaulle (1958– 1969) (Bonn: Bouvier, 1992). â•‡ 8.â•‡ See, e.g., Bino Olivi, L’Europe difficile: histoire politique de la Communauté européenne (Paris: Gallimard, 1998). â•‡ 9.â•‡ De Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 2 (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 480–87. 10.â•‡ De Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 3 (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 406–9. 11.â•‡ De Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 4, p. 379. 12.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. 2, p. 282. 13.â•‡ De Gaulle, Mémoires d’espoir, vol. 1, p. 195. 14.â•‡ De Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 4, pp. 380–81. 15.â•‡ Débats de l’Assemblée Nationale, 1965, pp. 3889–92. 16.â•‡ For an account of the empty chair crisis, see N. Piers Ludlow, The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s: Negotiating the Gaullist Challenge (London: Routledge, 2006), chaps. 2–4. 17.â•‡ Nora Beloff, The General Says No (London: Penguin, 1963), p. 76. 18.â•‡ On the first application in general, see N. Piers Ludlow, Dealing With Britain: the Six and the First UK membership to the EEC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 19.â•‡ Edgard Pisani, Le Général indivis (Paris: Albin Michel, 1974), p. 64. 20.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. 2, p. 265. 21.â•‡ For the Commission’s motives, see N. Piers Ludlow, “The Making of the CAP: Toward a Historical Analysis of the EU’s First Major Policy,” Contemporary European History 14, no. 3 (2005), pp. 356–58. 22.â•‡ Memcon, Ball, Tuthill, McGhee, and Hallstein, Bonn, November 17, 964. Cited in Foreign Relations of the United States 1964–1968 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), vol. 13, p. 112. 23.â•‡ See, e.g., Council of Ministers’ Archives, Brussels (CMA). 1666/64. Procès-verbal de la 153ème session du Conseil de la CEE (November 30 and December 1, 1964).

From Words to Actions

81

24.â•‡ CMA. R/850/65, Procès-verbal de la réunion restreinte tenue à l’occasion de la 172ème session du Conseil CEE (June 28–July 1, 1965). 25.â•‡ European Commission Historical Archives, Brussels (ECHA), BDT 214/1980, Coreper reports, multiple documents. 26.â•‡ See, e.g., Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris (MAE), Europe 1961–1965, Série 38, SS 2, Dossier 3, tel. 530/35, Boegner to Quai, May 7, 1965. 27.â•‡ MAE, Série DE-CE 1961–1966, carton 402, aide-mémoire, January 17, 1966; the text of the decalogue can be found at www.ena.lu?lang=1&doc=1457. 28.â•‡ For an analysis of this battle and its eventual resolution, see Philipp Gassert, “Personalities and the Politics of European Integration: Kurt Georg Kiesinger and the Departure of Walter Hallstein, 1966/7” in Crises and Compromises: The European Project 1963–1969, ed. Wilfried Loth (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2001), pp. 265–84. 29.â•‡ Ludlow, European Community, p. 69. 30.â•‡ Ibid., p. 73. 31.â•‡ UK National Archives (PRO), FO371 188375; M10836/4, Robinson to HughJones, January 6, 1966. 32.â•‡ The text of the Heptalogue can be found on www.ena.lu?lang=1&doc=19632. 33.â•‡ Rolf Lahr, “Die Legende vom ‘Luxemburger Kompromiß,’” Europa-Archiv 38, no. 8 (1983), p. 226. 34.â•‡ For the original French desire to remove Mansholt, see Netherlands Foreign Ministry (NLFM), 996.0 EEG, Box 175, Bentinck to FM, Tel. no. 560, October 22, 1965. 35.â•‡ CMA, C/112/67, Procès verbal de la conférence des gouvernements (June 5, 1967). 36.â•‡ David Coombes, Politics and Bureaucracy in the European Community (London: George Allen and Unwin), p. 194. 37.â•‡ Cited in Alan Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 223. 38.â•‡ PRO, FO371 171451, No. 792, Dixon to FO, December 12, 1963; MAE. Serie DE-CE 1961–1966, Bte 517; Compte-rendu du Conseil sur les Affaires Européennes qui s’est tenu le mardi 31 juillet 1962 sous la présidence du Général de Gaulle, August 1, 1962. 39.â•‡ Reprinted in Edmond Jouve, Le Général de Gaulle et la construction de l’Europe (1945–1966) (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1967), vol. 2, p. 856. 40.â•‡ De Gaulle, Discours et messages, vol. 4, pp. 128–29; Le Monde, October 22, 1964. 41.â•‡ Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1964 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1995), vol. 2, pp. 1224–25. 42.â•‡ Hélène Delorme, “L’adoption du prix unique des céréales,” in Pierre Gerbet and Daniel Pepy (eds.), Le décision dans les Communautés européennes (Brussels: Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 1969), pp. 269–96. 43.â•‡ Ludlow, European Community, pp. 58–69. 44.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 105–9. 45.â•‡ Roussel, Charles de Gaulle, p. 783. 46.â•‡ Archives Nationales, Fontainebleau, SGCI files, versement 900638, article 26, dossier ‘Bilan et situation dans les Communautés Européennes,’ Annexes 1, 2, and 3, October 1, 1965.

82

Piers Ludlow

47.â•‡ Ludlow, “The Making of the CAP,” pp. 354–65. 48.â•‡ Andrew Moravcsik, “Between Grain and Grandeur: the political economy of French policy toward the EEC (1958–1969),” Journal of Cold War Studies, 2, nos. 2 and 3 (2000), pp. 3–43 and pp. 4–68. 49.â•‡ Marie-Thérèse Bitsch and Gérard Bossuat (eds.), L’Europe Unie et l’Afrique: de l’idée de l’Eurafrique à la Convention de Lomé (Brussels: Bruylant, 2005). 50.â•‡ Miriam Camps, Britain and the European Community, 1955–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 253–65. 51.â•‡ N. Piers Ludlow, “The Emergence of a Commercial Heavy-weight: The Kennedy Round Negotiations and the European Community of the 1960s,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 18, no. 2 (2007), pp. 361–63. 52.â•‡ Thomas Zeiler, American Trade and Power in the 1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), esp. pp. 244–45. 53.â•‡ Ludlow, The European Community, p. 55. 54.â•‡ Ibid., p. 53. 55.â•‡ Ibid., p. 45. 56.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 118–24. 57.â•‡ For French motivations behind the second veto, see Helen Parr, “Saving the Community: The French Response to Britain’s Second EEC Application in 1967,” Cold War History, 6, no. 4 (2006), pp. 425–54. 58.â•‡ Ludlow, European Community, pp. 211–12. 59.â•‡ Georges-Henri Soutou, “Le Général de Gaulle et le Plan Fouchet d’Union Politique Européenne: un projet stratégique,” in Widening, Deepening and Acceleration: The European Economic Community 1957–1963, ed. Alan Milward and Anne Deighton (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1999), pp. 55–71. 60.â•‡ The most comprehensive account remains Robert Bloes, Le ‘Plan Fouchet’ et le problème de l’Europe politique (Bruges: College of Europe, 1970). 61.â•‡ Ulrich Lappenküper, Die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen 1949–1963 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001), vol. 1. 62.â•‡ Ibid., vol. 2. 63.â•‡ Ronald J. Granieri, The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949–1966 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), and Daniel Koerfer, Kampf ums Kanzleramt: Erhard und Adenauer (Stuttgart: DVA, 1987), pp. 709–25. 64.â•‡ Georges-Henri Soutou, L’alliance incertaine: Les rapports politico-stratégiques franco–allemands, 1954–1996 (Paris: Fayard, 1996), pp. 272–77; see also Benedikt Schoenborn, La mésentente apprivoisée: De Gaulle et les Allemands, 1963–1969 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007). 65.â•‡ Ludlow, European Community, pp. 11–14. 66.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 15–32. 67.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 58–70. 68.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 94–109. 69.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 146–98. 70.â•‡ See Journal of European Integration History, 9, no. 1 (2003), special issue on The Hague summit.

II Transatlantia

5 NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966: Learning to Cope Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist

Introduction Charles de Gaulle’s return to power in France in June 1958 marked the beginning of a serious threat to the nascent political cooperation within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The General had strong ambitions for his country. He claimed a global political and military role for France, as the voice of continental Europe, and asserted rights for his country that were equal to those of the United States and Britain. Once he realized he failed to achieve this goal, he started to reduce the extent of French military cooperation in the alliance, a process culminating in the withdrawal from NATO’s military arrangements in 1966. De Gaulle did not regard NATO as a permanent alliance, but rather as the embodiment of a traditional temporary coincidence of interests. The French leader was the “nonally par excellence”: While he used the rhetoric of alliance and partnership, de Gaulle was an individualist and a strategic maverick who tried to advance the interests of France to the utmost, even at the expense of other allies. The story of the French challenge to NATO in the 1960s has been told and retold, but scholars have so far largely focused on the three major powers—the United States, Britain, and France.1 In contrast, we propose a genuine NATO perspective: How was de Gaulle’s challenge perceived at NATO headquarters in Paris and among the other 14 national NATO missions present in Paris? This chapter investigates the reactions of NATO bodies and practitioners to the long-lasting NATO crisis evoked by de Gaulle, and the strategies devised to overcome it. We study the beginning and the end of de Gaulle’s strategy to reform NATO. The first part reveals the time and energy NATO insiders spent be85

86

Locher and Nuenlist

tween June and December 1958 to handle the French challenge to the alliance. The second part examines the schemes that NATO protagonists developed to meet the imminent withdrawal as of 1965. Our focus on “NATO Paris” brings to light insights that help explain more comprehensively the nature of transatlantic relations at crucial moments during the Cold War. We reveal that NATO Secretary General Paul-Henri Spaak played an important role in the transatlantic discussions on how to react to de Gaulle’s famous September 1958 memorandum, which proposed a three-power French–United States–UK directorate to harmonize the military and political strategy of the West. Spaak vehemently fought for the established habit of NATO political cooperation among all fifteen—not just the Big Three. Together with the smaller NATO allies, he succeeded in preserving the principle of NATO consultations at least on this occasion. Also, we argue that in 1965, when de Gaulle’s plans on NATO developed more specifically, NATO apologists reacted with a broad range of countermeasures, including fostering allied cohesion, as a means of bolstering alliance activities in view of French obstruction. In the event, NATO allies could not prevent de Gaulle from taking a radical move away from NATO, but they collectively managed to absorb it to a remarkable degree. We agree with recent scholarship according to which the events of 1966 constituted more of an opportunity for the alliance than a moment of crisis.2 However, this did not happen as a matter of course, but was a concrete achievement of NATO insiders: French behavior was indeed regarded as critical since 1958, and the crisis was prevented from deteriorating into a catastrophe due to multifaceted anticipatory and preparatory measures on the part of the loyal Fourteen. Examining de Gaulle’s challenge to U.S. and British dominance within the alliance from an NATO perspective, we show that after first seeking to engage the General, and after several years of perplexed meandering in relations with France, the NATO machinery learned to cope with the challenge and compensated for the 1966 withdrawal crisis quite well.

de Gaulle vs. NATO, 1958 For the political evolution of NATO, de Gaulle’s return to power in June 1958 did not bode well. In December 1956, NATO governments had sanctioned the principle of political consultations in the landmark report of the Three Wise Men, the “gospel of NATO”. Under the active leadership of Spaak, the permanent NATO Council in Paris (NAC) had proven to be a practical multilateral framework for harmonizing the individual national strategies of the 15 NATO members. Multilateral debates on East–West relations in 1957–1958 demonstrated that NATO could play an important role in the political Cold War—beyond its traditional military defense and de-

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

87

terrence role.3 This success story was seriously challenged by de Gaulle. In February 1958, he had explained to U.S. journalist Cyrus Sulzberger: “If I governed France, I would quit NATO. NATO is against our independence and our interest.”4 De Gaulle’s stance was no secret within NATO circles. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer warned in mid-May 1958 that de Gaulle’s ascent to power had to be prevented to avoid the triple danger of a direct line between Paris and Moscow, a disentanglement of France from NATO, and the end of European integration.5 Washington, too, anticipated troubles for NATO. The U.S. State Department feared that de Gaulle would try to steer NATO out of the U.S. hegemonic sphere and to subordinate the alliance to French interests. The prospect for NATO’s future looked bleak: “NATO as we know it today and the cooperative working relationship of NATO would be transformed.”6 In the first few weeks of de Gaulle’s tenure as prime minister, the West was uncertain about the direction of French foreign policy. As a result, there was a profusion of diplomatic visits in the French capital. The first Western statesman to meet de Gaulle was—Paul-Henri Spaak.7 On June 24, de Gaulle explained to him that he was not strictly against NATO, but felt that the U.S. and British influence within the alliance was too strong.8 Spaak, who at that time sympathized a good deal with Gaullist ideas,9 tried to establish a good working relationship with de Gaulle. In a lengthy memorandum, he subsequently encouraged France to play a more active role in NATO.10 In subsequent meetings with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the French leader mentioned for the first time his idea of an “NATO executive committee” consisting of the United States, the UK, and France.11 Learning this from Dulles, Spaak sought to prevent the impending split of NATO into a two-class alliance. He asked Adenauer to tell de Gaulle that Bonn would not accept de Gaulle’s claim for France to act as a mouthpiece for Continental Europe vis-à-vis the United States and Britain.12 Adenauer’s encounter with de Gaulle on September 14–15, however, took a quite different course than Spaak had hoped. Both leaders railed against the Eisenhower government and agreed to work toward a Europe that was less dependent on the United States. TheyÂ€also deplored the condition of NATO. However, neither Adenauer nor de Gaulle raised the delicate issue of a tripartite United States–UK–French directorate.13 Rather than defending NATO against de Gaulle’s imminent “attack,” Adenauer instated West Germany as France’s ally of first choice. De Gaulle Strikes Out—and Tries to Split NATO Spaak thus failed to deter de Gaulle from launching his proposal for a radical reform of NATO. In a brief memorandum addressed to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Macmillan and finally dated September 17, the French

88

Locher and Nuenlist

leader argued that NATO in its present form no longer met the security requirements of the Western world. De Gaulle demanded the establishment of a worldwide security organization consisting of the U.S., the UK, and France (the word “directorate,” however, was not used in the letter). As a first step, the letter required the three countries to convene a consultative meeting in Washington to discuss the questions raised.14 De Gaulle explicitly asked that the content of his letter remain secret.15 Yet the Quai d’Orsay informed the German and Italian governments along general lines about the “personal message” from de Gaulle to Eisenhower and Macmillan, asking Bonn and Rome to treat this information confidentially.16 By distributing this message in two different versions to the United States and UK on the one hand and to West Germany and Italy on the other hand, asking all four countries to observe secrecy, it may well be that the French were trying to stir up trouble within NATO. As a result, odd encounters took place within NATO circles in Paris. Italian NATO Ambassador Umberto Grazzi, for example, asked the U.S. Deputy NATO Ambassador Fritz Nolting whether he had already heard of de Gaulle’s letter to Eisenhower. Nolting pretended he was not aware of such a communication, although Dulles had oriented him about it.17 Spaak’s Search for a “NATO Solution” De Gaulle’s “September memorandum” provoked bilateral discussions between the United States, Britain, West Germany, Italy, and—underexplored by historians to date—NATO Secretary General Spaak, designed to produce an appropriate response. Interestingly, de Gaulle had personally handed over a copy of his memorandum to Spaak on September 24—in fact, one day before it was delivered to Eisenhower and Macmillan.18 Spaak recorded his reaction to de Gaulle’s bombshell as “dumbfounded” (stupéfait).19 At once, he was aware of the great danger of de Gaulle’s short letter for NATO. Immediately, he started a bustling “shuttle diplomacy” in order to limit the damage to the alliance. In a first step, Spaak discussed de Gaulle’s memorandum with Dulles in Boston. Dulles told him that the U.S. reaction to de Gaulle’s demands was negative: Washington’s key concern was that Germany and Italy would never accept such paternalism.20 Dulles encouraged Spaak to craft his own reply to de Gaulle, with the goal of returning the debate to the NATO forum.21 In a speech in Boston, Spaak reacted indirectly to de Gaulle’s gauntlet. He praised the extraordinary flexibility that NATO had exhibited since 1949, claiming that NATO was no longer only the most powerful military alliance of all times, but also constituted an unprecedented international forum for political consultation. The Western alliance was “the very center of the most significant diplomatic innovation ever attempted,” Spaak emphasized.22 Dulles complimented Spaak on his “perfect response” to de Gaulle’s mem-

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

89

orandum and told him that he figured that de Gaulle’s questions would become the most critical issue at the NATO ministerial meeting in December.23 Spaak was appreciative and offered to write a memorandum on NATO political consultation in the run-up to the December meeting and to address the topical problems of the alliance. However, he warned that one had to be careful not to destroy recent achievements in NATO political cooperation by launching such a controversial debate.24 At the same time, Spaak upheld the interests of West Germany and Italy, and informed NATO ambassadors Herbert Blankenhorn and Adolfo Alessandrini that de Gaulle’s original letter had a different content compared to the version the Italians and Germans had received—which had not included de Gaulle’s demand for a three-party directorate. When he learned of the French inner-circle ideas, Blankenhorn told Spaak that de Gaulle’s anachronistic proposals were “completely unrealistic” and totally unacceptable to West Germany. He added that they would mean “the swift end of NATO.” He was convinced that Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, and Turkey would share this view. Like Spaak and Dulles, Blankenhorn thought that an internal review of NATO consultative methods and its strategic planning was the best response to de Gaulle’s challenge. After Spaak had spilled the beans about the two differing versions of de Gaulle’s letter, the Quai d’Orsay had to hand out the complete version of the original memorandum to Bonn and Rome.25 As encouraged by Dulles, Spaak responded to de Gaulle’s memorandum before Eisenhower or Macmillan did so. In his letter of October 15, he agreed that Communism at present mostly threatened areas out of Europe. Yet, he emphasized that all NATO members had an interest in Africa, in the Indian Ocean, and in the Pacific. Spaak therefore characterized de Gaulle’s idea of a tripartite directorate as “neither practical nor fortunate” (ni pratique ni heureuse). It would mean “the end of the Atlantic alliance,” since Italy, West Germany, and the smaller NATO countries would never give their consent to the French idea of a global steering committee from which they were excluded.26 De Gaulle never replied to Spaak. This does not diminish the importance of the fact that the NATO secretary general had proactively taken the initiative to mediate between France and the rest of the alliance in the discussion on a reform of NATO. In his reply to de Gaulle, Adenauer suggested that de Gaulle meet with Spaak to informally discuss the question of changing the political structure of NATO.27 Adenauer hoped—like Dulles—that Spaak would succeed in convincing de Gaulle to compose a new memorandum, leaving out the offensive parts, which could then be circulated and discussed in NATO.28 However, by informing Bonn and Rome about de Gaulle’s radical NATO reform proposal, Spaak had made the realization of such a scenario less probable. Within a week, Spaak had lost his utility as a mediator between France and NATO, as he had already lost de Gaulle’s trust.

90

Locher and Nuenlist

Trying to Educate de Gaulle: A Clear but Polite “No” In the meantime, Dulles and Eisenhower had in principle agreed to convene three-party consultations on de Gaulle’s memorandum at the level of under secretaries of state.29 When he learned of this decision, U.S. Ambassador to NATO W. Randolph Burgess immediately cabled back from Paris that the United States should only use such exploratory talks to clarify open questions. In his view, the United States needed to make it crystal clear from the very beginning that the French concept of a tripartite directorate violated basic U.S. philosophy and would lead to major problems in Washington’s relationships with its allies. Burgess recommended that the United States should instead improve political consultation within NATO.30 Burgess’ commentary found a willing listener in Dulles. He urged, “We must avoid creating the impression that the ‘Three’ are deciding the future of NATO.” Eisenhower added in longhand: “I agree we should not do this three poÂ�wer business unless we have to.”31 The British government, on the other hand, seemed more disposed to agree to informal trilateral consultations in order to allow de Gaulle to use a back door without losing face.32 The first high-level exchange on de Gaulle’s letter with a French official took place at informal meetings on the occasion of the funeral of Pope Pius XII. The French press dubbed the bilateral meetings of Dulles with his counterparts from Italy, Germany, and France as “little NATO Council in Rome.”33 Italian Foreign Minister Amintore Fanfani warned that de Gaulle’s proposal would have the effect of an “atomic bomb” on NATO—he asserted that Italy would never accept a United States–UK–French directorate. Heinrich von Brentano said that de Gaulle’s suggestions should, if at all, be best discussed within the NATO Council. An intra-allied discussion, he felt, would show de Gaulle “how bad his idea was.”34 French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, however, protested that the agitation about de Gaulle’s memorandum was based on a misunderstanding. Dulles for his part tried to convince the French—according to the plan devised in Boston and in the vein of Adenauer’s letter to de Gaulle—that the best way out of the current situation would be for de Gaulle to draft a second letter leaving out his demand for a three-power security organization that had evoked such a strong reaction from Spaak, the Germans, and the Italians—and concentrating on his more general demand to adapt NATO to the current strategic environment.35 In his official reply to de Gaulle on October 20, Eisenhower argued that out-of-area consultations had, in fact, been daily routine within the NATO Council for the past two years. Eisenhower dismissed a tripartite directorate on the grounds that the other allies should not think that decisions affecting their vital interest were being made without their participation.36 When the British Ambassador to France, Gledwyn Jebb, delivered Macmillan’s

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

91

similar reply letter, de Gaulle personally participated in the debate for the first time. He maintained that he had no intention to sabotage political discussions at NATO; he had only suggested private consultations with the United States and Britain to harmonize their views prior to multilateral NATO meetings. Nonetheless, he threatened to withdraw France from NATO if he got no satisfactory response from Washington and London. “France would cease to be an active NATO member,” Jebb reported to London.37 Also, de Gaulle discarded the idea of a second letter as suggested by Adenauer38—the only approach Dulles, Adenauer, and Spaak had produced so far to defuse the NATO crisis.39 After the Leak: Avoiding a NATO Debate Despite this setback, Spaak continued to search for a pragmatic way out of the crisis. His new plan was to ask the French NATO Ambassador Geoffroy de Courcel to make available the controversial memorandum to all NATO missions and, as a next step, to suggest possible improvements in NATO’s political structure in an official memorandum that should be discussed by NATO foreign ministers at the December meeting in Paris.40 After forty days of semi-secrecy, de Gaulle’s directorate proposal was published in the German press,41 which caused the United States and Britain to fear that Canada, Denmark, and Norway—the NATO members previously excluded from intra-allied consultations about de Gaulle’s letter—would table the topic for the next regular meeting of the NATO Council in Paris.42 In a reversal of the original plan to move the debate into the NATO forum, the United States now—after the leak—wished to avoid a multilateral debate on de Gaulle’s memorandum until the differences were sorted out among the Big Three.43 When Macmillan met with Spaak in London on October 27, he too spoke out against a premature NATO discussion, proposing instead that the planned trilateral exploratory talks in Washington take place first, and that Spaak then orient Germany and Italy about its results. Spaak, however, still felt that all NATO members should discuss the demands of de Gaulle and that the French should distribute the original memorandum to all allies.44 He was annoyed about the increasingly discernible United States–British approach of concealing NATO’s most important problems rather than risking a confrontation with de Gaulle.45 After meeting the Danish and Norwegian NATO ambassadors on October 28, Spaak finally changed his mind; he now stated that, for the time being, no official multilateral discussion on de Gaulle’s challenge should take place in the NATO Council. The harsh criticism uttered by Denmark and Norway made him aware of the danger that de Gaulle’s proposal represented for the cohesion of the alliance and of the risks of an early debate within NATO.46 The majority of NATO ambassadors wanted to avoid a

92

Locher and Nuenlist

hasty debate within the NATO forum and preferred to be considerate of French sensitivity. A discussion of the issue was to be delayed until the ministerial meeting in December.47 A Pyrrhic Victory for Spaak’s NATO Despite the official United States–UK rejection, France pushed for the realization of its initiative. Preparing for trilateral exploratory talks about the memorandum in Washington, Paris was opposed to informing the NATO Council about the meeting prior to the event. The French asked that the Big Three first discuss how—and in how much detail—they would inform the NATO Council about their decisions. The Eisenhower administration found itself in a quandary. While tripartite talks with the British and French seemed necessary to discuss de Gaulle’s proposals, the problem of timely NATO consultation had to be resolved. Washington did not wish to depart from the U.S. policy of political consultation within NATO and insisted that NATO not only had to be informed about the existence of the Washington talks, but also had to be briefed about its results and about the prospect of further trilateral consultations. De Gaulle, on the other hand, stuck to the position that NATO as such had never been directly involved in his discussion with London and Washington. He had given a copy of his letter to Spaak on a “purely personal basis,” and de Courcel had discussed the issue with fellow NATO ambassadors on a “personal and informal level” as well.48 In the end, the United States did not give in to French demands. On November 26, Dulles informed de Gaulle that trilateral talks would only take place if the NATO Council was properly informed about them in advance.49 This tough line paid off. A day later, France consented and agreed to notify NATO governments 24 hours prior to the Washington talks— however, only on the condition that the State Department orient NATO states about the three-power talks bilaterally, but not in the multilateral NATO Council.50 The first two tripartite talks between U.S. Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy and the French and British ambassadors to Washington took place on December 4 and 10. France was challenged to be “a little more specific” about its proposals to reform NATO.51 Spaak was apprehensive about the Washington consultations, emphasizing that an organization and institutionalization of the tripartite talks had to be prevented at all cost. Otherwise, both NATO consultations on global affairs and NATO itself “would be doomed.”52 But beyond harsh words directed at the U.S. administration, Spaak did not push for an open multilateral NATO confrontation with Gaullist France over the future of the alliance. In the end, only one very carefully drafted paragraph appeared in Spaak’s report summarizing the political achievements and failures of the alliance in 1958. De Gaulle’s memorandum, the key chal-

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

93

lenge to NATO unity in 1958, was not mentioned at all. Spaak stated that he was not completely opposed to holding special consultations between powers with the “greatest responsibilities,” but asked that these countries “absolutely” present the results of their deliberations in the NATO forum. After all, NATO members were committed to the principle of NATO consultation: “Consultation between allies is a duty.”53 Spaak presented practical suggestions for improving NATO political cooperation: The alliance should develop a political long-term policy; government instructions should be sent more quickly to the NATO ambassadors in Paris; and, when discussing delicate issues, “silence” of NATO ambassadors should not be allowed if their country was directly concerned.54 NATO foreign ministers discussed Spaak’s report at their December meeting in Paris, but did not explicitly refer to de Gaulle’s September memorandum. In the absence of any references by foreign ministers to de Gaulle’s reform challenge, Spaak could only conclude that he could not see any signs of the crisis of which there was so much public talk.55 On the surface, the NATO crisis triggered by de Gaulle’s September memorandum seemed to have been handled well by alliance insiders by mid-December 1958. Yet, behind the curtain of apparent consent at the NATO meetings, de Gaulle and Dulles in a bilateral side-meeting reconfirmed their positions. Dulles clarified that three-party consultations on certain topics might be possible—but not the establishment of a formal tripartite security organization. De Gaulle, for his part, reiterated that France would insist on its demand for a tripartite directorate “when in effect the whole [NATO] show was being run by the United States.”56 This utterance revealed to Washington that the NATO crisis had only been postponed. From 1959 to 1963, de Gaulle gradually diminished French military and political cooperation in the alliance.57 In the shadow of the Berlin Crisis, he succeeded in establishing the reality of trilateral discussions with the United States and UK—at least on Berlin and Germany. While no substantial debate about the various French steps and their consequences for the alliance took place officially, NATO ambassadors in Paris complained informally about de Gaulle’s obstructionist policy and instances of inner-circle decision-making among the Big Three,58 even if de Gaulle, by 1960–1961, had virtually given up the hope of establishing a tripartite directorate.

NATO vs. de Gaulle, 1965–1966 While the request for tripartite decision-making lost momentum, de Gaulle started to pursue alternative schemes to increase France’s say in Europe and globally—by intensifying cooperation with Adenauer in 1962–1963, and, as of 1964, by boosting contacts with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

94

Locher and Nuenlist

Both openings were perceived as a menace among other NATO allies, because they went with a French alienation from the alliance. In January 1963, de Gaulle announced his “triple no” to British membership in the European Common Market, to the U.S. Polaris offer, and to participation in a NATO nuclear force; barely a week later, he signed a bilateral German–French friendship treaty. U.S. NATO Ambassador Thomas K. Finletter was among the first to express his fears regarding the implications of these French policies for NATO. He warned that French opposition in the alliance could develop in two ways only: It would either amount to an “abrupt and brutal withdrawal of France from NATO and the request that NATO members leave French soil” or in an “increased tempo of sabotaging.”59 Contacts between France and NATO were indeed at a historical low. As NATO Secretary General Dirk U. Stikker (1961–1964) told his predecessor Spaak, “For France, NATO almost does not exist.” As a matter of fact, all of Stikker’s attempts to get in touch with the French government were left unanswered.60 In 1963 and 1964, de Gaulle withdrew the French Atlantic Fleet from NATO assignment and ratcheted up his anti-NATO rhetoric. In his traditional broadcast on December 31, 1964, he announced that France would continue to break free of supranational arrangements, integration, and “Atlanticism.”61 NATO allies first wondered once more what de Gaulle envisaged in specific terms, but then jointly agreed to act on the alliance: NATO practitioners and governments learned to cope with de Gaulle’s challenge to the alliance along the way. Taking Stock, Early 1965 On February 27, 1965, de Gaulle met with NATO Secretary General Manlio Brosio (1964–1971), Stikker’s successor. From his appointment in August 1964, Brosio had been well respected in France. Their conversation, which was registered with assiduous attention throughout the NATO region, led to some confusion regarding the essence of the talks. Based on information provided by Brosio’s chief of staff, Fausto Bacchetti, officials in London noticed with satisfaction that de Gaulle had no intention of withdrawing from NATO until 1969 and recognized the need for French participation in the alliance after that date. According to Bacchetti, de Gaulle had calculated that talking to the NATO secretary general implied a circulation of the information. In view of the French elections of December 1965, de Gaulle took care to “play down the image of France as the odd man out.”62 However, it soon transpired that this fairly reassuring report about the talks between Brosio and de Gaulle was only partly accurate at best. British NATO Ambassador Evelyn Shuckburgh clarified that the French president did not intend to continue participation in NATO after 1969 unless military

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

95

integration was reduced. The interpretation of the conversation now turned into the opposite direction. London recorded that de Gaulle had now “revealed even to the Secretary General of NATO” that France would insist upon heavily transforming the alliance after 1969. Still, and erroneously, the British expected a “fairly quiet [. . .] NATO front for the rest of the year.”63 NATO ambassadors who lived and worked on the ground in Paris felt that France was jeopardizing the inner workings of the alliance. Shuckburgh in late March 1965 reported their concerns about France as “an increasing source of anxiety” to London. Given that French policy had become inconsistent with NATO solidarity, Shuckburgh urged that Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart, in his upcoming visit to Paris, make plain to the French that NATO was still the foundation of British policy—“for morale and for our credit here.”64 Meanwhile, the pace of French rhetorical activism increased. In a radio and television speech on April 27, 1965, which caused an international sensation, de Gaulle evoked the issue of French autonomy in international affairs and an independent and self-controlled nuclear force in blunt terms.65 The next French move was to follow soon. When U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Bohlen met with de Gaulle on May 4, the French president wrecked hopes for mutually agreeable designs. While in favor of an alliance with the United States, Britain, and—deviating from his 1958 demands for tripartite leadership, as a consequence of the Berlin Crisis— Germany, de Gaulle announced that it would be necessary to re-examine the North Atlantic Treaty in 1969. Other NATO allies were not mentioned. In particular, de Gaulle announced a critical examination of the NATO Council and emphasized that “any form of integration would have to go [then].” Troops or military installations not under French command would no longer be tolerated in France; all forces and installations on its territory would be under French command. These changes in the NATO structure would not be made in 1965, and France would grant NATO allies plenty of warning and time to consider the French suggestions.66 Clearly, these unprecedented explicit statements by the French president contributed to the change of perception regarding the imminence and the extent of French moves among NATO allies.67 U.S. Secretary of State Rusk quickly ordered a report on the future of NATO without French participation.68 Further statements by the French president and the administration in Paris confirmed these drastic plans. Paris suggested that within five to six months after the French presidential elections of December 1965, France would consider its participation in NATO finished.69 With the state of NATO weighing heavily on everybody’s minds, paradoxically, it seemed untimely to study it in any depth during the multilateral gathering in London. The NATO secretary general preferred not to address the malaise in open discussion. In April 1965, in a report to NATO

96

Locher and Nuenlist

foreign ministers, Brosio emphasized the alliance’s achievements and minimized its difficulties, deeming it premature to embark on potentially divisive discussions.70 Meeting with Brosio in early May, U.S. Under Secretary of State George Ball agreed it was “not a good time for a searching discussion of the future of the Alliance.” Rather, he stressed the need for consultation between the United States, Britain, and Germany.71 This pragmatic approach, an early call for trilateral solutions, contrasted with a multilateral initiative by the Canadians that was meant to avoid confrontation, encourage recognition of the main factors holding NATO together, and “start serious thinking in foreign ministries on what type of alliance we all may want in the future.” With the French desiring a complete transformation of NATO, Ottawa did not believe that NATO members could afford to sustain “the present uneasy status quo” within the alliance for much longer.72 The Canadians, while far-sighted, found no support for this position. Brosio, the United States, and the Europeans were disinclined to tackle the alliance before the German and French elections of September and December 1965.73 Against this background, Western governments preferred to sit the uneasy situation out rather than to take verbal action during the ministerial gathering of May 1965. Even so, new and promising movement was in sight. Most importantly, the U.S. reassumed leadership after over a year of absence from the transatlantic discourse.74 Ball introduced a catalog of questions that he proposed NATO allies should study for the ministerial convention of December. Still, the United States aimed to coordinate the allied debate through bilateral channels after the ministerial meeting rather than through the multilateral NATO forum.75 Consequently, this caused bilateral and trilateral coordination among the United States, Britain, and Germany to be accelerated. Even if efforts such as the Canadian initiative mentioned above were abandoned,76 the second half of 1965 saw an increased eagerness to act in and for the alliance. One major thread was the issue of nuclear cooperation, where the center of attention now shifted to nuclear consultation as enshrined in U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s proposal for a select committee of defense ministers of May 1965.77 But de Gaulle did not rest either. He exhibited a readiness to act when he triggered what became known as the EEC crisis in summer 1965. To NATO apologists, the EEC crisis showed de Gaulle’s resolve to act—even before the presidential elections of December 1965. Washington’s NATO Ambassador Finletter suggested that the events in the European framework were likely to serve as a model for French action in an Atlantic context.78 Furthermore, the EEC predicament revealed a Western pattern of reacting to de Gaulle. UK Ambassador to Bonn Frank Roberts pointed out that de Gaulle’s European partners were “hopelessly inhibited from standing up to him even on vitally important matters like NATO.”79

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

97

Consulting NATO Allies, Summer 1965 In the heated atmosphere after the outbreak of the EEC crisis, Ball again traveled to Europe in mid-July. He solicited European views on the issue of France and NATO in bilateral consultations.80 Ball’s journey was the first informal part of a major consultation effort on the part of the United States and the UK regarding allied contingency planning for a NATO without France.81 Ball’s aim was to win over European governments to the U.S. policy of “neglecting” de Gaulle, as the literature has it.82 He urged British, German, Dutch, Italian, and Belgian representatives to prepare for a cessation of French membership in the alliance and a withdrawal of the NATO headquarters from Paris.83 Ball learned that the German government had commissioned a number of technical studies on the issue of their own.84 Dutch Foreign Minister Joseph Luns, deeming France’s complete withdrawal from NATO as unlikely as a positive turn of French policies, supported discreet bilateral consultation to avoid giving the French an opportunity of accusing NATO allies of plotting against France. Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian foreign minister, encouraged informal multilateral talks among NATO ambassadors in addition to the bilateral discussions. Italian Foreign Minister Fanfani agreed about the need to quickly and covertly study the situation and to even contemplate a reorganization of NATO, but emphasized the need to leave the first move to France to make sure that the responsibility for any confrontation rested with Paris. This latter concern was widespread among European NATO allies and arguably showed the degree of intimidation in the wake of the EEC crisis. The foremost concern of NATO Secretary General Brosio was to avoid provoking the French into drastic action.85 The British, too, engaged in a consultation effort dedicated to the future course of the alliance in view of the French announcements. The gist of British policy was “not to join the General’s game [. . .] of psychological warfare.”86 Like Ball, Lord Hood of the British Foreign Office conducted discussions about France and NATO with United States, German, and Italian officials in July 1965. He stressed basic United States–British agreement while pointing out the difference over the extent to which discussion should be initiated with France. While London favored prolonging the discussion of the modalities and legalities, Ball rejected any moves to yield to likely French salami tactics, for instance against U.S. installations in France. British–Italian discussions revealed interesting assessments on the part of Rome: The Italians assumed that a French withdrawal from NATO would be militarily costly, yet manageable—the implications of a retreat for European unity were worse. It was for the cause of Europe that it was vital to “deter” de Gaulle from taking action against NATO.87 The Germans were reluctant to speak up officially just before the German elections of September, which were to confirm Erhard or bring to power

98

Locher and Nuenlist

Willy Brandt, leader of the West German Social Democrats and mayor of Berlin. Bonn maintained that de Gaulle continued to differentiate between the alliance and NATO. Comparing the results of their consultation missions, Hood and Ball both stressed the importance of building an “Anglo– American–German nucleus” to the extent possible.88 This interest in reinstating U.S. leadership and UK commitment in NATO by way of small group decisions was reinvigorated by a change in the U.S. mission to NATO. In mid-1965, NATO Ambassador Thomas Finletter, who personally doubted whether a revitalization of NATO was at all possible, was replaced by Harlan Cleveland, who represented a fresh approach to the French problem. Cleveland promised, and reflected, new alliance vigor and “regarded his mandate as being to get the Alliance moving again.”89 Cleveland’s major aim was to develop policies with which to bypass the de Gaulle problem.90 He felt that the Atlantic alliance suffered from a neurotic relationship with France. Whenever de Gaulle’s name was mentioned, NATO allies displayed a Pavlovian reaction and said that nothing could be done. In contrast, the ambassador stated, France was becoming less and less relevant to the future of NATO. What was important was to ensure the continued support of the alliance by the vast majority of countries that wished to continue to work together.91 Ironically, this was a late satisfaction for former NATO Secretary General Stikker, who had championed a policy of “mutual forbearance” already during his tenure, when NATO allies were not yet ready to renouncing French cooperation.92 Tellingly, Cleveland in a public speech in October 1965 did not even mention the French issue at all. As his deputy Philip Farley stated with gratification, the very fact that it was possible to talk for half an hour about NATO without mentioning France indicated “a dynamic future for NATO with or without France.”93 Aligning Western Views, Fall 1965 By fall 1965, France’s allies agreed that de Gaulle was likely to act on NATO fairly quickly. This did not mean, however, that all NATO governments and bodies shared the same views as to how to cope with what seemed imminent. An alignment of diverging approaches first needed to be found. In August and September 1965, George Ball again traveled through Europe to discuss the plans for “NATO without France” in greater detail. His mission raised criticism in the U.S. administration. Ambassador to France Charles Bohlen worried about Ball’s secretive approach and noted that it would be “most unfortunate at this particular time if the French got wind of the consultations.”94 Among European NATO governments, too, Ball’s self-assured attitude incited only partial approval. On the question of how to approach the French, the views of Europeans, Canadians, and of the NATO secretary gen-

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

99

eral tended to be similar to the ones held in the White House rather than at the State Department. London saw no advantage in precipitating a confrontation. Therefore, putting France “in the dock” at the gathering of NATO’s foreign ministers in December 1965 was deemed unhelpful. The Foreign Office urged to take account not only of Washington but also of the “Five, not all of whom may want to have a NATO crisis on their hands as well as an EEC crisis.”95 Brussels, on the one hand, contemplated proposing a remake of the 1956 Wise Men committee, but was, on the other hand, in two minds regarding France precisely because of the European angle.96 Spaak’s idea of a small committee seemed untimely and met with little enthusiasm throughout the alliance. The Canadians considered NATO’s situation in 1965 to be incomparable to that of 1956. An effort echoing the 1956 Wise Men exercise could “succeed only in focusing on the differences between France and the other members.”97 The German position was that overt French–German hostilities would be a disaster—French–German cooperation in an Atlantic framework was no less indispensable than Washington’s involvement in Europe.98 NATO’s foremost diplomat, for his part, adopted a restrained course in the NATO–France matter. Considering it crucial to avoid anticipatory moves provoking the French, Manlio Brosio repeatedly stressed it was important to wait for the French to take any initiative or make suggestions about changing the NATO organization.99 In October 1965, U.S. and British officials agreed that Brosio’s relatively passive position on the NATO crisis was no longer tenable, as “this was an issue that he could not escape.”100 Brosio, who had a reputation for harboring Gaullist sympathies, reasoned that France’s aim to reduce U.S. influence in the alliance would ultimately tip the alliance equilibrium in favor of the United States—which was no prospect of his liking. He was just as apprehensive about what he regarded as a United States–British push for détente and its disruptive potential for NATO as he was about de Gaulle’s policies.101 Nonetheless, in the course of 1965, Brosio came to modify his opinion; he became gradually more frustrated with de Gaulle’s policies and the way in which they obstructed the workings of the alliance.102 With a view to the Paris ministerial meeting of mid-December 1965, NATO policymakers decided not to raise the state of the alliance as such in order not to risk losing control of the meeting. Rather, they prepared the relocation of NATO facilities secretly and in coordinated manner. For the event of French hostilities against U.S. troops or facilities in France, the U.S. government considered relocation to the Benelux countries.103 France’s likely departure from NATO was also reflected in strikingly positive terms in the U.S. media—as “awkward but hardly fatal.104 Most tellingly, Cleveland told his French counterpart, Pierre de Leusse, in November 1965, “We only wait for the decision of the [French] president.”105

100

Locher and Nuenlist

Reluctance to discuss the problems of the alliance was further seen in the conspicuous absence of any ministerial remarks focusing on the issues that had still been regarded as burning in May 1965. On behalf of most of his colleagues, Dutch Foreign Minister Joseph Luns deemed it wiser to leave the discussion of NATO’s future to a later date, despite the recognition that there was no unity of views on the future of the alliance and the policies to be pursued.106 In contrast, the nuclear consultation project triggered by McNamara in May gained momentum.107 At the end of the year, Cleveland was able to report to Washington that nearly all allies, as well as most French officials, had concluded that a NATO without France was a “practical (if inconvenient) proposition.” The French bargaining position was deemed to be limited, given that allies were ready to leave the French chair empty and advance NATO business with specific policies.108 The consultations of fall 1965 and the December ministerial convention clearly established that France stood isolated in NATO. De Gaulle’s plans for a “European Europe” from the Atlantic to the Urals and the pursuit of an independent nuclear force were not given serious consideration by other alliance members; both the smaller and the major alliance members were acutely aware that an exclusive European approach to NATO was not in their interest.109 The Crisis Enacted: NATO’s Composed Reaction In early 1966, the NATO allies received further food for thought from the French. On January 20, de Gaulle met with Brosio, who reported the discussions to the NATO ambassadors. While the talk confirmed London’s impression derived from other sources that the French president was in no hurry to act against NATO, but intended to do so “eventually,” U.S. diplomats were “pretty sure” that the French, contrary to their original timetable, would make a move as early as mid-February.110 In a press conference on February 21, de Gaulle announced that foreign forces in France would be asked to report exclusively to French authorities. As with the Atlantic Fleet withdrawal of 1963, de Gaulle stated that his moves would by no means amount to a rupture, but rather to a gradual if “necessary adaptation.”111 The weekly working lunch of NATO ambassadors at Evelyn Shuckburgh’s house on March 2 further lifted the veil regarding the next French moves. Pierre de Leusse made an important statement; in meetings with de Gaulle and Couve de Murville the week before, he had obtained a clearer idea of the French government’s intentions. The French ambassador’s information conformed in every detail with what de Gaulle was to announce in his letter to President Johnson on March 7. De Leusse had no explanation as to what had caused this hastening of the timetable, which was at variance with the earlier information that Paris had no intention to take early action, but

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

101

speculated the acceleration was internally motivated and not related to anything that NATO allies had said or done since February 21.112 The French ambassador’s informal, though certainly instructed communication was revealing as it showed—yet again—the foretold and staged character of the crisis of 1966. After diffusing varying information to the involved actors, French diplomats informed NATO allies, though formally under the seal of secrecy, in advance of the planned moves in all detail. In retrospect, observers labeled the tactics of the French ambassador “brilliant” for its sangfroid.113 The informal setting among ambassadors arguably underlines the importance of the NATO forum—if not necessarily the council—as an arena where all allied governments could be reached at once. On March 7, in a letter to Johnson, de Gaulle announced France’s withdrawal from NATO’s military arrangements,114 corresponding to the account de Leusse had given NATO ambassadors. From the very first moment, NATO experts, both in the capitals and on the ground, also saw the positive potential of the situation, and embarked on an “opportunity discourse” of sorts. The British saw “an opportunity for a reconstruction and streamlining of NATO which it would be wrong to let slip.”115 The Foreign Office favored exploiting the opportunity to “re-fashion the alliance” on a more efficient basis to build a firmer foundation for East–West relations in Europe.116 Cleveland did not consider the withdrawal to be fatal, neither in political nor in military terms.117 The Norwegians, in fact, sensed that an overall solution was in sight. For them, even the necessity of finding a new headquarters offered an “occasion to simplify the military apparatus” by eliminating the Standing Group and relocating the Military Committee to Europe.118 And even Brosio, while expressing worries that the alliance was in danger, felt that overcoming the crisis would pave the ground for a NATO reform.119 In a declaration of March 18, 1966, the 14 loyal NATO members voiced their belief that the integrated organization remained necessary—not surprisingly, against the background of the contingency planning and the identity politics pursued in the latter half of 1965.120 The June 1966 ministerial conference also passed rather smoothly. According to Le Monde, the meeting witnessed “neither a trial of France nor the disintegration of NATO’s Fourteen.”121 In October 1966, Cleveland stated, “The crisis about France is mostly behind us now.”122 This agreed with the State Department’s assessment of December 1966 that the Fourteen had largely sorted out the France–NATO relationship.123 These rather positive and, indeed, optimistic immediate reactions reflected the fact that the withdrawal had not arrived out of the blue. The developments within NATO, including the collective and bilateral harmonization of the alliance’s 14 allies apart from France and the specific measures to reinvigorate the alliance as of 1965, contributed to the benign reception of the withdrawal. In particular, we argue, the persistent perception and careful

102

Locher and Nuenlist

preparation of a contingency in NATO helped national and institutional NATO practitioners both to cope with the exceptional situation resulting from France’s leaving the military command and to prepare for a NATO reformation, including an adjustment of NATO’s military strategy, a fresh focus on joint nuclear planning, and the alliance’s defense-cum-détente approach.

Conclusion Charles de Gaulle’s return to power in France in June 1958 marked the beginning of difficult times for NATO. Criticizing agreed Western key fundamentals in his memorandum of September 17, 1958, the General defined France as a major power in Continental Europe, and as a global power on equal footing with the United States and Britain. The implications for NATO—its smaller members in particular—were clear to all parties concerned: France wished to minimize the role of NATO as a multilateral clearing-house and war council. Did de Gaulle really expect that his demands would be met? Or was he deliberately overbidding in order to enhance the French position within NATO? In his Memoirs of Hope, de Gaulle argued that he was looking for a pretext for leaving NATO. “I asked for the moon. I was sure I would not get it.”124 However, it seems that at the time, de Gaulle intended to increase French prestige as one of the West’s Big Three. Ironically, de Gaulle’s decision to send a copy of his radical 1958 initiative also to the NATO secretary general allowed Paul-Henri Spaak to lobby in Washington and London for the priority of the alliance over three-party consultations. Indeed, there is a remarkable continuity in de Gaulle sending “mixed signals” to NATO governments and institutions up to the 1966 announcements. Also, in talks with Manlio Brosio and other Western diplomats in 1965–1966, the French president repeatedly outlined his plans— even if in variations. While this tactical meandering helped him in the beginning, and caused years of allied consternation, it eventually contributed to the unwavering response of NATO governments in 1966 as they learned to react to the more and more specific French offensive. How did NATO react to de Gaulle’s endeavors? While in 1958, Spaak’s maximum demand that discussion on the French reform plan be conducted in the NATO forum was eventually not implemented because the NATO allies agreed not to antagonize de Gaulle, Spaak’s minimum demand that NATO be closely informed about the informal consultations between the United States, Britain, and France was met thanks to the crucial support from the Eisenhower administration. Spaak was helped by national NATO ambassadors including Randolph Burgess (United States) or Herbert Blankenhorn (FRG), who educated their capitals at home about the danger of de Gaulle’s proposal and the envisaged secret tripartite directorate.

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

103

Nonetheless, the solution reached in 1958 was not a lasting one, not least because de Gaulle, for his part, did not leave off at the 1958 proposals. He subsequently reduced French military and political cooperation in the alliance and intensified his public anti-NATO rhetoric. As of 1965, NATO allies no longer relied on accommodating policies toward Paris, but started to think of ways to deal with the contingency of France leaving the alliance, which ultimately laid the groundwork for the gentle Western absorption of de Gaulle’s withdrawal in 1966. De Gaulle, a symptom of widespread unease rather than a main source of content in 1958, was in 1965–1966 clearly identified by Western policymakers as the main nonconformist necessitating isolation for his obstructing solutions to such issues as alliance strategy, NATO’s political outlook, and nuclear planning. These efforts to shore up NATO’s overall position showed that the Fourteen were eager to retain and revitalize the alliance. While in 1958, shortly after de Gaulle returned to power, NATO protagonists sought to engage France and fought for a solution that would accommodate all Western allies, including Paris, the response to the imminent French breakaway as of 1965 reflected an entirely different situation. NATO’s defenders were now ready to steer alliance policies without France, if necessary. Experiences gained at NATO Paris had abundantly shown that France was not willing to cooperate, let alone compromise, on core alliance business; additionally, the EEC crisis of summer 1965 seemed to prove that France was ready to adopt drastic international measures at any time. Also, the roles played by Spaak and Brosio—both as NATO secretary general—strike as different. While the former actively and single-handedly sought to influence de Gaulle by activating his networks in 1958, the latter confined himself to moderate the process of French detachment as of 1965. Also, compared to 1958, when the NATO council was eventually avoided, a wide range of channels, including also institutional measures, were activated by the United States, Britain, and smaller allies in 1965. At the same time, new policies, especially in the realm of nuclear planning, suggested that innovative alliance activities could indeed be planned by bypassing de Gaulle. In this process, NATO ambassadors such as Harlan Cleveland (United States) and Evelyn Shuckburgh (UK) played a notable role. Our NATO perspective confirms recent findings that the 1966 crisis also provided opportunities for alliance recovery. We maintain that the considerate NATO reaction was by no means only due to U.S. President Lyndon Johnson who took care to minimize the critical aspects of de Gaulle’s momentous decision of March 7, 1966. Rather, the thought and talk of opportunities was also prepared collectively, within NATO, through the many channels available. NATO allies had realized they could manage without France, and rather well, already considerably before de Gaulle’s announcement. This cooperative approach was also helped by the fact that while in

104

Locher and Nuenlist

1958, U.S. hegemony was still comparably intact, the mid-1960s saw a diffusion of political, economic and military power that seemed to suggest a common procedure. While the dialogue between the United States and France had prevailed over Washington’s consideration of NATO partners in 1958, we argue that Washington, helped by the UK, had started to factor in all NATO partners to a remarkable degree as of 1965. Systematic behind-the-scenes consultation of allies—including the smaller powers in NATO—both on their views on the alliance and on such core issues as nuclear planning seemed necessary and beneficial now. It was this comprehensive approach before the actual withdrawal that facilitated both the smooth acceptance of the French withdrawal from NATO in 1966 and the revitalization of NATO in 1966/1967. NATO had learned its lesson from 1958. While de Gaulle had provoked NATO in 1958, the alliance contained the effects of de Gaulle’s announcements in 1965–1966 due to solid preparation and advance harmonization of attitudes.

Notes â•‡â•‡ 1.â•‡ See Frédéric Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and the Atlantic Alliance (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001); Maurice Vaïsse, La Grandeur: Politique Etrangère de la France 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998); James Ellison, The United States, Britain and the Transatlantic Crisis: Rising to the Gaullist Challenge, 1963–1968 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). â•‡â•‡ 2.â•‡ See, e.g., Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility, 1966–1967 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); Frédéric Bozo, “Détente versus Alliance: France, the United States and the Politics of the Harmel Report, 1964–1968,” Contemporary European History 7, no. 3 (November 1998), pp. 343–60; Thomas Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilateralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no.1 (Winter 2004), pp. 22–74; Anna Locher, “A Crisis Foretold: NATO and France, 1963–1966,” in Transforming NATO in the Cold War: Challenges beyond Deterrence in the 1960s, ed. Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist, and Anna Locher (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 107–27; Ellison, United States. â•‡â•‡ 3.â•‡ For a detailed analysis, see Christian Nuenlist, “Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Political Cooperation in NATO: The Western Alliance and Khrushchev’s Foreign Policy, 1955–1964,” unpublished PhD dissertation, Zurich, 2005, chapters 1–4. â•‡â•‡ 4.â•‡ Cyrus Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p. 198. â•‡â•‡ 5.â•‡ Diary Entry by Herbert Blankenhorn, May 19, 1958, Federal Archive, Koblenz (BA), Blankenhorn Papers, vol. 87. â•‡â•‡ 6.â•‡ Quoted Stefan Kamp, “Nukleare Teilhabe und politische Konsultation: Die Suche nach einer eigenÂ�stänÂ�diÂ�geÂ�ren IdenÂ�tität für die NATO, 1956–1962,” unpublished Ph.D. thesis (University of Bonn, 1994), p. 78.

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

105

â•‡â•‡ 7.â•‡ Anna Locher and Christian Nuenlist, “Containing the French Malaise: The Role of NATO’s Secretary General, 1958–1967,” in Intra-bloc Conflicts in the Cold War, eds. S. Victor Papacosma and Ann Heiss (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2008), pp. 75–90, pp. 75–77. â•‡â•‡ 8.â•‡ Memorandum by Spaak, June 23, 1958, Fondation Paul-Henri Spaak, Brussels (FPHS), 294/5471. â•‡â•‡ 9.â•‡ Paul-Henri Spaak, Memoiren eines Europäers (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1969), p. 381. â•‡ 10.â•‡ Spaak to de Gaulle, July 3, 1958, FPHS, 294/5472. â•‡ 11.â•‡ Documents diplomatiques français (DDF) 1958 I, pp. 861–74. â•‡ 12.â•‡ Diary Entry by Blankenhorn, September 9, 1958, BA, Blankenhorn Papers, vol. 90. â•‡ 13.â•‡ DDF 1958 II, pp. 341–44. â•‡ 14.â•‡ DDF 1958 II, p. 377. â•‡ 15.â•‡ Alphand–Dulles Meeting, September 25, 1958, U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD (USNA), Record Group (RG) 59, Central Decimal Files (CDF), 740.5. â•‡ 16.â•‡ Jansen to AA, September 27, 1958, BA, Blankenhorn Papers, vol. 91. â•‡ 17.â•‡ Nolting to Dulles, September 30, 1958, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5. â•‡ 18.â•‡ MemCon Spaak–de Gaulle, September 24, 1958, FPHS, 294/5479. See also DDF 1958 II, p. 430. â•‡ 19.â•‡ De Staercke to Wigny, October 7, 1958, FPHS, 294/5496. â•‡ 20.â•‡ Diary Entry by Blankenhorn, October 3, 1958, BA, Blankenhorn Papers, vol.Â€91. â•‡ 21.â•‡ MemCon Spaak–Dulles, September 27, 1958, FPHS, 297/5507. See also Michel Dumoulin, Spaak (Brussels: Racine, 1999), pp. 560ff. â•‡ 22.â•‡ Paul-Henri Spaak, “NATO and the Communist Challenge,” Department of State Bulletin 39, no. 1008 (October 20, 1958), pp. 607–11. â•‡ 23.â•‡ Dulles to Spaak, October 10, 1958, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5. â•‡ 24.â•‡ Burgess to Department of State (DoS), October 15, 1958, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5. â•‡ 25.â•‡ Diary Entry by Blankenhorn, October 3, 1958, BA, Blankenhorn Papers, vol.Â€91. â•‡ 26.â•‡ Spaak to de Gaulle, October 15, 1958, FPHS, 294/5483. â•‡ 27.â•‡ DDF 1958 II, nos. 240, 248. â•‡ 28.â•‡ Diary Entry by Blankenhorn, October 9, 1958, BA, Blankenhorn Papers, vol.Â€91. â•‡ 29.â•‡ Eisenhower–Dulles Meeting, October 13, 1958, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS (DDEL), Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda, Box 7. â•‡ 30.â•‡ Burgess to DoS, October 14, 1958, USNA, RG 59, CDF, 740.5. â•‡ 31.â•‡ Dulles to Eisenhower, October 15, 1958, DDEL, WHO-SS, InÂ�terÂ�naÂ�tioÂ�nal Series, Box 5. â•‡ 32.â•‡ Foreign Office (FO) to Caccia, October 17, 1958, UK National Archives, Kew/London (UKNA), PREM 11, 3002. â•‡ 33.â•‡ Paris Journal (October 20, 1958), p. 5. â•‡ 34.â•‡ Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1958–1960 VII(2), pp. 105ff. â•‡ 35.â•‡ FRUS 1958–1960 VII(2): 105ff.; Telegram from Klaiber to AA, October 18, 1958, BA, Blankenhorn papers, vol. 91.

106

Locher and Nuenlist

â•‡ 36.â•‡ Eisenhower to de Gaulle, October 20, 1958, DDEL, Ann Whiteman File (AWF), International Series, Box 12. See FRUS 1958–1960 VII(2), pp. 99f. â•‡ 37.â•‡ Jebb to FO, October 21 and 26, 1958, UKNA, PREM 11, 3002. â•‡ 38.â•‡ Jebb to FO, October 24, 1958, ibid. â•‡ 39.â•‡ FRUS 1958–1960 VII(2), pp. 109f. â•‡ 40.â•‡ Diary Entry by Blankenhorn, October 24, 1958, BA, Blankenhorn Papers, vol.Â€91. â•‡ 41.â•‡ See, e.g., “France Wants Major Change in NATO,” The Times (October 25, 1958); “De Gaulles Vorschlag für ein NATO-Direktorium,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung (October 25, 1958). â•‡ 42.â•‡ For Canada’s strong reaction, see Documents of Canadian External Relations (DCER), XXIV (1958), nos. 287–90. â•‡ 43.â•‡ Dulles to Burgess, October 26, 1958, USNA, RG 59, CDF 740.5. â•‡ 44.â•‡ Macmillan-Lloyd-Spaak Meeting, October 27, 1958, UKNA, PREM, 3002. â•‡ 45.â•‡ Spaak, Memoiren, p. 392. â•‡ 46.â•‡ Roberts to FO, October 28, 1958, UKNA, PREM 11, 3002. â•‡ 47.â•‡ Diary Entry by Blankenhorn, October 29, 1958, BA, Blankenhorn Papers, vol.Â€91. â•‡ 48.â•‡ Merchant to Dulles, November 25, 1958, USNA, RG 59, CDF 740.5. â•‡ 49.â•‡ Dulles to Houghton, November 26, 1958, ibid. â•‡ 50.â•‡ Alphand–Merchant Meeting, November 27, 1958, and Dulles to Houghton, December 1, 1958, ibid. â•‡ 51.â•‡ DCER XXIV (1958), no. 298; FRUS 1958–1960 VII(2), pp. 128–37. â•‡ 52.â•‡ Burgess to DoS, December 6, 1958, USNA, RG 59, CDF 740.5. â•‡ 53.â•‡ “Interim Report of the Secretary General on Political Cooperation,” November 17, 1958, NATO Archives, Brussels (NA), C-M(58)138. â•‡ 54.â•‡ Ibid. â•‡ 55.â•‡ NATO Ministerial Meeting, December 16, 1958, NA, C-R(58)62. â•‡ 56.â•‡ Dulles to Eisenhower, December 15, 1958, DDEL, Dulles Papers, DullesHerter, Box 10. â•‡ 57.â•‡ In 1959, de Gaulle withdrew the French Mediterranean Fleet from NATO assignment; in 1963, he fundamentally opposed the NATO secretary general’s attempts for a unified NATO strategy in the so-called Stikker exercise. â•‡ 58.â•‡ See Christian Nuenlist, “Die NATO und die Berlinkrise von 1958–1961,” in Krisen im Kalten Krieg, ed. Bernd Greiner, Christian Th. Müller, Dierk Walter (Hamburg, Edition HIS, 2008), pp. 240–69; Christian Nuenlist, “Into the 1960s: NATO’s Role in East–West Relations, 1958–1963,” in Transforming NATO in the Cold War, pp. 67–88. â•‡ 59.â•‡ Finletter to Rusk, February 6, 1963, JFKL, NSF, Box 220A. In general, see Locher, “A Crisis Foretold.” â•‡ 60.â•‡ MemCon Stikker-Lefevre-Spaak, February 1, 1963, The Netherlands National Archives (NLNA), Stikker Papers, Box 55. â•‡ 61.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Discours et Messages 4: Pour l’effort, Août 1962–Décembre 1965 (Paris: Plon, 1970) (DM 4), pp. 316–19. â•‡ 62.â•‡ Minutes by Ramsbotham, March 12, 1965, UKNA, FO 146/4625. â•‡ 63.â•‡ Minutes by Pedler, March 22, 1965, ibid. â•‡ 64.â•‡ Shuckburgh to Stewart, March 11 and 25, 1965, UKNA, FO 371/184393. â•‡ 65.â•‡ DM 4, pp. 354–58.

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

107

â•‡ 66.â•‡ FRUS 1964–1968: 13, pp. 206f. â•‡ 67.â•‡ Ball, Past, pp. 331ff. â•‡ 68.â•‡ Klein to Bundy, May 5, 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin/TX (LBJL), National Security Files (NSF), Country File (CF), Box 171. â•‡ 69.â•‡ Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (AAPD) 1965(2), pp. 973ff.; Bohlen to Rusk, June 3, 1965, LBJL, NSF, CF, Box 171. â•‡ 70.â•‡ Annual Political Appraisal, April 24, 1965, NA, C-M(65)40-E. â•‡ 71.â•‡ Ball to DoS SECUN 4, May 10, 1965, USNA, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File (CFPF), Special Instructions, Box 3283; MemCon Stewart-Ball, May 10, 1965, UKNA, PREM 13/1042. â•‡ 72.â•‡ Ottawa to Ignatieff DL-734, April 14, 1965, Canadian National Archives, Ottawa/ON (CNA), Record Group (RG) 25, 27-4-NATO-1. In general, see Anna Locher, “Crisis? What Crisis?—NATO, de Gaulle, and the Future of the Alliance, 1963– 1966 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2010), chapter 2. â•‡ 73.â•‡ Popper to Schaetzel, April 26, 1965, USNA, RG 59, EUR/RPM, Records relating to NATO Affairs 1959–1966, Box 2; Memo from Defense Liaison (1) Division to Ignatieff, April 9, 1965, CNA, RG 25, 27-4-NATO-12-1965-Spring. â•‡ 74.â•‡ See Verbatim Record of NATO Ministerial Meeting, May 12, 1965, NA, C-VR(65)22. See Locher, Crisis?, chapters 4 and 5. â•‡ 75.â•‡ Briefing Paper for Erhard Visit, May 26, 1965, USNA, RG 59, Conference Files 1949–1972 (CoF), Box 379. â•‡ 76.â•‡ Outline by Barnes, “Future of NATO,” June 21, 1965, UKNA, FO 371/184391. â•‡ 77.â•‡ Andrew Priest, “From hardware to software: The end of the MLF and the rise of the Nuclear Planning Group,” in Transforming NATO in the Cold War, pp.Â€148–61. â•‡ 78.â•‡ Memorandum by Finletter, “A Pressing Problem Confronting the North Atlantic Alliance,” July 12, 1965, LBJL, NSF, Agency File, Box 39. â•‡ 79.â•‡ Roberts to Hood, July 2, 1965, UKNA, FO 115/4629. â•‡ 80.â•‡ Ball, Past, pp. 332f. â•‡ 81.â•‡ Briefing Paper, July 5, 1965, USNA, RG 59, CoF, Box 382. â•‡ 82.â•‡ Bozo, Two Strategies, pp. 133–55. â•‡ 83.â•‡ Finletter to Rusk, July 13, 1965, quoted in Adrian Schertz, Die Deutschlandpolitik Kennedys und Johnsons (Köln: Böhlau, 1992), p. 316. â•‡ 84.â•‡ Scott to Bendall, July 16, 1965, UKNA, FO 115/4629. â•‡ 85.â•‡ Roberts to Gore-Booth, August 27, 1965, UKNA, FO 115/4629; Draft Study, “Frankreich und die Integration in der NATO,” October 4, 1965, Political Archive of the Foreign Office, Berlin (PAAA), B 14 NATO. â•‡ 86.â•‡ Klein to Bundy, June 10, 1965, op. cit. â•‡ 87.â•‡ Hood to Shuckburgh, July 15, 1965, UKNA, FO 115/4629. â•‡ 88.â•‡ Ibid. â•‡ 89.â•‡ MemCon Wilson-Cleveland, October 19, 1965, UKNA, PREM 13/671. â•‡ 90.â•‡ Robert S. Jordan and Michael W. Bloome, Political Leadership in NATO: A Study in Multilateral Diplomacy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), pp. 192f. â•‡ 91.â•‡ MemCon Wilson-Cleveland, October 19, 1965, op. cit. â•‡ 92.â•‡ MemCon Stikker-Rusk, October 16, 1963, NLNA, Stikker papers, Box 58; MemCon Tyler-Stikker, October 16, 1963, USNA, RG 59, Alpha-Numeric File 1963, Box 3696. See Christian Nuenlist and Anna Locher, “Dirk Uipko Stikker,” in Encyclopedia of NATO, ed. Gordon Craig (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio, 2009).

108

Locher and Nuenlist

â•‡ 93.â•‡ Farley to Rusk and Cleveland, October 17, 1965, LBJL, NSF, CF, Box 171. â•‡ 94.â•‡ Bohlen to Ball, June 21, 1965, LBJL, NSF, CF, Box 171; Ball to Bohlen, June 21, 1965, ibid. â•‡ 95.â•‡ FO to Brussels, September 30, 1965, UKNA, PREM 13/1042. â•‡ 96.â•‡ “Meeting with Secretary General Brosio,” October 1, 1965, CNA, RG 25, 27-4-NATO-12-1965-Winter; Bonn to DoS, November 12, 1965, USNA, RG 59, POL 3 1965, Box 1803; AAPD 1965(2), pp. 1716–20. â•‡ 97.â•‡ “Future of NATO: Mr. Spaak’s Idea,” November 23, 1965, CNA, Manuscript Group (MG) 31-E 83, vol. 13; “Committee of Distinguished Personalities,” November 23, 1965, CNA, RG 25, 27-4-NATO-1. â•‡ 98.â•‡ Rostow to Rusk, October 19, 1965, USNA, RG 59, Policy Planning Council (S/PC) 1965–1969, Box 319; “Probleme der NATO,” September 10, 1965, PAAA, B 14 NATO. â•‡ 99.â•‡ MemCon Rusk-Brosio, October 7, 1965, LBJL, NSF Agency File, Box 35. 100.â•‡ MemCon Hood-Leddy-Schaetzel, October 11, 1965, USNA, RG 59, Bureau of European Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Atlantic Affairs, Subject Files 1961–1966, Box 1. 101.â•‡ Bruna Bagnato, “The View of Manlio Brosio,” in Transatlantic Relations at Stake: Aspects of NATO, 1956–1972, ed. Christian Nuenlist and Anna Locher (Zurich: Center for Security Studies, 2006), pp. 165–87. 102.â•‡ Grewe to Schröder, September 4, 1965, PAAA, Büro Staatssekretäre B2, Microfiche 148. 103.â•‡ Lilienfeld to AA, November 2, 1965, PAAA, B 14 NATO. 104.â•‡ Report, “Opinion Trends regarding NATO,” n.d., LBJL, NSF Agency File, Box 35. 105.â•‡ DDF 1965 II, pp. 560f. 106.â•‡ Verbatim Record of NAC Meeting, December 14, 1965, NA, C-VR(65)51. 107.â•‡ Cleveland to Rusk, December 2, 1965, LBJL, NSF, CF, Box 172; Cleveland to Rusk, December 16 and 18, 1965, both ibid. 108.â•‡ FRUS 1964–1968 XIII, pp. 285–88; Cleveland to Rusk, December 2, 1965, LBJL, NSF, CF, Box 172. 109.â•‡ Knappstein to AA, October 20, 1965, PAAA, B 14 NATO. 110.â•‡ Shuckburgh to Hood, January 27, 1966; Minutes by Ledwidge, January 31, 1966, both at UKNA, FO 146/4632. 111.â•‡ DM 1966–1969, 17–19; Bozo, Two Strategies, p. 164; Vaïsse, La grandeur, p.Â€385. 112.â•‡ Shuckburgh to FO, March 2, 1966, UKNA, PREM 13/1042; FRUS 1964–1968 XIII, pp. 318f. 113.â•‡ Gerd Schmückle, “Le général de Gaulle quitte l’organisation militaire de l’OTAN: Réactions et actions de Conseil de l’OTAN,” in De Gaulle et son siècle, vol. 4, ed. Institut Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Plon, 1992), pp. 105–10. 114.â•‡ FRUS 1964–1968 XIII, pp. 325–26. 115.â•‡ Shuckburgh to Stewart 28, March 22, 1966, UKNA FO 146/4632. 116.â•‡ FO to Shuckburgh, April 13, 1966, UKNA, FO 146/4632. 117.â•‡ Jordan, Political Leadership, pp. 196–98. 118.â•‡ Speech by Lange, “Europa und das Atlantische Bündnis heute,” June 7, 1966, PAAA, Büro Staatssekretäre B2.

NATO Strategies toward de Gaulle’s France, 1958–1966

109

119.â•‡ Letter from Birrenbach to Schröder, April 4, 1966, PAAA, B1 Ministerbüro. 120.â•‡ FO to Shuckburgh, April 13, 1966. 121.â•‡ FRUS 1964–1968 XIII, pp. 415–16. 122.â•‡ Cleveland to McCloy, October 18, 1966, LBJL, Subject File, Bator Papers, Box 19. 123.â•‡ Scope Paper, December 7, 1966, LBJL, NSF, International Meetings and Travel File, Box 35. 124.â•‡ De Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope, pp. 202f.

6 Dealing with de Gaulle: The United States and France Carolyne Davidson

There is nothing more constant than France’s policy. . . . This policy’s essential goal is that France be and remain an independent nation. . . . Toward what goal? Toward the goal of balance, of progress and of peace. That does not mean that we desire to remain isolated and that never are we to combine our action with that of others. . . . Independence means that we decide ourselves on what we have to do and with whom, without it being imposed on us —Charles de Gaulle, Press Conference, October 28, 1966

Charles de Gaulle had been the first to identify the potential contradiction on the American position between our advocacy of European integration and our simultaneous nostalgia for continued American leadership. —Charles Cogan, French Negotiating Behaviour, 2003.1

Introduction The enduring tensions in the Franco–American relationship have long been the subject of intensive academic scrutiny. From Alfred Grosser and Michael Harrison’s well-known studies through to Frédéric Bozo’s more recent archival-based research, the rivalry between allies has been well-documented and dissected.2 Thomas Schwartz has used Lyndon Johnson’s careful handling of France to argue LBJ’s foreign policy should not be judged by Vietnam alone; Charles Cogan has diagnosed the cultural incompatibility that he argues makes Franco–American diplomatic relations so challenging, even in the 111

112

Carolyne Davidson

twenty-first century.3 Most recently, James Ellison has argued that the French withdrawal from “military” NATO marked a key turning point in Britain’s relationship with both the United States and Europe.4 Surprisingly, however, there remains a paucity of insight into the U.S. position on France as it evolved through the whole of the 1960s. Individual episodes—from enthusiastic French support for the U.S. during the Cuban Missile Crisis to de Gaulle’s public attack on the dollar in February 1965 and the French withdrawal from NATO’s integrated command structure in March 1966—have garnered attention, but by focussing on episodes alone we risk losing the overall story of Franco–American relations during de Gaulle’s reign (1958– 1969). Furthermore, while it has become increasingly orthodox to demonstrate the disproportionate influence weaker allies held over the U.S. hegemon, one of the aims of this chapter is to put that influence in context. This chapter attempts to trace U.S. policy towards de Gaulle from the twilight of the Eisenhower administration through to the advent of Nixon’s presidency in 1969, while highlighting a key dynamic: America’s need to influence and exercise control in Western Europe, without appearing to dominate the continent. The chapter portrays the 1960s as an era in U.S. diplomatic history where the idea of multilateralism, embodied in NATO as an alliance based on democratic principles, was contested by Charles de Gaulle in a way that forced the U.S. to recognise the tension between the control it wanted to continue to have in Western Europe and the multilateralism on which its credibility rested. U.S. influence was facilitated by NATO because the U.S. could use the alliance as a vehicle for control: decisions, strategic documents, and even intra-alliance disputes were deliberately calculated to emanate from NATO, not the United States. In sum, the U.S. was faced with the challenge of how to adhere to being a partner in an alliance where all states were ostensibly equal, while simultaneously ensuring it retained influence and control when it mattered. De Gaulle was driven by his goal for “France to be and remain an independent nation.”5 Through de Gaulle’s realist-colored glasses, the American determination to uphold the ideal of all allies having an equal say in decisionmaking was a fallacy that was deluding, not unifying, Europe. The damage stemmed from the delegation by European nations of their own national security to an outside power (no matter how benevolent its intentions might be) and from submerging their individual interests to a homogenous bloc. As with national democratic systems, the U.S. anticipated a level of debate and disagreement within the Atlantic alliance. The presumption, however, was that consensus would still be negotiable and, crucially, the U.S. would have a (leading) say in any debate due to its vital contribution to European defense. What was not anticipated was the onslaught U.S. strategy would take from de Gaulle for decades. The French president’s intransigence after he returned to power in 1958 threatened U.S. influence by not

Dealing with de Gaulle

113

just challenging, but rejecting, key tenets of the U.S. approach to NATO and to Europe. At the same time, the U.S. government was restricted in the way it could respond to de Gaulle’s challenge because of the high value it held in maintaining the appearance of NATO as an alliance run along democratic lines. Furthermore, when confronted with the “reluctant” ally, the U.S. was faced with the problem of how to deal with de Gaulle in a manner that respected the French choice to participate in the alliance. More than any other issue, access and control to nuclear weapons illustrated the complex tension between America’s desire for NATO to appear to be a shared enterprise versus the reality (and Congressional mandate) of the need for the U.S. to retain ultimate control over nuclear weapons and the strategy for their use. De Gaulle challenged American control in Europe by developing a French national nuclear deterrent, rejecting military integration in any form, probing the motivation for the multilateral force (MLF), refusing to sign the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and questioning both the credibility and reliability of American nuclear defense of Europe.6 On the other side of the Atlantic, the U.S. government struggled to put together a coherent or convincing counter-strategy that discouraged proliferation, reassured European allies and quashed German fears and ambitions. Charles de Gaulle stalked the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations and made every idea each administration tried to pursue in Europe more challenging to broach and implement. Each president struggled to reconcile de Gaulle’s ideas on the nature of alliances with the American vision of how to pursue their cold war strategy in Europe.

Eisenhower, Dulles, and the origins of de Gaulle’s challenge to the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, of all the American presidents, was perhaps best able to comprehend de Gaulle’s concerns for Europe’s fate. He was also, however, the first president to discover the limits of what he could achieve while maintaining American control and the appearance of a NATO of equals. Eisenhower recognised the bruises left by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s treatment of de Gaulle during the Second World War, and blamed FDR for giving de Gaulle “a complex toward us.”7 It was, however, easier for Eisenhower to blame Roosevelt than it was to prescribe any remedy to cure that “complex.” While NATO’s first supreme allied commander firmly believed in the ideal of a multilateral alliance for running Cold War Europe, Eisenhower was overly optimistic about French willingness to follow America’s strategic lead and commit to the American ideal of an alliance of equals. De Gaulle’s return to power in 1958 received a mixed response in the U.S. Under Secretary of State George Ball (a friend of Jean Monnet and a staunch

114

Carolyne Davidson

integrationist) acknowledged in his memoirs: “I had always been fond of the Fourth Republic; its very weakness had been its most appealing virtue, for it was incapable of resisting accommodation with the larger Europe I thought essential. What would happen with a strong man now striding on the stage?”8 What would happen was hinted at by Jacques Soustelle, a member of de Gaulle’s Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF) party, who was quoted in Life magazine, saying, “France and de Gaulle may not be easy allies, but France will be a strong ally. In the long run a strong ally is better than a weak one.” This attitude went to the heart of the problem with the Franco–American relationship: the U.S. saw strength in a unified Western bloc it could conveniently lead as a unit; de Gaulle saw strength in preventing hegemonic power skewing what he saw as the natural course of international relations by challenging automatic alignment. It was not clear how these two concepts could be reconciled. For de Gaulle a healthy partnership was something that had to embrace rivalry in order to make it strong, in the same kind of way that debate and disagreement is considered an indicator of a robust democratic system. Whether based in the White House, the Pentagon or Foggy Bottom, many U.S. bureaucrats and their Presidents believed the purpose of an alliance was to negate rivalry and disagreement and secure a reliable partnership with the minimum of effort. De Gaulle’s first significant diplomatic move on returning to power was the infamous secret memorandum addressed to Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in September 1958. The memorandum urged “an organisation composed of the United States, Great Britain and France . . . to take joint decisions.”9 Dulles dismissed the idea of a directorate as “wholly unacceptable to the United States.”10 Washington knew as well as de Gaulle, however, that progress in international relations is rarely achieved in large groups and in varying circumstances the tripartite directorate did, in fact, consult and cooperate.11 But a directorate could never be formalised for, as George Ball clarified, “[t]hough groupings for directing the free world might exist in fact, they would be resented if explicitly acknowledged.”12 Resentment amongst the remaining allies, it was feared, would promote the idea the U.S. was trying to dominate Europe and consequently encourage resistance to U.S. influence and undermine what America was trying to achieve in both the short and longer term. The manner in which the U.S. chose to respond to de Gaulle’s 1958 memorandum reveals Dulles’ and Eisenhower’s unwillingness to take on the General directly. Dulles recommended stalling, telling de Gaulle the memorandum “would have to be carefully studied,” and privately confiding, “this study would take quite some time.”13 De Gaulle treated Dulles’ “reply” as the rebuttal it was, and his argument about the U.S. refusal to consider his reform proposals seriously seemed strengthened. Dulles also betrayed a measure of naivety in believing de Gaulle had the same idea of

Dealing with de Gaulle

115

allied solidarity and cohesion that the U.S. had developed: the Secretary of State argued holding an informal tripartite meeting would “open de Gaulle’s eyes [to] major problems and dangers inherent [in] his proposal.”14 De Gaulle, in reality, was little concerned whether his idea of a directorate was a cause for allied concern or not, for the General it represented a better way of ordering the world. For Dulles however, the idea of France having control over U.S. decision-making was insupportable; “we were not averse to explaining our policies anywhere in the world to our friends,” Dulles explained to Italian Prime Minister Fanfani, “but we would not agree to an organism which had authority and perhaps a veto power.”15 Historians have neglected to show that the memorandum to Macmillan and Eisenhower was more than a move designed to increase French influence over the United States or even to set de Gaulle on a course to quit NATO after being denied his wishes.16 In the same month de Gaulle addressed closer cooperation with the U.S. and Britain he also tabled a proposal to his five European partners for closer political cooperation founded on regular meetings between European foreign ministers. De Gaulle declared that, “while avoiding integration . . . France intend[s] to promote European cooperation and organise a sort of European concert.”17 These early seeds of the 1961 Fouchet Plan reflected key tenets of de Gaulle’s longterm vision for European progress outside of any Cold War paradigm.18 The ailing Dulles and his distracted president did not, however, believe they needed to pay much attention to de Gaulle’s “eccentric” behavior and antiquated vision of how the world worked. The State Department’s obsession with the panacea of “modernizing” integration, particularly in relation to the early integration of Western Germany into a Western European bloc, generated a myopic approach toward European policy. National objections (such as those emanating from France) to the “big picture” of an integrated Europe were treated as minor bumps in the road on the way to a destination so alluring that they could be overcome by momentum alone, provided the U.S. remained in the driving seat. Similarly, de Gaulle’s objections to the organization of transatlantic relations were so far from the State Department’s vision of an integrated Atlantic Alliance that they were treated as a peripheral irritation, rather than the concerns of a sovereign leader who remained capable of voting with his feet or developing a competing plan for Europe. Eisenhower’s early concern on de Gaulle’s project for European political cooperation was limited to the development of an independent bloc within NATO that the U.S. would struggle to influence. This was prompted by a series of quarterly European foreign minister meetings that took place amongst the Six in 1960. These meetings did not amount to much, however: there was rampant disagreement on the prospects of British membership of the European Economic Community (EEC), supranationalism, links with NATO and institutionalising political contacts among the Six.19

116

Carolyne Davidson

De Gaulle was right at the center of every disagreement, and the State Department’s confidence that other European nations would curtail de Gaulle’s ambitions seemed well-placed. At Rambouillet in late July 1960, however, it became apparent that de Gaulle’s relationship with Konrad Adenauer had improved exponentially. An apparent decline of U.S. leadership in the waning months of the Eisenhower administration was coupled with de Gaulle’s push for greater Franco–German leadership in Europe.20 This apparent counterbalance to U.S. power in Europe was not what American strategy had envisioned in bringing about Franco–German reconciliation after 1945. The partnership of these two strong states now started to generate concern in the State Department. Although Adenauer continued to disagree with de Gaulle’s assessment of NATO and his ascription of the U.S. as an unreliable partner, the integrationists in Foggy Bottom were put on notice that under a different Chancellor they could face a Franco–German entente that steered Europe in a different direction, and without the United States charting their preferred course. In a September 5th press conference de Gaulle claimed he wanted to have a European grouping in place by the time the new U.S. President took office in 1961, in part to lobby for NATO reform. Moreover, a Quai d’Orsay note revealed de Gaulle wanted to serve notice to “a menacing Soviet Union and a United States that had failed to adapt to changing circumstances.”21 It was not only with closer Franco–German cooperation that U.S. strategy seemed suddenly to be stretching the reach of U.S. influence in Europe. American concern extended to being shut out from another area of European growth initially encouraged by the United States; trade and economic cooperation: “we must be all the more vigilant and purposeful” regarding European trade “if we want to ensure that we are not the victim of a discriminatory arrangement,” recommended Walton Butterworth, U.S. representative to the European Communities.22 This vigilance, however, still did not result in direct engagement with the French president on any front. Instead, the emphasis remained avoiding riling de Gaulle through an overt rebuff because of the fear of what he might do in return: “While it would be unwise to give General de Gaulle a sense of being largely rebuffed,” wrote Butterworth, “his capacity for destructive as well as constructive action must not be lost sight of for he has destroyed the Fourth Republic, parliamentary government in France and is on the way to destroying NATO.”23 Nuclear weapons did more to energize the Eisenhower administration than trade relations, but ultimately resulted in similar inertia. Eisenhower and de Gaulle, two generals familiar with the military domain, shared the philosophy that the U.S. “cannot be a modern Rome guarding the far frontiers with our legions if for no other reason than that these are not, politically, our frontiers.”24 For the U.S., however, the loss of the atomic monopoly in 1949, the Berlin blockade and the Korean War forced recognition that the

Dealing with de Gaulle

117

militarization of NATO and the American commitment to the organization would be essential elements of the Cold War strategy for Europe. For de Gaulle increasing American entrenchment sowed the seeds of future catastrophe. With the firmer assertion of U.S. involvement came no commensurate measures to enhance consultation and coordination for nuclear defense. Eisenhower understood that in order for Europe to defend itself the continent would require access to nuclear weapons.25 The clear preference however was for control of those weapons to remain in American hands. Congress had already enmeshed the Executive Office in a web of legislation to inhibit American-sponsored nuclear proliferation.26 Eisenhower was caught in the conundrum of really wanting Europe to defend itself so that U.S. troop numbers could be reduced, but wanting to avoid nuclear proliferation and any risk of Western Europe one day having the capability to provoke nuclear war. For de Gaulle, the decision to continue the Fourth Republic’s atomic research was easy, whether or not America was prepared to help. The French president believed nuclear weapons were key to French autonomy and, at the same time, enhanced his preferred vision of an alliance between the U.S., the UK, and France. Those three countries alone shared “a certain force of atomic power. . . . If one wants to organize the defense of the West, one must work through those three powers.”27 Dulles initially believed he could persuade de Gaulle to align with U.S. nuclear policy through offering the installation of tactical nuclear weapons on French soil, and training for the French military in their use. Armed with a “talking paper” that did not anticipate much “discussion” beyond a briefing of American intentions, Dulles tried to be conciliatory in his meeting with the General in 1958.28 But his main caveat—the renouncement by France of its nuclear program—repudiated any chance of reconciliation. The Pentagon was convinced that once the General realized the costs involved in developing an independent nuclear deterrent he would be persuaded to contribute instead to a common NATO or American-sponsored and controlled European capability. The Secretary of State’s approach betrayed a serious misunderstanding of the General’s concerns about independence and the role of nuclear weapons in Europe. Dulles even suggested that France could take up the nonproliferation initiative in NATO to prevent others considering an independent nuclear capability. Notably absent from the archives documenting the extensive preparation for his first official meeting with de Gaulle is any discussion of the General’s visceral dislike of military integration, and his reasoning; easily apparent from his ardent rejection (while out of office), of the European Defence Community (EDC).29 Dulles, and his successor Christian Herter, never resolved any means of deterring de Gaulle from pursuing a national deterrent, nor did Eisenhower succeed in squaring the circle and establishing a means of providing Europe with the ability to defend itself rather than rely on the long-term support of

118

Carolyne Davidson

American forces and materiel. However, the beginnings of the Multilateral Force (MLF) concept had emerged under Robert Bowie of the Policy Planning Staff, and it was this idea (along with de Gaulle’s realization of a French nuclear deterrent) that would be left to Eisenhower’s successor. John F. Kennedy was to come to power facing a newly emboldened French president, freed from the practical restraints of the colonial fight in Algeria, and clearer than ever about what he wanted, and what he did not. It was time for the United States to stake out a clearer direction on how to deal with de Gaulle.

John F. Kennedy and the “Grand Design” that wasn’t For John F. Kennedy the solution to Franco–American tension was for the U.S. to lead more assertively, squeezing out space for disagreement. But with Kennedy’s high rhetoric in his July 4th “declaration of interdependence” and the various components that were considered to make up the “Grand Design,” the new President staked his credibility on making transatlantic relations progress. Kennedy developed an extraordinary level of paranoia about de Gaulle’s future plans. Arguments over the dollar, the MLF and the Nassau agreement negotiated with the UK brought Franco–American relations to a hard-to-control boil. All three issues touched on questions of control and competing visions of Western Europe’s role in the cold war world. De Gaulle’s loyalty to the American cause during the Cuban Missile Crisis pales against the trend of tense relations from 1960 to 1963.30 A memorandum drawn up in May 1961, prior to John F. Kennedy’s first meetings with de Gaulle, emphasised the need to focus on “the political over the military aspect of the alliance,” and concluded “while once [de Gaulle] had absolutely no use for the alliance and would have been prepared to pull out completely, he is now prepared to tolerate it—but with minimal support.”31 De Gaulle’s “toleration,” however, stemmed from the shift in his focus toward his project for a more autonomous Europe. For the United States, however, the alliance was what they wanted front and center of European strategy, as the secret National Security Action Memorandum 40 (1961) made clear, “[t]he political nexus between North America and Western Europe—i.e., the Atlantic Community—is and must continue to be the foundation of U.S. foreign policy.”32 Kennedy’s competitive and ambitious personality was far different from that of Eisenhower’s and it spilled over into his priorities for the U.S. in Europe. JFK wanted to move from nonaction to protect European sensibilities, to proaction, in order to seize the initiative in Europe. Dean Rusk seemed to concur; in May 1961 he reported his “reflections on [his] first NATO Ministerial Conference” including, “our decision to encourage effec-

Dealing with de Gaulle

119

tive consultation by talking less about how to consult and just starting consulting has paid off.”33 De Gaulle’s push to lead Europe in turn involved a direct effort to seize the initiative from the Kennedy administration. The very idea that an American president could consider it appropriate to conceive of a “Grand Design” or “Declaration of Interdependence” for Europe spoke to de Gaulle’s fears for European autonomy. Kennedy came to the presidency determined to oppose any “special” role for France in the Alliance. The U.S. President was certain he could prevent French obstruction by putting America in a position to lead the alliance more assertively. Hervé Alphand may have suggested that while de Gaulle and Kennedy “had differences of opinion on many subjects . . . there was no difference of principle.”34 But differences over the way allied relations should work were principled in Paris and Washington. De Gaulle was Kennedy’s most significant point of friction within the “Grand Design” and Kennedy’s vision left no room for that friction to result in anything other than tension. The U.S. approach to dealing with France across the Kennedy and Johnson administrations was marked by considerable continuity in the advisors and staff of the two presidents.35 A band of State Department personnel earned the collective noun, “theologians” for their devotion to the cause of European integration. Despite the formidable team dedicated to European issues, both Johnson and Kennedy also turned to former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to write a report on first, NATO (1961) and later NATO and France (1966). Acheson’s more aggressive approach to taking an active leadership role in Europe resonated with Kennedy’s ideas on how to approach Europe in particular.36 There was also a level of nostalgia for more “successful” alliance days, when the Washington Treaty had first been signed. The 1961 Acheson Report, “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future,” included a new anxiety that pressed on Kennedy in particular, delivering stark warnings on the emerging balance of payments crisis. Kennedy’s concern was demonstrated, in turn, by his direction to the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to prepare a report on “Why Europe grows faster than the U.S.?”37 As both Pascaline Winand and Erin Mahan have documented recently, fiscal problems and trade became central, under Kennedy in particular, to understanding the dynamics of the American approach toward de Gaulle and the Atlantic Alliance.38 Winand points out that while Eisenhower “believed in streamlining American expenses both at home and abroad,” his Democratic successors, “sought to . . . promote full employment and reduce the level of the balance-of-payments deficit, while increasing defense spending . . . . This was an impossible task unless America’s friends helped.”39 Solidarity was expected, this time in the economic domain, as well as the political and the military. From 1960 and the gold crisis the French president had been gearing up to attack what David Calleo has de-

120

Carolyne Davidson

scribed as a “hegemonic monetary system.”40 As Francis Gavin has shown, there was a close interconnection between the balance of payments crisis and the escalation of tensions in Franco–American relations. “France,” Gavin demonstrates, “fully aware of America’s balance-of-payments problems, seemed willing to use its monetary power in any political dispute.”41 Frank Costigliola has argued that by 1963 there was abundant evidence that “American officials believed French independence conflicted with U.S. interests.” This argument needs to be properly assessed alongside Kennedy’s belief that, “de Gaulle’s strategy [of independence] require[d] a certain tension with the United States.”42 Kennedy did attempt to foster a more constructive Franco–American relationship by commissioning another State Department report entitled “A New Approach to France.”43 Again, however, initiating a report was very different from pursuing specific policies to ameliorate the relationship, and no new approach emerged. The report recommended engineering the impression of greater participation in control over American nuclear weapons, while contriving to ensure it never became a reality. The stalling tactics that had marked the Eisenhower administration resounded again.44 This chimera of engagement and sharing found its home with the MLF. In a speech to the Canadian Parliament in 1961, Kennedy took the earlier idea developed by Robert Bowie and expanded it into an American commitment of five Polaris submarines to the NATO command, with a view to establishing a force “truly multilateral in ownership and control . . . once NATO’s non-nuclear goals have been achieved.”45 This last caveat followed the State Department recommendation that the U.S. should ensure the appearance of progress, without actually conceding control.46 The MLF in itself, with caveats or not, would probably have had more chance of success if discussion on the project had not been subsumed in Western European anxiety about the Pentagon’s new push for flexible response. 47 This strategy promoted the use of conventional means of defense before escalating—if necessary—to the use of nuclear weapons. In conjunction with a renewed push for the MLF, the U.S. also resurrected the old tactic of asking France to assign any nuclear forces it developed to NATO. The tension between autonomy and control again generated an uncomfortable level of heat in allied relations which, because de Gaulle prevented dissipation under the smoke of “new” ideas, spilt over into other transatlantic issues. The “theologians,” equally doggedly pursued the MLF scheme, making it the main hope for preventing the development of German nuclear weapons and reducing the resentment of continuing U.S. control.48 The “French problem” was cast as the root of the “German (nuclear) problem.” George Ball, for example, described how he was won over to the concept of the MLF because “as the French increasingly flaunted their force de frappe as a badge of great power status” he “began to fear that the

Dealing with de Gaulle

121

Germans might . . . develop a sense of grievance.”49 Amidst the deadlock that emerged, the U.S. Department of Defense seized the initiative. By the beginning of Kennedy’s term the fear in Europe widened that as the U.S. built up conventional forces in Europe, the more likely they would be to choose a limited war than a nuclear response to defend the continent. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had little time or sympathy for these anxieties or their effect on allied relations. In a widely reported speech early in 1962 he condemned the British and French nuclear forces as “dangerous, expensive, prone to obsolescence, and lacking credibility as a deterrent.”50 McNamara developed a set of guidelines which were adopted by NATO. These recommended greater consultations but with a caveat of “time and circumstances permitting,” revealing where control would remain in practice.51 De Gaulle, in turn, remained more convinced than ever of the need for an operational French nuclear deterrent. De Gaulle may have lost his first battle for leadership in Europe with the failure of the Fouchet Plan, which sought (under French direction) to delineate European defense efforts from those of NATO, but the U.S. was alarmed by the degree to which France had emerged more vituperative and clear in its aims than ever before.52 The U.S. did not share that clarity. On July 4, 1962 Kennedy tried to emphasise once again “a mutually beneficial partnership” based on “full equality.”53 On the other hand, in a meeting between Alphand and Walt Rostow, the head of the Policy Planning staff acknowledged reality as he saw it: “whether its allies want it or not, [the U.S.] must play its role as leader and impose its will when the superior interest of the West required it.”54 In the winter of 1962, the debacle at Nassau over the supply of Polaris missiles for British submarines (as a replacement for the cancelled Skybolt air-launched missile) saw Kennedy caught between the desire to demonstrate the equal treatment of allies he had espoused, and the necessity of mollifying the British. The President, in difficult circumstances, concluded some allies were more equal than others and cut a special nuclear deal with Harold Macmillan. Macmillan, in turn, ostensibly reduced British nuclear autonomy. De Gaulle was incensed, condemning the British as “no longer worthy of being considered a free country.”55 The French reaction had been predictable and yet the U.S. mishandled it. Charles Bohlen’s first task as the new ambassador to France was, as a means of appeasement, to offer de Gaulle the same deal the British had negotiated. Bohlen himself recognized however that it “might be a fine public-relations idea, but to de Gaulle it would not seem generous because the French still lacked the means of building a nuclear submarine and could not manufacture the warhead to go on the Polaris missile.”56 While Kennedy and Bohlen talked hopefully about pushing through an amendment to the MacMahon Act (which prevented giving aid to France to help them develop the capa-

122

Carolyne Davidson

bilities they would need to manufacture Polaris), de Gaulle was more pragmatic about what Congress would permit and responded accordingly. The MLF and Nassau fiasco exemplified the general approach taken by Kennedy based on his belief that with more forceful leadership Western Europe would awake to the necessity for change as defined by the U.S. Straightforward consultations—or at least briefings—with European partners, he hoped, would lead to agreement on American proposals from the defense domain to planning for the 1964 Kennedy Round of trade negotiations. There were, however, a number of problems with Kennedy’s preferred approach if it was to broach both the need to reassure the allies of America’s commitment to Europe and not just reassert American control. The Acheson Report had affirmed the Atlantic Community ideal as an alliance of “equals” but simultaneously emphasized the leading role the U.S. should play. It did not, however, establish how “leadership” and “equality” could be reconciled. Acheson supported a high threshold for the use of nuclear weapons in Europe, a necessary condition for the move toward flexible response, but the former Secretary of State also emphasized the need to reassure the allies regarding America’s security guarantee. But Acheson omitted to outline how the U.S. could reassure France and the European allies that the end of massive retaliation did not weaken the U.S. commitment to defend Europe and avoid appearing to push a strategy that was in American interests alone. The same day Kennedy delivered his third State of the Union speech, January 14, 1963, de Gaulle gave his own speech on the state of the Atlantic and European communities. The French President vetoed British entry into the EEC and rejected Kennedy’s nuclear deal. Beyond his infamous ‘double non’ de Gaulle again spoke in terms that associated the European and Atlantic projects. The French president argued British membership would create a “colossal Atlantic Community under U.S. direction and leadership,” which would, in turn, “quickly absorb the European Communities.” Far from being purely a nihilist vision however, de Gaulle also painted a picture of a Western Europe beyond American influence which could then foster détente.57 Writing to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Kennedy dismissed de Gaulle’s vision as a “dream world,” and in a later phone call the U.S. President reiterated that de Gaulle had “gone crazy . . . [a]bsolutely crazy . . . taking us all back twenty years.” But the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ were more embedded than ever in the reality of a very immediate Gaullist challenge, and it was de Gaulle that was most obviously pushing the status quo in an increasingly restless Europe.58 Kennedy was warned that while the Cuban Missile Crisis had enhanced America’s “stature” it had also “increased the fear that by our own local action we might quite literally bring an end to Europe. These questions are spoken only by our opponent de Gaulle, but they are felt among our friends.”59

Dealing with de Gaulle

123

Just over two weeks after de Gaulle’s press conference came another blow. Whether it was the combination of recent events or anxiety over a Franco– German–Soviet entente, Washington’s reaction to the 1963 Elysée Treaty between France and Germany was one of furious shock, and “[t]here were wild rumors of a plan to pave the way for France, with Bonn’s assistance to negotiate with Moscow for a whole new European arrangement.”60 Germany was astonished by the vigor of the U.S. response and agreed quickly to add a preamble to the Treaty emphasizing the ascendancy of NATO. The “clouds of conspiracy” dissipated, but left the U.S. wary of what storm de Gaulle would provoke next.61 In February 1963, David Bruce, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, completed a report Kennedy had commissioned, reviewing “certain of our leading policies toward Europe” including, “the continuing problem of our relations with France,” and giving recommendations on “limiting the damage that may be done to our policy and to the alliance by de Gaulle’s commitment to purposes which are not readily aligned with ours.”62 First on his list was the exclusion of the UK from the Common Market: De Gaulle had clearly established a damaging way to disrupt U.S. strategy. Bruce’s key recommendation, however, aligned closely with de Gaulle’s own wishes; “the United States must make more clear its willingness to treat a united Europe as an equal partner and break the present European dependence and U.S. predominance in the relationship.”63 The theologians were not to have the last say. To Kennedy, French independence conflicted with U.S. interests, but while the U.S. viewed de Gaulle’s actions as damaging, the French president viewed them as critical to national survival. Behind the grace and glamour of Jacqueline Kennedy and her husband’s Paris reception in 1961, the high rhetoric of Kennedy’s speech of interdependence and the genuine sense of tragedy felt in France after the Kennedy assassination, lay the reality—as de Gaulle saw it—that Americans “could not conceive of their policy ceasing to be predominant or ours of diverging from it.”64 Historian Erin Mahan has most clearly shown that Kennedy was “battled to a standstill,” not only because of de Gaulle’s obstructionism, but because the “Grand Design,” for all its rhetorical coherence, was bereft of a clear strategic direction and a victim of Kennedy’s “tendency to improvise.”65 The contrast between the two presidents was stark. De Gaulle had a strategy, one that extended from the military to the monetary and from nuclear policy to European political cooperation. Kennedy—under pressure—did not. An undeniable level of paranoia had crept into Kennedy’s mind by 1962. This concern embraced everything from UK–France cooperation on the supersonic airplane, Concord, with Kennedy arguing, “if the French initiate active measures against us, [we] do not want our air transport companies to have to go begging to France,” to “the danger of Germany ultimately acquiring control over nuclear bombs through a joint Franco–German program.”66

124

Carolyne Davidson

De Gaulle expanded his assault beyond the European continent also, including U.S. policy in Latin America and Southeast Asia. As one analyst wrote in 1965, de Gaulle’s critics came to see him as “a dog in the manger at Brussels, a lion in the path of NATO, and something of a rogue elephant in the Far East.”67 Fundamentally, these disagreements were driven by differing viewpoints on decision-sharing and the future direction of the Cold War. There were not just “two strategies for Europe” as Bozo has shown, but two—differing—strategies for the world and the way it was run. Kennedy was focussed on the shorter term and was far more disposed to continue to think of the Cold War in both ideological and pragmatic terms. De Gaulle retained his belief that the Soviets would one day throw off the ideological mantle and behave fundamentally as a nation state primarily concerned with its own security and within its existing borders. The essential consequence of the Franco–American clash over the best means of conceiving of international relations was that, in Couve de Murville’s words, “Franco–American relations . . . really deteriorated” during the thousand days of the Kennedy administration.68

Lyndon B. Johnson and a new modus vivendi Lyndon Johnson was faced in 1963 with the reality of France in the process of withdrawing from NATO and, it was rumoured, the Atlantic Alliance too. The resurgent ‘theologians’ grasped the opportunity to resurrect the idea of MLF and press it on the former vice president, taking advantage of his pledge to continue to do what Kennedy had planned, without being certain what that was.69 By the end of 1964 however, Johnson had realized that pushing the MLF was damaging America’s role in Europe (and Johnson’s credibility) more than enhancing it: “If we’re inciting the Russians, if we’ve set de Gaulle on fire . . . if we’re forcing the British and not satisfying the Germans, and only getting 30 votes in the Senate—then the hell with it,” accepted Johnson.70 Increasingly, the White House (if not the State Department) understood that rather than engage de Gaulle, distance might work as the best sedative for Franco–American relations. Johnson’s private arguments were publicly echoed in West Germany. The CDU-CSU majority in the German Bundestag decided that antagonizing de Gaulle, particularly with the MLF, was hurting European relations, and rejected the MLF in October 1964.71 Furthermore, while the MLF was finally being shelved, the French rejected the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). De Gaulle argued the NPT was a superfluous distraction from the real problems at hand.72 In rejecting the Treaty de Gaulle was making a deeper political point that would resurface as détente continued to unfold: smaller states had to be wary of being held hostage to inter-bloc negotiations that directly affected European security.

Dealing with de Gaulle

125

In part to demonstrate that he was not a hostage to bloc decisions, de Gaulle recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the beginning of 1964. China, in de Gaulle’s mind, was leading the way in breaking down the monolithic blocs of the cold war world by distancing itself from the Soviet Union. On the U.S. side, Johnson took de Gaulle’s recognition of China as further evidence that the U.S. lacked the means to influence de Gaulle’s actions and trying to do so was only worsening relations.73 The State Department, at last, agreed. At least in the context of the recognition of China, “[t]o attack de Gaulle would only have further enflamed French nationalism and offended French pride.”74 On March 7, 1966 de Gaulle made his next move in a game of chess for which he seemed to have mapped out the strategy, if not every play, as much as a decade previously. Johnson was served a handwritten eviction notice which announced France’s intention “to recover the entire exercise of her sovereignty over her territory . . . to terminate her participation in ‘integrated’ commands and no longer to place her forces at the disposal of NATO.”75 The second blow was the General’s insistence thatÂ€ allÂ€ foreign troops—which principally meant U.S. troops—would have to leave French territory or fall under French command by April 1967. Based on interviews with Francis Bator, a senior member of the NSC, Thomas Schwartz suggests that as early as October 1965 the battle lines were drawn in the Johnson administration on how to handle a French withdrawal.76 The divisions that emerged exemplified the differing approaches to France between State, the Pentagon, and the White House that had been building since de Gaulle’s return to power. George Ball and Robert McNamara were determined that France should be told that if de Gaulle pursued a withdrawal the country would no longer have the Article V protection provided by NATO. Ball was determined NATO should remain the core of U.S. policy and the French threat had to be contained by punishing de Gaulle. Dean Rusk concurred, but was more concerned about the potential for a German backlash than NATO itself. McNamara saw an opportunity to draw down U.S. troops from Europe in the face of unwillingness in Germany and throughout the Continent to shoulder enough of the burden of their own defense, but the State Department viewed the possibility of a reduction in the U.S. military presence in Europe as equally damaging as the French withdrawal. Finally, at the White House, a different pitch was made to the President. After de Gaulle’s letter arrived on Johnson’s desk, Francis Bator and Robert Komer, both NSC special advisors, banded with McGeorge Bundy to ensure that Johnson, not Rusk and Ball, took control of the U.S. response. Bundy pointed out that Ball’s Article V suggestion would achieve nothing, because de Gaulle knew the geography of Europe guaranteed the U.S. would intervene if there was a military threat.

126

Carolyne Davidson

Komer put the situation starkly in a memorandum to Johnson; “Do we want a full-blown war with de Gaulle?”77 Komer emphasized careful review of Acheson’s proposal that “we must seek to strengthen NATO by something new, so that we don’t end up with ‘the same old NATO slightly weaker,’” warning that if the “something new” was a return to the MLF, including German access to nuclear weapons, the remaining allies might be so alarmed that the “road toward strengthening NATO may help bring about precisely what we want to avoid.”78 Instead, Komer argued, it was time to look at the history of the relationship with de Gaulle. That history suggested the U.S. should “stop, look and listen before flinging down the gauntlet.”79 Johnson did elect to stop, look, and consult with the remaining NATO allies before making his next move. The U.S. was left to persuade the fourteen that NATO, not France, remained the most reliable, credible, and secure way forward in the Cold War world. By necessity, it seemed, America would have to reassess whether the status quo it favored by the mid 1960s in Europe, was both sustainable and desirable.80 Should NATO even remain the central plank of U.S. policy toward Europe? The U.S. public also needed to be persuaded. 1966 marked a time where Western Europe was growing in power and confidence, while the United States was becoming more and more bogged down in Vietnam. Komer warned LBJ that he could be accused of losing “two wars instead of one.”81 American public opinion might not tolerate the ignominy of both the increasing struggle in Vietnam and losing a battle with de Gaulle for the leadership of Europe. The NATO allies were now to fight a different battle alongside their American leader; a battle to turn an existential threat into an opportunity for progress, a chance to demonstrate American commitment and a re-investment in an organization that had reached a stalemate. Helga Haftendorn, Frédéric Bozo, and Andreas Wenger have all demonstrated how a potential crisis was turned into an opportunity for renewal by the U.S. and they give positive assessments of the outcome, particularly for the United States, after 1966.82 To varying degrees the allies interpreted the French withdrawal as entirely selfish and an enormous betrayal, but all were tremendously concerned that the move could bring an end to NATO. While there was relief at the declared intention to remain in the Atlantic alliance, de Gaulle’s delineation between the alliance and its military organization was largely dismissed as evidence only of the French determination to take what they wanted and ignore the destabilizing effects the withdrawal had provoked. In reality, the delineation should have demonstrated de Gaulle’s precise objectives and their limits; the rejection of integration but not alliance; the rejection of subordination but not an American role in Europe. Within NATO, France acceded to the idea that she would continue to play a role in the Alliance and helped come up with an organizational solution: the Defense Planning Committee would sit as fourteen, without France,

Dealing with de Gaulle

127

while at the political level France would continue to sit on the North Atlantic Council. As Bozo points out, this compromise “satisfied Washington even though the United States thereby came to ratify implicitly the French distinction between NATO and the Alliance that until then it had ceaselessly contested.”83 The U.S. was, however, successful in formalizing the fact that France no longer had any right to “block or delay any progress in fields or activities to which she [did] not contribute.”84 This worried the Quai d’Orsay less than a closer partnership between the U.S. and Germany that now seemed to be emerging. American leadership was for Johnson, as much as it had been for Kennedy, the answer to the ills of the transatlantic relationship. Johnson, however, realized that the only way that leadership could be effective would be to accept NATO with a semi-detached France, and not just as a least-bad but, in fact, a better option for the future. Johnson accepted total allied unity was as artificial as a totally united U.S. Congress. Though bipartisan agreement might still be reached, there would always be some degree of divide. The Harmel Report of 1967 followed up on the final formal adoption of flexible response with the eventual acceptance of an American-led NATO embracing both deterrence and détente.85 The U.S. had, to an important degree, successfully reconciled the need for control—or at least influence—with consultation, through the manner in which the Harmel discussions were initiated (by “small” ally Belgium), and conducted (in various multinational task forces). The reconstituted emergence of NATO was considered a triumph in the U.S. In general, the allies seemed to feel like stakeholders in their future inside the Atlantic alliance once again. The collaborative basis of the alliance had been reasserted, leaving Johnson confident he could influence Europe when it mattered and allowing de Gaulle the freedom to cooperate as and when necessary, particularly during any future conflict. Johnson had no grand vision for Europe or NATO, and this may have helped him handle de Gaulle. He was far more flexible in his approach than Kennedy, because he was far less invested in ensuring France toe the Alliance line or commit to any overarching scheme or traditional American ideal of how allied solidarity should function. Johnson found—and accepted—the limits of a democratic alliance; allies could not be forced (or coerced) into fighting America’s war in Vietnam; France could not be punished for choosing not to participate in the integrated military core of NATO or required to permit American troops on French soil; France retained the sovereign right to recognize another nation, as de Gaulle did with the People’s Republic of China. If Johnson had chosen to berate Charles de Gaulle publicly, to withdraw (with no more than symbolic effect) NATO Article V protection in event of an attack on France, or to demand immediate financial compensation for the costly withdrawal of U.S. troops and the re-location of SHAPE from Paris

128

Carolyne Davidson

to Mons in 1967, he would have undermined the democratic spirit of the Atlantic Alliance and NATO as a voluntary alliance.

Conclusion For an ally—a Western European democracy no less—to question, disagree, disrupt, and obstruct as overtly as de Gaulle chose to do, was a genuine shock to successive U.S. administrations. Each presidency, from Eisenhower to Johnson, struggled to understand and handle the Gaullist challenge. For de Gaulle, disagreement demonstrated—in part—the degree to which France was invested in making the Atlantic alliance work, both for Europe and the United States. De Gaulle saw his behavior as engagement in the normal rough and tumble of international affairs: Eisenhower and Kennedy, Dulles, Herter, and Rusk, often took de Gaulle’s actions as a personal affront and viewed his behavior as an injurious anti-American reflex. Johnson also fell into this camp at times, but his experience in the Senate had perhaps better prepared him to weather de Gaulle’s behavior and accept it as that of a fellow politico engaged in the great game of international politics. Johnson and de Gaulle were two staunch political operators with a great deal of experience in handling political disagreements. As Robert Dallek has described, “Johnson’s more than thirty years in politics told him that people did not act out of affection for others but rather for reasons of self-interest or concern.”86 De Gaulle was very much cast in the same mold. It seems appropriate therefore, that it was these two leaders who made the most progress in re-constituting the Franco–American bargain between autonomy and control. It is, however, worth emphasizing that de Gaulle was very much the instigator of change, with LBJ left to choose only how to react. It was not until Richard Nixon’s administration that personal relations between a U.S. President and Charles de Gaulle seemed to improve, and at a political level (particularly regarding economic policy) stark disagreement remained. In the transition files for Johnson’s handover to Nixon, however, France surfaces repeatedly as a concern but also as an opportunity to push for more productive relations. Nowhere, however, is the possibility of France being pressed toward re-joining NATO advocated. Richard Nixon’s first presidential visit overseas was to Europe and he recorded in his memoirs that “the high point of this trip personally and substantively was my series of meetings with de Gaulle.”87 In his book Leaders, written after he resigned, Richard Nixon ranked de Gaulle “second only to Churchill” and Henry Kissinger too has ranked de Gaulle as the single most skilled leader in pursuing a grand strategy based on national interest.88 Nixon and Kissinger would also, however, face the key challenge of how to retain a measure of control over Europe without being accused of domina-

Dealing with de Gaulle

129

tion. Détente and Ostpolitik in Europe, as well as the push for a European security conference and further arms limitations would raise familiar concerns on both sides of the Atlantic. Even after de Gaulle’s death in 1970, the tension between an increasing European desire for détente and the U.S. imperative to stay involved in European decision-making and influencing events (with the preferred forum being NATO) endured. No consideration was given in the United States as to whether NATO was worth saving in 1966; that was presumed. Rather than the dual containment of Germany and the Soviet Union however, NATO’s ongoing existence after 1967 seemed to be justified in the U.S. on the basis of the need to ensure Western Europe did not negotiate its own relationship with the communist East. The relationship between de Gaulle and successive U.S. presidents through the 1960s merits study because it reveals much about the limits of what the U.S. was willing to accept in terms of allied influence, combined with the limits the U.S. imposed on itself in terms of its leadership of the alliance. It was always in the American interest (at home and abroad) not to be perceived as dominating Western Europe, but the differing expectations of what “alliance” meant in practice complicated the conduct of Franco–American relations. In 1966, the U.S. did not anticipate that France would remain outside of NATO’s integrated command structures forty one years later: the consensus lingered that the more virulent form of French obstructionism would rest in peace with de Gaulle at his death. In fact, an entente was constructed that was arguably better suited to the American and French competing visions of the way they wanted transatlantic relations to work. The endurance of that entente arguably attests to its suitability for both sides. With Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent push for a full return of France to NATO, that entente will be tested.89 It will be interesting to see whether the history of Franco–American disagreement on how transatlantic multilateralism should work is destined to repeat itself, or whether the balance between autonomy and control, democracy, and influence, can be re-negotiated for the twenty first century.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Press Conference, October 28, 1966, in French Foreign Policy (FFP), Official Statements, Speeches and Communiqués, (New York: Ambassade de France, 1967). Charles Cogan, French Negotiating Behaviour: Dealing with La Grande Nation (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2003), p. 132. â•‡ 2.â•‡ Alfred Grosser, Affaires exteÌ†rieures: la politique de la France, 1944–1984 (Paris: Flammarion, 1984) and The Western Alliance: European–American relations since 1945 (New York: Continuum, 1980). Michael Harrison, The Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1981). Frédéric Bozo,

130

Carolyne Davidson

Two Strategies for Europe: de Gaulle, the U.S., and the Atlantic Alliance (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001). â•‡ 3.â•‡ Thomas Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (London: Harvard University Press, 2003). Cogan, French Negotiating Behaviour. â•‡ 4.â•‡ James Ellison, The United States, Britain and the Transatlantic Crisis. Rising to the Gaullist Challenge, 1963-1968, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). â•‡ 5.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Press Conference, October 28, FFP, 1966. â•‡ 6.â•‡ It must be noted that de Gaulle merely continued and advanced the Fourth Republic’s nuclear project. See, for example, William Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Stability in Europe, 1945-1954 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). France eventually signed the NPT in 1992. â•‡ 7.â•‡ Cyrus Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants, (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p. 14. â•‡ 8.â•‡ George Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern (New York: Norton, 1982), p. 156–57. â•‡ 9.â•‡ Memorandum, de Gaulle to Eisenhower, September 17, 1958, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, John Foster Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda series, box 6. For a discussion of the motivations behind the memorandum see, Maurice Vaïsse, “Indépendence et solidarité, 1958-1963,” in Vaïsse, Mélandri, and Bozo (eds.), La France et l’OTAN, (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1996), p. 219. 10.â•‡ Memorandum of Conversation (MemCon), September 27, 1958, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Department of State (D/S), Secretary’s MemCon, Lot 64 D 199. 11.â•‡ See both the Washington meetings held in February and April 1959 and the “Live Oak” discussions on Berlin. The State Department took care with both sets of talks to deny they had any official nature. 12.â•‡ Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern, p. 259. 13.â•‡ MemCon, Boston, September 27, 1958, NARA, D/S, Secretary’s MemCons, Lot 64 D 199. 14.â•‡ Telegram from David Bruce to the Department of State, Bonn, October 9, 1958, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), vol. VII, part 2, Document 159, p. 362. 15.â•‡ MemCon, Paris, December 16, 1958, NARA, D/S, Conference Files, Lot 64 D 560, CF 1169. 16.â•‡ See Vaisse, p. 219. 17.â•‡ Ministère des Affaires Etrangère (MAE), Note, September 6, 1958, Europe (1944–1960). 18.â•‡ Further on this see Jeffrey Glen Giauque, Grand Designs and Visions of Unity, The Atlantic Powers and the Reorganisation of Western Europe, 1955–1963, (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 2007). 19.â•‡ See further, Giauque, p. 131 ff. 20.â•‡ De Gaulle-Adenauer conversations, July 29–30, 1960, Documents diplomatiques français (DDF), vol. 19, p. 163. 21.â•‡ Note, July 26, 1960, MAE, Common Market, Box 7. 22.â•‡ Telegram from the Mission at the European Communities to the Department of State, September 9, 1960, FRUS, vol. VII, part 1, 1958–1960, Document 122, p. 297. 23.â•‡ Ibid., p. 297.

Dealing with de Gaulle

131

24.â•‡ Letter from Eisenhower to Bermingham, February 28, 1951, Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, vol. 12, part I, chpt I, pp. 76–77. 25.â•‡ See Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement 1945–1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), particularly chapters 4 and 5. 26.â•‡ The MacMahon Act was passed in 1946, and though amended several times, remained a strong expression of Congressional distaste for aiding any development of nuclear weaponry. 27.â•‡ De Gaulle quoted in Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants, p. 53. 28.â•‡ Drafts of ‘Talking Paper,’ Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (DDEL), John Foster Dulles Papers (JFD), Selected Correspondence, Box 127. 29.â•‡ De Gaulle’s principal criticisms were given in several speeches (prior to his return to power) including a press conference in February 1952 where he linked his criticisms of the EDC to his criticism of NATO. 30.â•‡ Historians have been guilty of focusing solely on the Cuban Missile Crisis and claiming that when it came down to it de Gaulle’s bluster concealed ready loyalty. I would argue the Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrates something a little more subtle. De Gaulle may have assured Dean Acheson that the U.S. had unreserved French support because the U.S. was an ally—and that may seem to fit exactly with how the U.S. expected an alliance to work—bear in mind the U.S. had made all the important decisions it was simply briefing the French president on what it was doing. But de Gaulle’s attitude in 1962 perhaps demonstrates less his automatic loyalty and more his belief that solidarity and autonomy were not mutually exclusive. De Gaulle believed he could meld a policy of national independence and solidarity with his “famille occidentale” when essential interests were at stake, and this was the basis of his unquestioning support in the Cuban Missile Crisis. 31.â•‡ Sulzberger, Last of the Giants, p. 21 (emphasis in original). 32.â•‡ Policy Directive, Washington, April 20, 1961, NARA, D/S, NSAMs, Lot 72 D316, NSAM 40. 33.â•‡ Telegram from Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of State, Oslo, MayÂ€10, 1961, FRUS 1961–1963, XIII, p. 301. 34.â•‡ Hervé Alphand, recorded interview, October 14, 1964, p. 4, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts (JFKL), Oral History Program. 35.â•‡ Robert McNamara would serve both presidents as secretary of defense. Dean Rusk served as secretary of state for both Kennedy and Johnson, and George Ball, Averell Harriman, Cyrus Vance, and Roswell Gilpatric also served both men in various capacities. At the National Security Council (NSC) McGeorge Bundy and Walt Rostow were dominant figures in both administrations. 36.â•‡ Dean Acheson, “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future,” March 1961, JFKL, National Security File (NSF), NATO, box 220. 37.â•‡ Acheson, “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future,” pp. 2–3, Papers of Dean Acheson, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University, New Haven. 38.â•‡ Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy and the United States of Europe (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1993), particularly chapters 5–7, and Erin Mahan, Kennedy, de Gaulle and Western Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002). 39.â•‡ Winand, Eisenhower, p. 173 (emphasis added). For more detail see Richard Kuisel, “The American Economic Challenge: De Gaulle and the French,” in De

132

Carolyne Davidson

Gaulle and the United States: A Centennial Reappraisal, ed. Robert O. Paxton and Nicholas Wahl (Oxford: Berg, 1994), pp. 195–212. 40.â•‡ David Calleo, “De Gaulle and the Monetary System,” in De Gaulle and the United States, ed. Paxton and Wahl, p. 253. Calleo’s chapter is particularly astute in establishing a linkage between de Gaulle’s political philosophy and his economic arguments. 41.â•‡ Francis J. Gavin, Gold, Dollars, and Power. The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958–1971 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), p. 75. 42.â•‡ Frank Costigliola, “Kennedy, de Gaulle and the Challenge of Consultation,” in De Gaulle and the United States, pp. 193–94. Kennedy quotation from New York Times, December 11, 1963. 43.â•‡ “A New Approach to France,” April 21, 1961, JFKL, NSF, Country File, France, box 9. 44.â•‡ Ibid., second draft, “A New Approach to France,” May 3, 1961. 45.â•‡ “Early History of the MLF,” undated, Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL), NSF, Box 23 (emphasis added). 46.â•‡ “A New Approach to France,” April 21, 1961, JFKL, NSF, Country File, France, box 9. 47.â•‡ See further on the MLF, Andrew Priest, Kennedy, Johnson and NATO: Britain, America and the Dynamics of Alliance, 1962–1968 (London: Routledge, 2006). 48.â•‡ See Andrew Priest’s recent, comprehensive study which includes key chapters on the MLF, Kennedy, Johnson and NATO. 49.â•‡ Ball, The Past, p. 261. 50.â•‡ Full text (unclassified version given at the University of Michigan) printed in the New York Times, June 7, 1962. 51.â•‡ NATO Defense Ministers Meeting, Paris, May 31, 1965, LBJL, NSF, Agency File, Department of Defense, box 11. 52.â•‡ Telegram from U.S. Embassy, Paris, May 16, 1962, JFKL, NSF, France, box 71A. 53.â•‡ Audio and text versions of Kennedy’s speech, July 4, 1962, available at www.jfklibrary.org (accessed December 2008). 54.â•‡ Telegram, Alphand to Couve de Murville, May 9, 1962, French Foreign Ministry Archives (FFMA), Amérique 1952–1963, Etats-Unis. 55.â•‡ Memorandum from Klein to Bundy, April 18, 1963, JFKL, NSF, box 72. 56.â•‡ Charles Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929–1969 (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 500. 57.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Discours et Messages (DM), Volume IV, (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 69–72. 58.â•‡ Kennedy to Macmillan, undated, JFKL, Papers of President Kennedy, President’s Office Files, Countries, Box 127A. 59.â•‡ Memorandum for the President, January 30 Papers of President Kennedy, President’s Office Files, Countries, Box 116A, emphasis in original. 60.â•‡ Ball, The Past, p. 271. 61.â•‡ MemCon, Washington, February 5, 1963, FRUS 1961–1963, XIII, p. 182 and Ball, The Past, p. 273. 62.â•‡ Instructions from Kennedy to Bruce, Washington, February 5, 1963, LBJL, Vice Presidential security Files, NSC I.

Dealing with de Gaulle

133

63.â•‡ USNA, D/S, S/S-NSC Files, Lot 70 D 265. 64.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavour, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971) p. 255. 65.â•‡ Mahan, Kennedy, pp. 167–68. 66.â•‡ Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee Meeting No. 38 (part II), January 25, 1963, JFKL, NSF, ExComm Meetings, box 315, and FRUS 1961–1963, XIII, p. 684. 67.â•‡ David Thomson, “De Gaulle and the Anglo Saxons,” International Affairs 41, no. 1 (1965), pp. 11. 68.â•‡ Maurice Couve de Murville, Oral History Interview, JFKL. 69.â•‡ Kennedy had in fact distanced himself from the MLF project on McGeorge Bundy’s recommendation that there was “only grudging support among the very people in whose interest the force has been designed.” He chose not to openly abandon the project however, wanting to ensure the U.S. took no blame, which left George Ball et al. an opening to resurrect the plans. 70.â•‡ Memcon, December 6, 1964, LBJL, LBJ Papers, President 1963–1969, NSF Files, Country File, Europe and USSR, United Kingdom, Box 214. 71.â•‡ MemCon of the MLF at the White House on April 10, 1964, LBJL, NSF, MLF, box 22, and David Klein to McGeorge Bundy, October 10, 1964, LBJL, NSF, MLF, box 23. 72.â•‡ Telegram, Paris SECTO 26, 1/3, December 16, 1964, LBJL, NSF, MLF, boxÂ€24. 73.â•‡ Garrett Martin, “Playing the China Card: Revisiting French Recognition of Communist China 1963–1964,” Journal of Cold War Studies 10, no. 1 (2008), p. 27. 74.â•‡ Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 305. 75.â•‡ Letter from de Gaulle to Johnson, March 7, 1966, LBJL, NSF, Special Head of State Correspondence, France-Presidential Correspondence, box 16. 76.â•‡ Thomas Schwartz, “The de Gaulle Challenge: The Johnson administration and the NATO Crisis of 1966–1967,” in The Strategic Triangle. France, Germany, and the United States in the Shaping of the New Europe, ed. Helga Haftendorn, GeorgesHenri Soutou, Stephen F. Szabo (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), pp. 130–32. 77.â•‡ Memorandum from Komer to Johnson, March 16, 1966, LBJL, NSF, Files of Robert Komer, Box 2, Memos to LBJ. 78.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 336-37 (emphasis in original). 79.â•‡ Ibid., p. 337. 80.â•‡ See Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 81.â•‡ Memorandum for the President, March 16, 1966, LBJL, NSF, Files of Robert Komer, 1966–1967, France 1964–1966 (March), box 20. 82.â•‡ Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility, 1966–1967, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe and Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilateralisation of Detente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (2004), pp. 22–74. 83.â•‡ Bozo, Two Strategies, p. 189.

134

Carolyne Davidson

84.â•‡ Scope Paper, December 7, 1966, LBJL, NSF, International Meetings and Travel File, box 35. 85.â•‡ See Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity.” 86.â•‡ Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 87.â•‡ The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, p. 371. 88.â•‡ Stephen Ambrose, Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962–1972, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), pp. 23–24. Henry Kissinger in Paxton and Wahl (eds.), De Gaulle and the United States: A Centennial Reappraisal, (Oxford: Berg, 1994). 89.â•‡ See Le Monde, “La France envisage un retour complet dans l’OTAN,” September 12, 2007 and International Herald and Tribune, www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/24/ news/politicus.php (accessed December 2008).

7 Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967 James Ellison

Introduction As president of the Fifth French Republic, General Charles de Gaulle was seen by British governments as more of an enemy than an ally. His JanuaryÂ€14, 1963 veto of Britain’s first application for membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) was one reason for this. Although the acceptance of an application had largely been based on a lack of alternatives rather than any profound conviction in European integration, Britain’s future had to a great extent become contingent on EEC entry and de Gaulle had blocked it. The other principal reason for British resentment was de Gaulle’s intent during the 1960s to unravel the bonds that tied the Western alliance together and re-tie them in a new fashion with lesser U.S., and greater French, influence. Britain was at first stunned and then increasingly frustrated by the escalating Gaullist challenge after 1963 and sought opportunities to counter it. The greatest came with de Gaulle’s letter to American President Lyndon Baines Johnson of March 7, 1966 which announced that France intended to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) integrated military command structures and to evict NATO men and materials from French soil. What this explosive diplomacy reflected was de Gaulle’s greater discontent with American domination of the Atlantic Alliance and his belief that NATO had become outdated in the new era of Cold War détente. While the British did not share de Gaulle’s anti-Atlanticism, they did agree that NATO needed to be reformed. Thus, they worked to contain the effect of de Gaulle’s NATO policies by buttressing the organization’s Atlantic bonds and urging the Americans to accept that not all of the General’s views were 135

136

James Ellison

wrong. In so doing they played a significant role in protecting NATO and, as a result, began to recover the influence they lost in 1963. Consequently, Britain’s diplomacy, and its effect on the rivalry in Anglo–French relations that was a characteristic of de Gaulle’s presidency, deserves greater consideration than it has so far received.1

Outmaneuvered by de Gaulle: 1963 and its Aftermath It may have taken British governments some time to recognize the need to join the EEC but once Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had led his cabinet and the country toward the application of July 31, 1961, there was no other initiative which was as critical to British national interests. EEC entry was expected to bring economic benefits, boost Britain’s declining global status and ensure that Western Europe was dominated neither by the French nor by the West Germans. Thus, when de Gaulle vetoed the application, he did not simply impede Britain’s EEC ambitions but also its national and international aspirations.2 De Gaulle’s January 14, 1963 press conference was a symbol of his own grandeur, his design for Western relations and his ability to affect the fortunes of the Americans and the British. In simultaneously vetoing Britain’s first EEC application and U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s grand design, principally in opposing the idea of a Multilateral Nuclear Force (MLF) in NATO, de Gaulle had pronounced an agenda contrary to that largely shared by the Americans, the British and other allies. It included as its two main objectives the restoration of French power, nationally and internationally, and the reconstruction of the Western alliance based on the demotion of American authority and promotion of independent European influence.3 An element of the wider struggle enjoined formally on January 14, 1963 was the now not-so-latent Anglo–French clash over the leadership of Western Europe. When the French president blocked Britain’s Free Trade Area (FTA) proposal in late 1958 (which was a pre-application initiative designed to reconcile British interests with the EEC short of membership), Macmillan judged that de Gaulle was “bidding high for the hegemony of Europe.”4 This view was intensified by the coincidence between French opposition toward the FTA and de Gaulle’s September 1958 proposal for a tripartite directorate of the free world, an attempt to place France alongside the UK and the U.S. in the NATO driving seat. The Anglo–French rivalry which was evident in 1958 had been magnified exponentially in January 1963, a fact recognized by British Foreign Office officials surveying the diplomatic fallout after the vetoes. One diplomat, Sir Pierson Dixon, Britain’s Ambassador in Paris, believed that “the battle for the leadership of Europe ha[d] opened” because in

Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967 137

de Gaulle’s “conception of Europe, which in his eyes ought to be an extension of France, there is no place at present for the U.K.”5 Being locked in diplomatic combat with de Gaulle was a demoralizing predicament for Britain. Quite simply, it could not alter its course as there was nowhere else to go but into the EEC, a truth that Macmillan admitted in his diary on February 4, 1963. The “great question” in light of de Gaulle’s veto, he wrote, was “‘What is the alternative?’ to the European Community” and the disconcerting answer was that “If we are honest, we must say that there is none.”6 Worse, no obvious means presented itself for Britain to respond to, and thus deal with, the French president’s resistance. While the British conferred with France’s Five EEC partners post-veto to explore palliative arrangements, it was soon apparent that back channels produced neither recompense for the failed application, nor enthusiasm on either side for its renewal. Such was the authority of de Gaulle and the disinclination of the Five to question either it, or the way the Community was developing, that in the Anglo–French struggle, the EEC was unquestionably in France’s sphere of influence.7 That led the British to consider other spheres in which they could counteract de Gaulle’s influence, and so offset the attenuation of Britain’s international authority which many in London feared would be the true consequence of January 14, 1963. The only other sphere that mattered, apart from the EEC, was the Atlantic Alliance and NATO but even there Britain had little opportunity to exhibit diplomatic leadership. Like the Macmillan government, the Kennedy administration had suffered some shell shock after de Gaulle’s press conference. During a brief period of introspection, high level officials verified the integrity of U.S. policy, post-veto, and confirmed that the aims set by their president should not be altered, although the route toward them should. Atlantic partnership and European unity remained the objectives, but whereas before January 1963 British membership of the EEC had, according to Geir Lundestad, been “the single most important element in strengthening the Atlantic framework,” afterward it was not practical politics.8 Thus, advances would have to be made in two other areas of transatlantic diplomacy, namely the Kennedy Round trade negotiations, to reduce the discriminatory effects of the EEC, and the MLF, to stabilize relations in the political-military field. With the emphasis squarely on a perceived contest with de Gaulle’s France for West German allegiance—the latter always being a principal factor in U.S. Atlantic and European policies—it was the MLF which was the priority for the Americans, not least as an anti-Gaullist device. If the French president sought to create a Franco–German alliance at the heart of the EEC and a wider political link (as evinced by the Franco–German Treaty of Friendship of January 22, 1963), then the only way to counteract the pull of Paris was to tie West Germany more firmly to the Atlantic Alliance via the MLF. Apart from Soviet opposition, there were many obstacles

138

James Ellison

facing this ambition in 1963 but the two were arguably the greatest. The first was de Gaulle’s patent opposition and the second was the reluctance of the British to commit themselves to the new NATO force. There was nothing to be done about de Gaulle, but throughout 1963 Kennedy pressed Macmillan for his support. Privately, the Americans believed that the British did not comprehend “the critical importance of [the MLF in] keeping the Germans on board if de Gaulle is not to win out” and thus the president lobbied the prime minister to recognize the initiative as “a major step forward in our joint effort to bind the alliance safely and strongly together, in the face of General de Gaulle’s opposite course.”9 Kennedy had no effect, largely because the British shared de Gaulle’s hesitations; they, like him, believed that the hardly concealed intent of the U.S. was to dispossess the British and the French of their independent nuclear deterrents. They also disliked the prospect, as did de Gaulle, of West German access to nuclear weaponry. So politically volatile was this concept, along with the elevation in West Germany’s status within the alliance that it would imply, that it was, for many, unpalatable. These governing political determinants matched with disapproving appreciations by military men in London to ensure that Macmillan did not accede to Kennedy’s appeals. Instead, the British attempted to defend their nuclear deterrent and keep West Germany somewhere down the pecking order of Western European powers, but in the process they created a negative by-product for their standing in the alliance. On the major issue in NATO politics, Britain was not a collaborator in the struggle with de Gaulle, but was guilty by association. While there was never complete support for the MLF among NATO allies, what the impasse surrounding it in Atlantic politics did was disable the British from countering de Gaulle’s influence and advancing their own. In London in spring 1964, the Foreign Office (FO) began to contemplate how best to respond to the near-certainty that de Gaulle’s France would move “in the opposite direction to that which her Western allies wish[ed] to take” on matters Atlantic and European.10 Evidence for this prognosis was the increasing stridency of de Gaulle’s criticisms of the United States, France’s attempts to set the EEC’s agenda and the piecemeal withdrawal of French forces from NATO’s military commands. The advice from the Foreign Office to the Conservative government of Alec Douglas-Home (Macmillan had resigned due to ill-health in October 1963) was “to weather a storm which should gradually subside after [de Gaulle] disappears.” While London needed to “prevent him having his way with the Western alliance” it also had to avoid “a head-on clash” with the French president.11 The caution in this policy recommendation was influenced partly by the notion that a hostile political atmosphere in the West would play into de Gaulle’s hands, and partly by Britain’s marginality. Outside of the EEC’s councils and unable to get beyond the MLF impasse in NATO the British

Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967 139

faced what Michael Palliser, head of the Foreign Office Planning Staff, described in spring 1965 as the danger of “growing irrelevance” to American and European allies. Unless a British government could “soon evolve a more effective relationship with Western Europe and the United States within the Atlantic framework,” Palliser warned, “Britain will cease to be a world power.” The solution, in his view, was a “genuine reappraisal” of “Britain’s role within Europe and the Atlantic Alliance” and “a more robust approach to de Gaulle.”12 Although Palliser did not advocate it directly, such a “genuine reappraisal” would have to include some kind of new British EEC policy as well as invigorated diplomacy to protect NATO from de Gaulle’s contempt for military integration. This plea stirred Michael Stewart, the foreign secretary in Harold Wilson’s Labour government which had assumed office in October 1964. He urged Wilson to endorse a new policy toward ‘the right sort of Europe’ within an Atlantic framework, but had little success.13 Wilson’s priorities were not European; indeed he wished to concentrate on Britain’s Atlantic ties, its Commonwealth links and Labour’s National Plan for economic renewal.14 The Foreign Office had thus to bide its time but when de Gaulle’s challenge accelerated after mid-1965, it pressed the prime minister once more to respond. De Gaulle’s desire for a readjustment of the Cold War alliance system was well known to his allies, and to the communist world, and in early 1965 his call for reform of the international monetary system, his ongoing disparagement of American action in Vietnam and his attempts to cultivate Franco– Soviet relations suggested a possible quickening in his diplomacy.15 In May 1965 this was the view taken by the Americans and the British after receiving disquieting warnings about de Gaulle’s plans for a radical adjustment in France’s relationship with NATO in 1966. Sources in Paris suggested that the French would withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command, expel U.S. men and materials from French soil, and “substitute a looser, classical defense arrangement for NATO after 1969.”16 The timing of the opening move in this flowering of de Gaulle’s NATO policies was revealed by no lesser figure than the French Minister of Defense, Pierre Messmer, who told his British counterpart, Denis Healey, in confidence on May 17, 1965 that early in spring 1966, after the December elections in France, Paris would “propose [the] abolition of NATO.”17 While there was no certainty that events would follow this course—although indeed they would—Messmer’s admonition compounded wider indications and was enough for Healey to suggest contingency planning to Washington and for that soon to take place. It was into this atmosphere of wary expectation that de Gaulle introduced yet more volatility when he brought crisis to the EEC on July 1, 1965. In dispute with her Five EEC partners and the European Commission over questions concerning the future of the Community, France began a six month boycott of its institutions which saw de Gaulle attempt to gain con-

140

James Ellison

trol over the EEC’s development.18 This crisis was seemingly detached from France’s strategy toward NATO but when correlated with it, the impression was given that de Gaulle was on the move. In London, the Foreign Office readied Britain’s response to French diplomacy, seeing the events of mid-1965 as a chance to engage with de Gaulle for the first time since he had opened a new stage in Anglo–French rivalry on January 14, 1963. That day, and the fallout afterward, had made Britain’s membership of the EEC a nonissue but such was the uncertainty created by the empty chair crisis in 1965 that it became an international talking-point once more. Conjecture that Britain might ‘take the French seat’ was one subsidiary element of the crisis, and there were those in the FO who would have been satisfied to see France leave the Community and Britain enter it.19 However, FO policy was for London to seek no profit from divisions among the Six and simply to express official remorse at their family problems.20 As this approach involved no movement on a new British EEC policy, it was accepted by Wilson who did not wish to see his country rush toward the Community. When Stewart pressed him on December 10, 1965 more forcefully than he had done in March about the danger of inaction, calling for a British declaration of readiness to negotiate for EEC entry, Wilson remained unconvinced, sharing and airing some of de Gaulle’s objections to the Community, particularly its supranationalism.21 He did not, however, share the thrust of the French president’s views on NATO. Ahead of a meeting with him in April 1965, Wilson said that “if de Gaulle wanted us to join his anti-American front, he would be wasting his time. We weren’t going to play on that.”22 Personal proclivity performed its part in the prime minister’s judgment on the EEC and it would amid the emerging crisis in NATO. Whereas he declined Stewart’s suggestion for a revived EEC policy, he supported the FO’s efforts to prepare the defense of NATO from de Gaulle’s diplomacy. On June 3, 1965 the U.S. Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, suggested to Britain’s Ambassador in Washington, Sir Patrick Dean, that the Johnson administration and Wilson government should begin discussions “on a discreet basis” to consider how best to deal with the question of France and NATO.23 The British had already initiated their own planning on this question and thus engaged in a process of collaboration for what they described as an “orderly confrontation” with de Gaulle after the French December elections—the moment when his move against NATO was expected—“to carry the ‘5’ along with the UK and the U.S. . . . to preserve the essence of the Alliance.”24 These talks occurred over the summer and autumn of 1965 and “disclosed broad agreement” between the Americans and the British (and eventually most other allies), which laid the foundations for continued cooperation in 1966.25 The two allies resolved to protect NATO from any French challenge by reaffirming its purpose and taking steps to increase its

Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967

141

institutional and operational effectiveness. Combined with these measures, the Americans and the British also worked to hold France’s fourteen allies together and thus limit the damage done to their cohesion by French withdrawal.26 Their determination was enhanced as the French president used his September 9, 1965 press conference to articulate more forcefully than before his intent that “by 1969 at the latest, the subordination called ‘integration’ that NATO entails and which puts our destiny under foreign authority, will cease as far as we are concerned.”27 Just over one week later, Washington received confirmation from a respected high level source in the Quai d’Orsay that de Gaulle would act against NATO in 1966, denounce the North Atlantic Treaty in 1968 and secede from it on its twentieth anniversary in 1969.28 The allies therefore continued to ready the defense of NATO not only from the Warsaw Pact, but also from de Gaulle’s France. In this diplomacy the British were motivated by the priority given to NATO as a principal national interest and a belief in the transatlantic alliance that underpinned it. They were simultaneously inspired by the prospect of diminishing de Gaulle’s dominance in Western Europe and using the crisis in NATO to reverse what Palliser had described in February 1965 as Britain’s “growing irrelevance” to its American and European allies.29

de Gaulle OutmaneuvEred: 1966 and its Aftermath Although NATO has encountered many crises in its history, the one created by de Gaulle’s March 7, 1966 letter to Lyndon Johnson still holds the title of the organization’s “most traumatic moment.”30 Fulfilling the forecasts given to the Americans and the British in May 1965, de Gaulle announced that France would withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command structures and that NATO would be expelled from French soil. Although the departure of France would be troublesome, it would not in itself be enough to warrant concerns about the disintegration of the Atlantic Alliance; as one U.S. official put it in July 1965, “the E.E.C. could not be viable without France . . . [but] the same was not true of NATO.”31 A very real sense of crisis existed in 1966, not least because de Gaulle’s actions in March looked yet more ominous to his allies when set alongside his planned visit to Moscow in June.32 For albeit a short-lived period until France’s allies were united at NATO Councils in June and December, there was apprehension that de Gaulle would expose wider discontent within the Alliance. The criticisms that he had voiced about NATO’s effectiveness and purpose in the post-Cuban Missile Crisis era of détente, and his calls for a European role in East– West relations, had support beyond France in a political atmosphere of disquiet about the U.S. and the war in Vietnam.33 Thus, for the Americans and

142

James Ellison

the British, as the two leading allies in NATO, it was essential that the organization be protected from the tumult caused by de Gaulle. In the days before de Gaulle’s March 7 letter arrived in Washington the British were ready to react to it and to promote themselves to a position of prominence in the allies’ response. The letter itself was trailed in a public arena and a private gathering in the weeks before hand. In a press conference on February 21, de Gaulle went further than he had in September 1965 in outlining his plans toward NATO. France would recover her sovereignty “as regards soil, sky, sea and forces” and “any foreign element that would be in France [would] in the future be under French command alone.”34 Adhering to his rule of keeping the world guessing about the timing of his actions, de Gaulle did not set a date for the initiation of this policy but within two weeks a declaration of intent was made. On March 2, Count Pierre de Leusse, French permanent representative to NATO, informed his fellow representatives of his recent meeting with de Gaulle and told them in (shortlived) confidence and in detail what his president proposed, intimating imminent action.35 Two days later, the FO prepared four telegrams to the UK NATO delegation outlining Britain’s reply to the forthcoming French move. This would include a British reaffirmation of faith in the organization, a proposal for a declaration with a similar message to be issued by France’s fourteen allies, and plans for new NATO machinery to manage France’s departure and its effects.36 These FO recommendations were made as the British cooperated closely with the Johnson administration to mobilize NATO and they received ministerial endorsement, and were despatched, on March 6, the day before de Gaulle’s letter arrived in the White House.37 The British energetically engaged in diplomacy to protect NATO from the Gaullist challenge, having prepared for it since mid-1965 and having awaited an occasion to respond to de Gaulle’s foreign policies and their effect on national interests more generally since 1963.38 The Wilson government’s dynamism corresponded productively with the evolving attitudes on managing the crisis in Washington. Despite pressure from a belligerent State Department to put de Gaulle in his place, President Johnson listened to the advice of his national security advisers in determining his policy. One such adviser was Francis Bator whose martial arts metaphor of March 8, 1966 epitomized the line that the president chose to follow: “If we play our hand skilfully, we can manage to carry on with NATO without [de Gaulle]. In many ways, he is like a lightweight jujitsu artist. All his leverage comes from our over exertion.”39 Depriving de Gaulle of his leverage became the Johnson administration’s objective as it attempted to isolate him and cauterize the wound he had inflicted on NATO. To do this, Washington would avoid turning the NATO crisis into a bilateral Franco–American dispute as that, it believed, would play into de Gaulle’s hands. It thus sought to hold the Alliance together through cooperation with allies and here the British

Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967 143

were to perform a key role. Although there is no evidence to suggest that anyone in London described de Gaulle as a “lightweight jujitsu artist,” Bator’s tactical analogy was shared there. The British line was to be “sorrow rather than anger, confidence rather than panic” as the allies made it clear “that if France broke with NATO it was by her own choice, that the damages to French interests had been done by General de Gaulle.”40 Neutralizing de Gaulle became the aim and it was keenly pursued. At the start of the crisis in March 1966, the French were “at pains to present the differences in NATO as an argument between France and the United States.” Three months later, Britain’s Ambassador in Paris, Sir Patrick Reilly, described how the talk was now of “the Americans’ reasonableness and the intransigence of the British, whom [the French] regard as more tied to the Americans as ever.”41 Such was the effect of Britain’s NATO diplomacy that it drew France’s fire away from the Johnson administration and toward the Wilson government. The zeal that drove London on derived from the pervasive view epitomized in the foreign secretary’s cabinet memorandum of January 28, 1966. After surveying de Gaulle’s foreign policy over the next two years and its effect on British interests, Stewart warned his colleagues that “we are for the present dealing with a régime under the control of a man whose attitude and intentions are in most cases hostile to our own.” His verdict was that Britain must “prevent or limit the damage which France can do to the cohesion of the Western world, while keeping a chair for France against the day when she will . . . be willing to resume cooperation with us and our allies.”42 This hope was maintained as the government finalized the detail of its policy toward France and the NATO crisis in early April 1966. While the foreign secretary judged that “Gaullist policy will be working against British interests and it will often be impossible to regard France as an effective ally,” he concluded that “Gaullism is not France” and nor would de Gaulle’s policies necessarily be “immortal or immutable.” De Gaulle’s actions were a threat to Western cohesion which the Russians were expected to exploit, but they were also an opportunity for Britain in three main ways. First, by throwing NATO into temporary disarray, the French president had created an opening for his allies “to make NATO more efficient and more economical,” reinforcing its role in creating political stability and military security in Europe as a prerequisite for détente. Secondly, de Gaulle had given Britain the chance to exercise as much influence on U.S. and West German policies as possible. Here London would aim to prevent “American– German cooperation at British expense” and avoid the dangers of “independent American action with the Russians detrimental to Europe’s interests and independent German action, which might endanger world peace.” Thirdly, de Gaulle had presented the British with an occasion to “strengthen [their] own position in Europe” by assuming a rank of seniority in NATO crisis management. The dividends this diplomacy would bring were not expected to be

144

James Ellison

limited to Britain’s relations with allies in the Atlantic Alliance but also with prospective partners in the EEC. While the Labour government had not yet committed itself to a renewed EEC application, Wilson had begun to abandon his opposition to the idea and it was no coincidence that as officials advised ministers to capitalize on the NATO crisis, they also asserted that it could have positive side effects for Britain in EEC affairs. Given the exasperation felt among France’s five Community partners and certain political circles in France about de Gaulle’s activities, here was the moment for Britain to recover ground lost in Europe on January 14, 1963.43 Crucial to the achievement of all these aims was the weight Britain could swing within the Johnson administration. The Wilson government began its attempt to influence decision-making in Washington during the Anglo– American talks on the France–NATO situation from mid-1965, but it was moved to set out its agenda firmly in March 1966 by news of a renewed attempt by the State Department to make the MLF active U.S. policy once again. Since 1963, the MLF had languished as the lack of support among allies led Johnson to calculate that it carried more costs than benefits for his European policies. Having never lost their enthusiasm for the plan as a means of securing West German satisfaction and loyalty, State Department officials suggested that part of the answer to the NATO crisis could be an MLF-style hardware agreement to resolve the outstanding nuclear sharing question in the alliance.44 This ran counter to Britain’s preferences and thus Wilson made opposition to a hardware solution a key point of his March 29, 1966 letter to Johnson. The prime minister’s foremost theme was that the crisis could be used for good if it was accepted that not all of de Gaulle’s ideas were “wrongheaded.” Wilson thus envisaged responding to the French president’s criticisms of NATO’s effectiveness by initiating reforms of structure, force levels and financial arrangements. As to de Gaulle’s claim that NATO could not contribute toward reduced East–West tensions, Wilson argued that the organization ought to adopt a new, progressive stance on détente with the East. Accordingly, West Germany should be encouraged to seek reunification from within the Alliance through a “gradual process of détente” and give up on a hardware solution to nuclear sharing, settling instead for a consultative role in NATO nuclear policy, a far less antagonistic outcome in Soviet eyes.45 Wilson’s letter entered the mix of U.S. decision-making and reflected views which would be in the ascendant in Washington as policy was finalized over the summer and into the autumn of 1966. In the meantime, the Americans cooperated with the British, and other allies, principally the West Germans, to marshall NATO safely through its crisis. Avoiding the head-on clash with de Gaulle as planned, the Americans encouraged the British to take the lead in the two first formal responses to de Gaulle: the March 18, 1966 declaration by France’s fourteen partners of continued faith in NATO and the June 6–8, 1966 North Atlantic Council (NAC) meeting in

Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967 145

Brussels. British diplomats wrote the March declaration, ensuring agreement from all allies except France, and a British minister prepared the paper—and secured allied agreement to it during a tour of NATO capitals— upon which the June NAC’s solidarity rested. Such was the success of this diplomacy that Rusk was “happy to report” to Johnson during the Council meeting that “‘the family of 14’ remains together.”46 The French too held their line at Brussels, exhibiting their characteristic negotiating prowess, and overall the meeting ended in a draw. Crucially for NATO, however, the unity of the fourteen had been preserved and publicly asserted, an achievement that the Americans and the British had hoped for. For the British in particular, the two primary objectives set in March 1966—the defense of NATO and the promotion of Britain to a leadership position in the Alliance and Europe more generally—were in the process of being accomplished. On October 7, 1966, U.S. policies toward the Atlantic Alliance and Europe in light of de Gaulle’s NATO challenge reached maturity. In a speech to the National Conference of Editorial Writers in New York, President Johnson called for “a shift from the narrow concept of coexistence to the broader vision of peaceful engagement” in Cold War Europe and advocated movement “on three fronts:” modernization in NATO, further integration in Western Europe, and progression in East–West relations.47 Having lobbied the White House since March for the reform of NATO and for advances toward détente, Wilson could fully endorse Johnson’s new agenda for transatlantic relations.48 The prime minister was also able, within weeks, to second the president’s support for European integration as he led his cabinet toward decisions which signified renewed British interest in EEC membership.49 By the end of the year, however, Britain’s stock was not as high among its allies in the ongoing response to de Gaulle’s challenge as was intended. The announcement on October 22, 1966 of Britain’s resolution to probe for EEC membership was unquestionably positive for the country’s status as an ally in Western Europe and the U.S. Since 1963, there had been latent support in Europe for British entry into the Community which had been revived by frustration with de Gaulle’s diplomacy.50 Among U.S. foreign policymakers, renewed British interest in the EEC was also welcomed as it conformed with a long-held U.S. goal and also with the tactical assumption that “in the short run, an unequivocal British willingness to join the Communities would significantly strengthen the Five in dealing with Gaullist France and indirectly help the fourteen hold NATO together.”51 The Wilson government’s EEC probe and the second application which it produced in May 1967 thus did Britain’s reputation good. What did not, to varying degrees, was its diplomacy in two other areas of allied affairs, namely the question of troops stationed in West Germany and the issue of NATO and détente. From July 1966, the British were forced by financial weakness to adopt an uncompromising line on demands for offset payments from the West

146

James Ellison

German government for UK troops stationed in the Federal Republic. As a result, in what was in effect an Anglo–American–West German crisis of 1966–1967, the cash-strapped British caused themselves, the Americans, the West Germans and the Alliance serious difficulties. The responsibility was not entirely British but in adding to the pressure placed on the Johnson administration by the U.S. Congress to reduce troops in Western Europe, by endangering Anglo–German relations and by imperiling U.S.–UK–FRG cooperation—which the Americans saw as one of the constructive products of the NATO crisis—the Wilson government risked much until the situation was eventually resolved by American intervention and compromise on all sides in spring 1967.52 Having upheld the unity of the fourteen and the purpose and effectiveness of NATO so vehemently from March 1966, the British had, within six months, taken a stance on a NATO issue which produced disarray and threatened to “confirm the impression that NATO is falling apart” and “that de Gaulle is right.”53 The British also earned few plaudits in 1966 as they promoted their own initiative toward European détente. De Gaulle’s détente diplomacy had compelled France’s NATO allies to think afresh about the role of the organization in improving East–West relations. From June 1966 NATO officials began consultations on this subject which would in December be embraced by the Belgian Foreign Minister, Pierre Harmel, as he called for a thoroughgoing review of NATO’s future tasks. In the intervening period, the British put forward a proposal for a Declaration on Europe to be signed by East and West European countries bilaterally, which would incorporate a “statement of principles and purposes” for the conduct of relations between them.54 This idea, conceived in the Foreign Office, did not receive full support in Downing Street where it was criticized for “trying to pinch [de Gaulle’s] pants and not doing so too well.”55 It was nevertheless floated in the Alliance but faced opposition from the Americans who saw it as “overly European in tone;” they believed that détente initiatives ought to be pursued multilaterally from within NATO, not between states outside of it, a criticism that they also leveled at de Gaulle’s policies.56 Indeed, the Wilson government’s attempt to contest the French president’s lead on détente by adhering to the principle that individual NATO members should be allowed to follow their own initiatives, even if they did not have unanimous support, eventually led the NATO Secretary-General, Manlio Brosio, to criticize the British contribution to the draft communiqué of the December North Atlantic Council for being too Gaullist.57 This divergence did not go away entirely in 1967 as NATO worked toward its final and full response to the Gaullist challenge of 1966 via the Harmel Exercise. Building on the cohesion of the fourteen and their desire, under American tutelage, to renew NATO by transforming it into an institution dedicated to the olive branch as well as the shield, Harmel instigated a full-

Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967 147

scale, year-long review of the organization which saw it emerge revitalized by the experience.58 The British performed valuable roles in this endeavor as an FO official became co-rapporteur of the Sub-Group reporting on East–West relations, and as Britain vigorously defended the Exercise, along with the Americans and Belgians, from initial French condemnation and shepherded it to completion in December 1967. While the British tried to revive the 1966 Declaration on Europe initiative once again during the deliberations, they recognized that the success of their collaboration with the West Germans in the Sub-Group on East–West relations and the greater success of the Harmel Exercise were more important than upholding their unpopular proposal. London also played a decisive part in securing de Gaulle’s acquiescence to the Harmel Report as there was a critical relationship in timing between de Gaulle’s decision to endorse the Harmel Report and to veto Britain’s second EEC application. The French president had always wanted to decline the British application for reasons not dissimilar to those of 1963, but in 1967 an occasion to intervene had not materialized. On November 18, however, Wilson was forced to announce the devaluation of sterling and thus gave de Gaulle the pretext he required. In a press conference on November 27, the president cited the weakness of the pound, and its effect on the Community should Britain join, as reasons to veto the application.59 In the intervening period, between November 18 and 27, the French government finally agreed to the Harmel Report at all but the last moment. The Report was duly accepted at the NATO ministerial meeting in December and laid the foundations for the organization’s policy throughout the Cold War. While it nodded to de Gaulle’s criticisms by setting détente, alongside defense, as one of NATO’s primary objectives, it also emphasized NATO’s legitimacy and upheld multilateralism. As such it was a “master stroke” for de Gaulle’s leading allies and a loss for him.60 Nevertheless, it was a loss he was willing to accept because the cost he paid in NATO was outweighed by the benefit he gained by vetoing Britain’s EEC application. The Wilson government had, therefore, indirectly assisted the Harmel Exercise by leading the French to compromise in NATO as they worked to avoid “a war on two fronts.”61 As Rusk put it on December 14, 1967, the day the Harmel Report was accepted by NATO ministers, de Gaulle “undoubtedly went along” with it to avoid a diplomatic crisis with the fourteen knowing that he would face certain denigration for blocking Britain’s membership of the Community.62 That he did as Britain’s newly enthused interest in European integration and its support for NATO’s multilateralism chimed with the anti-de Gaulle mood present in transatlantic relations. De Gaulle may have secured his victory over Britain’s EEC ambitions once again in November 1967, but it would be a victory that lasted only as long as he did in the Elysée Palace.

148

James Ellison

Conclusion Harold Macmillan was right to conclude in October 1958 that Charles de Gaulle was “bidding high for the hegemony of Europe.”63 Leadership of Western Europe was an essential element of de Gaulle’s grand design to return greatness to France and for France to play a world role. As only Britain vied with France for supremacy as a European power in the 1960s, Anglo–French rivalry ensued and, ostensibly, de Gaulle succeeded in dominating the British. As long as Britain’s future was dependent on EEC entry, and as long as de Gaulle barred it, British governments faced a French obstacle of fundamental significance for Britain’s national and international standing. De Gaulle vetoed Britain’s first and second EEC applications for numerous motives but one of them was to maintain French power in Western Europe and beyond. As the events surrounding de Gaulle’s veto in 1967 showed, however, he was a man more challenged than challenging. There were many reasons for this but among them were Britain’s diplomacy, the support the British gained by the manner in which they presented themselves as EEC aspirants and the contribution they made to NATO’s survival beyond the crisis de Gaulle brought to it in 1966. Ultimately, NATO surmounted de Gaulle’s diplomacy because of the cohesion of France’s fourteen allies and the enduring belief in the organization’s legitimacy and role in the Cold War. This was not entirely a defeat for de Gaulle. He had not set out to destroy NATO in 1966 as he accepted that only America could defend Western Europe in the Cold War and that the Atlantic Alliance was thus a necessity. Instead, his aims had been to demonstrate France’s independence from military integration in NATO and to hasten the organization’s reform. These objectives were achieved and as Garret Martin has shown, 1966 was in fact the zenith of de Gaulle’s diplomacy not least because in June, he flew to Moscow emboldened by his autonomous action in search of détente with the Soviets.64 Nevertheless, the unity of the fourteen and the continuation of American hegemony were setbacks for de Gaulle’s greater ambitions as the 1966 crisis was turned into an opportunity for allied advances. Historians have remarked upon this irony and have specifically emphasized the alchemical part played by Lyndon Johnson’s statesmanship.65 They have recognized that other powers made their own contributions but Britain’s diplomacy deserves particular note. The Wilson government, greatly influenced by Foreign Office thinking, had two primary aims going into the events of March 1966, both of which were eventually realized: first, to defend NATO, with the assistance of allies, mainly the U.S.; and second, to secure a position of leadership in the Atlantic Alliance to stem Britain’s post-1963 marginality with the expectation of improving its status as a future EEC applicant. There was, therefore, an element of Anglo– French rivalry in the NATO crisis which exceeded its immediate bounds and

Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967 149

related to the competition between the two states for preeminence in Western Europe. In this wider struggle, de Gaulle opposed the priority British governments gave to their Atlantic ties and this led him to veto their first and second EEC applications. The difference between those two occasions was that by 1967 the discontent caused among France’s EEC allies by de Gaulle’s foreign policies was such that Britain’s Atlanticism, exhibited during the NATO crisis, actually strengthened its reputation as an ally and potential EEC member state. Outmaneuvered by the Gaullist challenge in 1963, Britain had therefore adapted to it by 1967, regaining the advantage lost to de Gaulle and benefiting from the choice made by Western Europeans in favor of the Atlantic Alliance and against his blueprint for a European Europe.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ Historians have concentrated largely on the role of the Johnson administration and the Gaullist challenge to NATO, see Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003) and Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and the Multilateralization of Détente, 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (Winter 2004), pp. 22–74. For a fuller analysis of the one presented here of Anglo– American relations and the Gaullist challenge, see James Ellison, The United States, Britain and the Transatlantic Crisis: Rising to the Gaullist Challenge, 1963–1968 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). â•‡ 2.â•‡ There is a rich literature on the course of Britain’s first application. For example, Alan S. Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community Volume I: The Rise and Fall of a National Strategy 1945–1963 (London: Frank Cass, 2002), pp. 310–441. â•‡ 3.â•‡ On de Gaulle’s foreign policies see, for example, Frédéric Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States and the Atlantic Alliance (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001); Garret Martin, Untying the Gaullian Knot: France and the Struggle to Overcome the Cold War Order, 1963–1968 (unpublished PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2006); Georges-Henri Soutou, “French Policy towards European Integration, 1950–1966,” in Europe within the Global System, 1938–1960: Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany: from Great Powers to Regional Powers, ed. Michael Dockrill (Bochum: Universitätsverlag Brockmeyer, 1995), pp.Â€119–33; and Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1997). â•‡ 4.â•‡ Macmillan Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Macmillan dep.d.33*, diary, October 26, 1958. â•‡ 5.â•‡ Richard Davis, “The ‘Problem of de Gaulle’: British Reactions to General de Gaulle’s Veto of the UK Application to Join the Common Market,” Journal of Contemporary History 32, no. 4 (1997), pp. 453–64, p. 458. â•‡ 6.â•‡ Macmillan Papers, MS Macmillan, dep.d.48, diary, February 4, 1963. â•‡ 7.â•‡ In general, N. Piers Ludlow, The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s: Negotiating the Gaullist challenge (London: Routledge, 2006).

150

James Ellison

â•‡ 8.â•‡ Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 126. On the Kennedy administration’s policies, Douglas Brinkley and Richard T. Griffiths (eds.), John F. Kennedy and Europe (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999); Jeffrey Glen Giauque, Grand Designs and Visions of Unity: The Atlantic Powers and the Reorganization of Western Europe, 1955–1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), pp. 98–125 and passim; Erin Mahan, Kennedy, de Gaulle and Western Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); and Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the United States of Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 139–202 and passim. â•‡ 9.â•‡ John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts, Papers of President Kennedy, President’s Office Files, Countries (JFKL/KP/POF/C), Box 127A, Bundy, Memorandum for the President (Mempres), February 6, 1963; JFKL/KP/POF/C, Box 127A, Kennedy to Macmillan, May 10, 1963. 10.â•‡ British National Archives, Kew, London (UKNA), FO371/177865/RF1022/31, Dixon to Butler, March 12, 1964. 11.â•‡ UKNA/CAB129/118, CP(64)102, May 12, 1964. 12.â•‡ UKNA/FO371/184288/W6/12, Palliser to Nicholls, February 9, 1965. 13.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/306, Stewart to Wilson, March 3, 1965 and UKNA/ CAB129/121, C(65)51, March 26, 1965. 14.â•‡ On the Wilson government’s policies in general, John W. Young, The Labour Governments 1964–1970, Volume 2: International Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003). 15.â•‡ On de Gaulle’s diplomacy from 1963 to 1965, Martin, Untying, pp. 23–35. 16.â•‡ U.S. National Archives, College Park, Maryland, Record Group 59, Department of State, Country File, USNA/RG59/DoS/CF/) DEF12FR-US, Box 1630, Paris to State 6219, May 4, 1965; USNA/RG59/DoS/CF/DEF12FR-US, Box 1630, McGuire to State A-2577, May 11, 1965; Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas, Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, President 1963–1969, National Security Files, Country File, Europe and USSR, United Kingdom (LBJL/JP/NSF/CF/UK), Box 207, Memorandum of Conversation (Memcon), May 14, 1965; NARA/RG59/DoS/Lot68D55, Box 12, Spiers to Jaegar, May 21, 1965. 17.â•‡ LBJL/JP/NSF/CF/UK, Box 207, London to State 5571, May 18, 1965. 18.â•‡ Ludlow, European Community, pp. 71–93. 19.â•‡ LBJL/JP/NSF/CF/UK, Box 215, Rusk, Mempres, u/d (c. early December 1965); UKNA/FO371/184289/W6/38(A), Barnes to Hood, July 14, 1965; UKNA/ FO371/182378/M10810/102, O’Neill to Barnes and Barnes to O’Neill, both October 14, 1965. In general, Miriam Camps, European Unification in the Sixties: From the Veto to the Crisis (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 176–85 and Helen Parr, Britain’s Policy Towards the European Community: Harold Wilson and Britain’s world role, 1964–1967 (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 56–61. 20.â•‡ UKNA/CAB128/39, C(65)36th, July 8, 1965; UKNA/PREM13/904, Marjoribanks to Stewart, July 28, 1965 and Rogers to Wilson, August 20, 1965. 21.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/904, Stewart to Wilson, and Wilson minute, both December 10, 1965. 22.â•‡ British Library of Political and Economic Science, Papers of Alistair Hetherington, 9/8, Meeting with Wilson, March 30, 1965; LBJL/JP/NSF/CF/UK, Box 207, Wilson to Johnson, April 5, 1965.

Britain, de Gaulle’s NATO Policies, and Anglo–French Rivalry, 1963–1967

151

23.â•‡ LBJL/JP/NSF/CF/UK, Box 208, Memcon, June 3, 1965. 24.â•‡ USNA/RG59/DoS/CF/POLEUR, Box 2163, Bohlen to State 6801, June 2, 1965. 25.â•‡ LBJL/JP/NSF/CF/UK, Box 208, Memcon, June 15, 1965. 26.â•‡ The development of UK and U.S. attitudes is explored fully in Ellison, United States, pp. 11–116. 27.â•‡ Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Papers of Francis M. Bator, Subject File (LBJL/ BP/SF), Box 26, Leddy to Rusk, September 10, 1965. Bozo, Two Strategies, p. 155. 28.â•‡ LBJL/BP/SF, Box 26, Paris to State 1433 and 1438, September 17, 1965. 29.â•‡ UKNA/FO371/184288/W6/12, Palliser to Nicholls, February 9, 1965. 30.â•‡ Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1964–1968, XIII, doc.137. Lawrence S. Kaplan, NATO and the United States: the Enduring Alliance (Boston: Twayne, 1988), p. 96. 31.â•‡ UKNA/FO371/184423/WUN1195/72, Dean to FO 1790, July 9, 1965. 32.â•‡ On de Gaulle’s Moscow visit, see Martin, Untying, pp. 146–55. 33.â•‡ For a contemporary perspective, Henry A. Kissinger, The Troubled Partnership: A Re-appraisal of the Atlantic Alliance (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965). 34.â•‡ La Documentation Française, French Foreign Policy: Official Statements, Speeches and Communiqués 1966 (New York: Ambassade de France, Service de Presse et d’Information, 1967), pp. 19–21. 35.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/1042, Shuckburgh to FO 90, March 2, 1966. 36.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/1042, FO to UK Delegation NATO Paris 330, 331, 332 and 333, all March 6, 1966. 37.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/1042, Wright minute, March 7, 1966. 38.â•‡ From the perspective of other allies in NATO, Britain’s concentration on NATO diplomacy in 1965–1966 came rather late in the day; see Anna Locher, “A crisis foretold: NATO and France, 1963–1966,” in Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist, and Anna Locher (eds.), Transforming NATO in the Cold War: Challenges beyond deterrence in the 1960s (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 107–27. 39.â•‡ LBJL/BP/SF, Box 27, Bator, Mempres, March 8, 1966. On the State Department’s view, see LBJL, Rusk Oral History Interview I, July 28, 1969 and IV, August 8, 1970. On U.S. policy evolution, Ellison, United States, pp. 34–116, and Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson, pp. 92–139. 40.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/1042, FO to UKDNATO 355, March 8, 1966; UKNA/ CAB148/25, OPD(66)25th, March 9, 1966. 41.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/1509, Reilly to FO 42, June 22, 1966. 42.â•‡ UKNA/CAB129/124, C(66)16, January 28, 1966. 43.â•‡ For the officials’ report on the NATO crisis and ministerial discussion of it, UKNA/CAB148/27, OPD(66)44, April 1, 1966 and UKNA/CAB148/25, OPD(66) 18th meeting, April 6, 1966. For the report on ‘Future Relations with Europe,’ UKNA/PREM13/905, Roll minute, April 6, 1966. 44.â•‡ For example, UKNA/PREM13/1043, Dean to FO 913, March 16, 1966. Hardware related to allies’ access to NATO nuclear weaponry and was synonymous with the MLF and its derivatives. Conversely, software related to allies’ consultations about NATO nuclear weapons policy and strategy. On the MLF and nuclear sharing in the alliance, Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility, 1966–1967 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 111–99.

152

James Ellison

45.â•‡ LBJL/JP/NSF/Head of State Correspondence (hereafter LBJL/JP/HSC), Box 9, Wilson to Johnson, March 29, 1966. 46.â•‡ FRUS, 1964–1968, XIII, doc. 174. On Britain’s diplomacy, see Ellison, United States, pp. 34–71. 47.â•‡ Address in New York, October 7, 1966. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index .php?pid=27908&st=&st1=. 48.â•‡ LBJL/JP/HSC, Box 10, Wilson to Johnson, October 10, 1966. 49.â•‡ Ellison, United States, pp. 91–96, and Parr, Britain’s Policy, pp. 89–95. 50.â•‡ Camps, European Unification, pp. 157–95, and Ludlow, European Community, pp. 125–45. 51.â•‡ FRUS, 1964–1968, XIII, doc.188. 52.â•‡ For example, Ellison, United States, pp. 81–90, 132–38; Haftendorn, NATO, pp. 239–73; Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson, pp. 115–33, 143–46; Hubert Zimmerman, ‘The Sour Fruits of Victory: Sterling and Security in Anglo–German Relations during the 1950s and 1960s,’ Contemporary European History 9, no. 2 (2000), pp. 225–43. 53.â•‡ LBJL/BP/Country File, Box 3, Bator, Mempres, August 11, 1966. 54.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/902, Stewart to Wilson, June 20, 1966. On the Declaration, Ellison, United States, pp. 96–108 and Geraint Hughes, Harold Wilson, the USSR and British Foreign and Defence Policy in the Context of East–West Détente (unpublished PhD thesis, King’s College London, 2002), pp. 143–68. 55.â•‡ UKNA/PREM13/902, Palliser to Wilson, June 21, 1966. 56.â•‡ LBJL/JP/NSF/CF/UK, Box 216, Background Paper: East/West Relationships, October 12, 1966. 57.â•‡ UKNA/FO371/190531/W3/61, Burrows to Barnes, December 2, 1966. 58.â•‡ Haftendorn, NATO, pp. 320–85, remains the leading study of the Harmel Exercise. Also, Wenger, “Crisis,” pp. 59–74. For a range of documents from the Harmel Exercise, including the Harmel Report, see www.php.isn.ethz.ch/ collections/colltopic.cfm?lng=en&id=15713. 59.â•‡ Martin, Untying, p. 230; Parr, Britain’s Policy, pp. 171–74, and Helen Parr, ‘Saving the Community: The French Response to Britain’s Second EEC Application in 1967,’ Cold War History 6, no. 4 (2006), pp. 425–54. 60.â•‡ Bozo, Two Strategies, p. 196. 61.â•‡ UKNA/FCO41/215, Burrows to Brown, December 22, 1967. 62.â•‡ FRUS, 1964–1968, XIII, doc. 281. Also see Frédéric Bozo, ‘Détente versus Alliance: France, the United States and the politics of the Harmel report (1964– 1968),’ Contemporary European History 7, no. 3 (1998), pp. 343–60, p. 355; Ellison, United States, pp. 170–83, and Martin, Untying, p. 228. 63.â•‡ Macmillan Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Macmillan dep.d.33*, diary, October 26, 1958. 64.â•‡ Martin, Untying, pp. 137–78. 65.â•‡ Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson, p. 5, and pp. 229–30; Wenger, “Crisis,” p. 71 and pp. 22–74 in general.

III Asia

8 The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace, 1964–1966 Yuko Torikata

Introduction The American sustained air bombing against North Vietnam, Rolling Thunder, was launched on March 2, 1965. In the next day’s cabinet meeting, French President Charles de Gaulle openly expressed his irritation, saying, “the Americans have aggravated the situation so much that the [proposed peace] conference would be impossible.”1 On March 8, 1965, two battalions of U.S. marines splashed ashore near Da Nang in central Vietnam. In another cabinet meeting on March 18, de Gaulle declared that his efforts to avoid war had failed, and that the war would last for a very long time.2 This turned out to be true, enhancing de Gaulle’s reputation as a “prophet.” But France’s subsequent diplomatic actions were a little more complicated than is implied by de Gaulle’s prophecy. While he claimed the American escalation made negotiations impossible, he in fact never stopped his secret search for peace, despite harshly criticizing the U.S. position, until September 1966. If de Gaulle and his Quai d’Orsay diplomats were convinced that there was very little hope for peace, why did they continue to insist on a political solution? Was de Gaulle just desperately pursuing his peace efforts due to fear of another world war? Or, as is commonly argued in previous studies of de Gaulle’s Vietnam diplomacy, was he just criticizing the American war for the sake of France’s grandeur?3 Were his offers of peace mediation in fact nothing but bluffs seeking to enhance his country’s prestige as an arbiter between the East and West, especially in the Third World and the Communists? In the light of new archival documents recently released in both France and the United States, this chapter will argue that the reality lies in between 155

156

Yuko Torikata

the outlined options and is much more dynamic. When de Gaulle became convinced that there was little serious danger of a world conflict originating in Southeast Asia, his security focus to a certain extent shifted elsewhere, to Europe. While he was always quite serious about making peace in Vietnam, each of his diplomatic actions was simultaneously designed to contribute to his other objective of enhancing France’s grandeur. In the first section, it will be argued that there were these two principal motivations for de Gaulle’s relentless endeavor for peace in Vietnam. The following chronological sections will provide support for this claim. Focusing on the “escalation” phase from the end of 1964 through September 1966, this chapter will answer the question: How could de Gaulle, in the face of the drastically deteriorating situation, believe his initiatives had any hope of success? The answer emerges from his Ostpolitik. His approaches to the Communist countries were a vital part of his strategy for peace making in Vietnam; it wasÂ€fromÂ€a sort of dynamic equilibrium between the Communist bloc and the U.S. that de Gaulle’s bargaining power derived. This approach also explains why de Gaulle’s peace initiative dramatically ended in September 1966, with his famous “Phnom Penh speech.” In this way, this chapter will demonstrate that de Gaulle’s Vietnam policy was not just a marginal consideration, but occupied a central place in his Weltpolitik.

The Start of de Gaulle’s Peace Initiative on Vietnam Right from the beginning of the Vietnam war, de Gaulle was firmly convinced that the U.S. could not defeat the Vietcong even with its overwhelming military power. As is often pointed out, he knew too well the strength of a liberating nationalism. But this belief would not necessarily lead him to make a persistent effort for peace. As in all other issues, de Gaulle never revealed his real intention about Vietnam, even to his most intimate collaborators, including Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville. However, he seems to have had two principal motivations: France’s security in Europe and its global strategy for becoming a world power again. As traced in the newly available archival materials, these motivations best explain the complicated course of his peace diplomacy. The two objectives were present in each step of de Gaulle’s action on Vietnam, but their combination varied considerably according to the development of the war. When U.S. President John F. Kennedy asked de Gaulle how to deal with the pressing Indochina issues at a private meeting in late May 1961, de Gaulle gave his first “advice” on Vietnam. At the end of the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. president threatened to intervene in Laos4; Vietnam was a secondary matter in the Indochina peninsula. However the incoming

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

157

president made a policy shift from Eisenhower’s hard-line approach. While approaching the French, Kennedy switched to a policy of political settlement through “Neutralization” in Laos.5 At a presidential meeting, Kennedy himself asked de Gaulle for advice about peace in Indochina, including Laos and Vietnam. De Gaulle attempted to focus on Vietnam. Based on France’s own experiences of colonial wars with the Viet Minh and the Algerian nationalists, he warned that unless they pulled out of Vietnam right away, the Americans would end up mired in an endless morass.6 In this early phase, de Gaulle’s diplomatic actions were primarily dictated by the first of his two motivations: his concern for France’s security. In general, de Gaulle hated war as it would bring uncertainties which could be detrimental to restore France’s grandeur. Although the conflict in South Vietnam was still in its early stages, it seemed to become more relevant to the European cold war. The ongoing 1961 Berlin Crisis made the French more aware of the threat of Communist penetration;7 in de Gaulle’s view, a gradual infiltration and subsequent takeover seemed more probable than a lightning invasion, and this posed a real threat to France’s security.8 If the U.S. should be put in a vulnerable position regarding Laos and Vietnam, Washington might be obliged to make concessions to the Soviet Union on Berlin and other vital issues in Europe.9 In short, in the midst of the Second Berlin Crisis, France wished its most important ally not to get bogged in Southeast Asia. Also, with the Algerian war still under way until the spring of 1962, de Gaulle was not yet ready to pursue a policy of grandeur. Therefore, his efforts regarding Vietnam were rather episodic. The second phase of de Gaulle’s Vietnam initiative began with an announcement by Alain Peyrefitte, his minister of information, on August 29, 1963. De Gaulle himself drafted this statement, which was France’s first declaration on a path to peace in Vietnam. De Gaulle’s government now started to publicly criticize the U.S. military engagement in Vietnam and to propose the “Neutralization” of both South and North Vietnam for a peace settlement.10 The situation in South Vietnam had deteriorated since late 1962; three U.S. military advisors had been killed in January 1963, and the Buddhist uprising beginning in May had badly disturbed the Kennedy administration’s strategy for political stabilization of South Vietnam. By late summer, even Ngo Dinh Nhu, the brother of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, had become favorable to negotiations with North Vietnam, as well as the French “Neutralization” proposal.11 Taking advantage of this trend, Roger Laloulette, French ambassador to Saigon, had already been undertaking a peace initiative since early 1963, which was soon approved by de Gaulle on September 6, in spite of opposition from the Quai d’Orsay.12 The U.S., however, flatly rejected de Gaulle’s proposition, publicly claiming that “Neutralization” would be tantamount to communization of SouthÂ€Vietnam.13

158

Yuko Torikata

These new diplomatic initiatives can also be best explained by de Gaulle’s two principal motivations. First, he energetically opposed escalation of the war and further U.S. commitment to Asia because it posed an indirect threat to France’s security. Parallel to the Berlin Crisis, the Kennedy administration had gradually formulated a “Flexible Response Strategy.” According to this new doctrine, NATO would need 30 divisions placed near the front line in Europe. To meet this requirement, the U.S. government had repeatedly requested its allies, including France and Germany, to provide more troops for NATO, beginning with Kennedy’s Philadelphia speech in July 1962.14 De Gaulle had stoutly refused this request. Since then, the French had vigorously argued for a common nuclear strategy among the allies as well as for keeping the existing U.S. forces in Germany.15 Putting more French soldiers under the command of NATO’s U.S. generals would damage de Gaulle’s reputation for independence from the U.S. Besides, to achieve France’s grandeur, he would need to ensure that as much money as possible went to French nuclear projects, not to conventional forces. However, if the U.S. was obliged to dispatch more and more GIs to South Vietnam, Washington would have to think about reducing the number of U.S. troops deployed in West Germany. U.S. pressure on its allies to share more of the burden for defending Europe would inevitably increase. For its own security, France absolutely needed a sufficient number of U.S./NATO conventional forces to deter a Soviet invasion,16 but after having criticized U.S. dominance in NATO, de Gaulle could not even hint that France wished the U.S. troops to stay in Western Europe without damaging his prestige. By considering such geostrategic aspects in West Europe’s security, we can now understand that this dilemma seemed to be what de Gaulle feared most from a deeper engagement of U.S. forces in Vietnam. Second, as Marianna Sullivan, Maurice Vaïsse, and other scholars argue, de Gaulle’s peace initiative regarding Vietnam was also motivated by the pursuit of French grandeur.17 There were two aspects to this. First, de Gaulle hoped to gain support from the Third World through his pro-independence attitude. Since the Evian Accords had finally put an end to the Algerian War in March 1962, de Gaulle and the Quai d’Orsay had maintained good relations with the Third World and made every effort to publicize the French “success” in decolonization.18 Second, de Gaulle hoped to play the role of a “impartial” arbiter between East and West. By mediating peace, de Gaulle could promote France’s image as an equal and respected partner of the U.S. He also hoped that peace in Vietnam would promote détente between the West and the Communist East.19 The war in Vietnam could spoil détente, while détente potentially lessened French dependence on U.S. military power. In this way, de Gaulle’s peace diplomacy on Vietnam played a central role in his efforts to tout to the world France’s position as a more equal partner of the U.S. In other words, Vietnam was one of the most important stages

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

159

for de Gaulle’s world strategy for grandeur. In the preceding few years, he had tried to use the issue of NATO reorganization for this purpose, such as the talks about a stillborn Multilateral Force (MLF).20 On every issue, de Gaulle had received substantial advertising benefits, but now from the French view, all sets of negotiation regarding Europe and the transatlantic alliance were stalemated, due to a shift in American policy from nuclear sharing toward nuclear nonproliferation. Thus, since his European diplomacy, especially regarding the Franco–German special partnership was at a dead end, focusing on the Third World became more appealing for de Gaulle. To launch de Gaulle’s campaign for grandeur, Vietnam became an ideal platform. In sum, regaining France’s world prestige was de Gaulle’s essential objective, but ensuring the country’s security was also a vital and urgent necessity. This is why de Gaulle was extremely serious about bringing the U.S. and the Communists to the negotiating table, while making use of his peace initiatives to promote his grandeur strategy. This double motivation explains the seemingly unpredictable oscillations in his peace diplomacy, as we will see in the following sections.

Selling peace to the Communists, then to the Americans before the sustained bombing of the North If the above analysis is right, another puzzle remains: How could de Gaulle remain so serious about making peace in Vietnam in rapidly deteriorating circumstances? By what means could he hope to succeed in his initiatives? His answer was to make use of the Communist powers. This turned out to be a very effective strategy, at least for a certain point of time. Parallel to his “Neutralization” proposal, de Gaulle began his famous rapprochement with the East. It is essential to note that de Gaulle used the Vietnamese problem as a bargaining chip in establishing relationships with the Communist powers. After his “Neutralization” proposal and the two superpowers’ agreement on a Limited Test Ban Treaty in August 1963, de Gaulle accelerated his efforts. At this time, France’s decaying networks in Indochina were almost the only resources de Gaulle had in relation to the war in Vietnam, and apparently they were not nearly enough to compel the U.S. to rely on France to deal with the Vietnamese Communists. But good connections with other Communist nations, including the Soviet Union, China, and North Vietnam, could certainly be expected to change the U.S. response to his mediation offer. China was considered to hold the key to the political solution, as the Vietcong and North Vietnam were heavily dependent on China.21 Thus, by pursuing rapprochement with the Eastern

160

Yuko Torikata

bloc, de Gaulle was trying to extract concessions from the U.S. by increasing his bargaining power as a go-between. De Gaulle’s first target was Beijing. Since the end of the Algerian War had eliminated the major obstacle to approaching the People’s Republic of China—which had sharply criticized the French war in North Africa—de Gaulle had been groping toward recognition of China.22 In October 1963, he sent former Prime Minister Edgar Faure to Beijing to explore the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations with China.23 Finally, on January 27, 1964, the French and Chinese governments issued a joint communiqué to establish the two countries’ diplomatic relationship.24 However, this effort did not bear immediate fruit regarding Vietnam. On January 29, General Nguyen Khanh overthrew the South Vietnamese junta government headed by Duong Van Minh, who in turn had assassinated the Ngo brothers and come to power by a coup d’état less than three months earlier. To justify his coup d’état, General Khanh claimed that some members of the junta, like the assassinated Ngo brothers in late 1963,25 had secretly endorsed de Gaulle’s “Neutralization” proposal.26 In addition, instead of making the U.S. attitude a little more favorable to de Gaulle’s mediation offer, the Johnson administration argued that the French recognition of China just aided and abetted China in a time of war.27 In response to France’s renewed offer, the U.S. repeated its argument that “Neutralization” would lead to Communist control of South Vietnam, unless the U.S. could negotiate from a position of strength.28 In order to secure U.S. footing on the war and its credibility within the Western Alliance, the Johnson administration officially launched the “More Flag” Program in May 1964 and attempted to drum up both political and military support from its allies.29 In the meantime, the Gulf of Tonkin incident in early August 1964 increased the risk of a sharp rise in the number of U.S. troops sent to Vietnam. The French government was deeply concerned about the escalation of the war,30 but de Gaulle stopped offering mediation, at least for a while. According to Hervé Alphand, French ambassador to the U.S., de Gaulle was convinced that the upcoming U.S. presidential elections would keep Johnson from undertaking any new initiatives, either in war or peace.31 Once Johnson was reelected in November, the French resumed their efforts to persuade the Americans to enter peace negotiations. At a meeting between de Gaulle and U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk at the time of the NATO ministerial meeting on December 16, the two leaders discussed Vietnam as well as NATO reform, nuclear sharing, and U.S. forces in Europe. Whereas Rusk emphasized the failure of “Neutralization” in Laos, de Gaulle refuted the American analysis, pointing out that it would be impossible to resolve the Laotian problem without solving the Vietnamese one first. He observed, “the U.S. declared its desire for peace,

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

161

but only from the high ground. Such a situation would never happen in a country like Vietnam. . . . France prefers any peace, whatever the consequences.” The best way to achieve peace, de Gaulle argued, was for the great powers—France, the U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union—to convene a so-called “Geneva-type” conference on Vietnam with the Asians, including China, in the search for a modus vivendi. In the first place, de Gaulle publicly talked about the possibility of an international settlement on Vietnam during his press conference of July 23, 1964.32 Although Rusk clung to his argument on the unsuccessful “Neutralization” in Laos, de Gaulle kept offering reasons to change Rusk’s mind: It was indispensable to work out a peaceful solution covering all of Southeast Asia. China too was likely to prefer peace because of its hope of joining the UN. In any case, it would be impossible to discover China’s interest in peace without talking with the Chinese.33 In parallel with its efforts to break down American resistance, the French government started again to approach both China and the Soviet Union. The more “useful” French relations with the Communist powers became, the stronger the French bargaining position vis-à-vis the U.S. would be, and the more concessions could be expected from Washington. The Quai d’Orsay had a succession of talks with the Chinese from December 17, 1964 through February 13, 1965. At a meeting between French Ambassador Lucian Paye and Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi on January 9, 1965, Paye asked whether American participation in a peace conference would be easier for Beijing if France could convince the U.S. to accept withdrawal of its troops. Yi replied positively and expressed his wish to see France make efforts to this effect.34 On January 25, Chinese Acting Ambassador Sung Chih-Kuang told Etienne Manac’h, director of the Asia and Oceania department of the Quai d’Orsay, that in Chinese eyes, talking about negotiations with the U.S. was unrealistic at this moment as Washington was attempting to internationalize the war. He also said that if the French government took an initiative to prevent further escalation of war, the Chinese would adapt a cooperative attitude toward French diplomatic action.35 Now de Gaulle could claim that Beijing had conferred on France a privileged position as mediator vis-à-vis the U.S. concerning the Vietnamese issue. While consolidating their cultural, technical, and economic ties with the Soviets, the French now moved on to the political sphere.36 In October 1964, the two countries exchanged opinions on the issues of Vietnam and the MLF and agreed to have regular meetings.37 It was true that the German problem was the most important matter for both of them, but for the very same reason, it was difficult to begin with this issue.38 On December 22, 1964, France and the Soviet Union found a fairly broad common ground. The Soviets expressed support for a conference on

162

Yuko Torikata

Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) and a return to the principles of the Geneva agreements of 1954 and 1962, which would guarantee the sovereignty of each these countries and prevent big power intervention.39 De Gaulle, at a meeting with Soviet Ambassador Sergey Vinogradov on January 25, 1965, concluded that the two countries’ views were close and that there would be room to collaborate on a political settlement, unless the Soviets showed systematic malice to France’s allies, especially the U.S.40 On February 23, a day after French Ambassador Philippe Baudet’s Moscow meeting with Valerian Zorin, the Soviet vice-minister of foreign affairs, de Gaulle and Vinogradov exchanged memorandums regarding the two countries’ cooperation for peace in Vietnam.41 Soon, French Minister of Information Alain Peyrefitte announced the start of regular Franco– Soviet meetings. Yet, a very important disagreement remained; while the Soviets demanded a suspension of the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam as a precondition to peace talks, France asked them not to insist on this unrealistic premise, as it would almost certainly preclude the possibility of peace talks.42 Meanwhile, France launched talks with Mai Van Bo, the North Vietnamese commercial representative to Paris, on December 22, 1964 and attempted to sound out Hanoi’s intentions. Due to French persistence, North Vietnam finally made a big concession by dropping its demand for the U.S. to stop bombing, and asked France to communicate this concession to Washington.43 As a result, the French government stepped up its mediation efforts with China, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and the U.S.44 In contrast to these agreements made with the Communist powers, the gap between French and U.S. views on the Vietnamese situation remained very wide. Although de Gaulle’s press conference on February 4, 1965 seemed favorable to the American position, no one anticipated that his renewed proposal of convening a Geneva-type conference on Vietnam would be accepted by the Johnson administration.45 In this strained atmosphere, Couve de Murville flew to Washington and successively met with Rusk and Johnson on February 18–20. In a meeting on February 19, Couve de Murville prompted Johnson to make a concession. Referring to the series of French talks with Beijing and Hanoi, Couve de Murville said that the Communists had shown a positive attitude regarding a return to a Geneva-type conference, without necessarily requiring a U.S. withdrawal from the South as a precondition. As for the Soviet Union, he told the Americans that the Soviets seemed to be taking almost the same attitude as the French and would undoubtedly play a mediating role because of the Soviets desire for a political solution, which could prevent the Chinese from expanding their sphere of influence. In the end, since the Johnson administration seemed doubtful whether an agreement with the Communists about South Vietnam would be effec-

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

163

tive, Couve carefully tried to persuade Johnson that a peace negotiation would be a much better solution than a military escalation. In contrast, in his meeting with Rusk, Couve de Murvile could not deny the risk of a Communist-dominated government in the South; therefore, the French made efforts to bring the Americans around to the French point of view, frankly saying to Rusk that with popular support, a new Saigon government would not be controlled by the Chinese or the Soviets, even if it was dominated by the Communists. Despite all these arguments, the Johnson administration rejected the French suggestions, apparently because of its deepseated distrust of the Chinese.46 Systematically blocked by U.S. stubbornness, the French then tried an alternative solution, which was to convene a Geneva-type international conference on Cambodia. Success in the neighboring country would make it easier for the U.S. to accept similar peace talks on Vietnam. Already in June 1964, de Gaulle had expressed his support for Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s proposal of an “Indochina Peoples’ Conference” to secure “Neutralization” in Cambodia.47 On February 11, 1965, Sihanouk, in the name of the Cambodians and Indochinese, sent a telegram to de Gaulle, asking France to persuade the U.S. and Britain to agree to a Geneva-type conference in order to preserve peace in Southeast Asia.48 De Gaulle and the Quai d’Orsay valued Sihanouk’s proposal highly, and tried to promote it, hoping it would facilitate a peace process in Vietnam.49 Yet, on February 25, Cambodian radio suddenly announced the lastminute postponement of the conference. This seemed to be mainly because of Zhou Enlai’s message, delivered on the eve of the conference, demanding the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. troops from the South as an absolute prerequisite for peace talks. According to a report by French Ambassador to Phnom Penh Hubert Argod on an earlier draft of Sihanouk’s speech, Sihanouk’s original position had been not to attach any precondition; it was true that the Johnson administration was reluctant to participate in the conference, but the Americans would possibly change their attitude if the Indochinese countries declared they were ready to talk about a “Neutralization” guaranteed by both East and West powers. France did put some hope on this solution, but Zhou’s message destroyed it. Not only did Sihanouk have to postpone his Indochina Peoples’ Conference, but Hanoi and the National Liberation Front (NLF) also returned to intransigent positions, as we will see below.50 Starting almost from scratch, France had achieved considerable progress toward establishing workable relations with China, the Soviet Union, and Hanoi. The Vietnamese problem was not only the objective of these efforts, but also the key to their success. Since the French offer of peace had been accepted by the Communists, it was expected that the U.S. could likewise be urged to make a sizable compromise to bring about peace negotiations.

164

Yuko Torikata

de Gaulle’s peace initiative after the beginning of sustained U.S. bombing of the North However, instead of compromising, the Johnson administration resorted to the use of force—the sustained bombing of the North beginning on March 2, 1965, followed by the U.S. Marines’ landing at Da Nang on March 6. The U.S. military escalation naturally made Hanoi and Beijing even more uncompromising. When the Indochina Peoples’ Conference was finally held on March 10, North Vietnam and the NLF used the conference as a platform for propaganda and refused Sihanouk’s proposal for another Geneva-type conference on Vietnam.51 The difference of opinion regarding peace talks thus grew even wider between the U.S. and the Asian Communists. The Soviets neither were immune to the logic of escalation. On March 5, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko sent a message to the U.S. saying that with the escalation in Vietnam, the superpower détente could be ruined before long.52 If the Soviets could no longer turn a blind eye to North Vietnam’s difficulties, it was, according to the French analysis, because of the Sino–Soviet confrontation, which was now increasing the risk of further escalation in the Southeast Asian war.53 After all French diplomatic efforts for peace, Johnson’s decision to escalate the war completely upset de Gaulle’s hopes. So it was quite natural for de Gaulle to be furious about the Da Nang landing, as described at the beginning of this chapter. In the face of the ongoing escalation, de Gaulle and the Quai d’Orsay changed tactics and began to play a waiting game. France would neither offer nor accept any mediation role until the time came when a French peace initiative would actually be successful. Since de Gaulle’s peace diplomacy on Vietnam was a part of his world strategy for enhancing France’s prestige, no mediation offer should be made when there was no hope of success, as the country’s as well as its President’s prestige was at stake.54 While waiting, however, de Gaulle and the French government never stopped approaching the East to accelerate the momentum for peace mediation. France kept sounding out the Communists’ intention on war and peace. As early as March 15, Sihanouk sent a letter to the parties involved in the Geneva Conference of 1954 and proposed a Geneva-type conference on Cambodia.55 This idea perfectly conformed to the French position described above, so Paris kept its eye on the reactions to this trial balloon. However, again, Sihanouk was obliged to back down due to Chinese pressure. Sihanouk suddenly began to demand three new conditions for peace talks. As these conditions included the FLN’s participation as the only legitimate representative of South Vietnam, this was synonymous with destroying his own proposal. According to French Ambassador Argod’s analysis, Sihanouk’s volte-face must have been caused by his meeting with Zhou

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

165

Enlai in Jakarta in mid-April. The Cambodian prince began to assert that the problem in Vietnam and Laos should not be discussed at the conference and that the Saigon government should not be allowed to attend the conference, which should be limited to the countries participating in the Geneva Conference in 1954.56 In effect, in reaction to the American air campaign, Beijing had raised the tone of its rhetoric against the U.S. In a meeting with French Ambassador Lucien Paye on March 17, Zhou furiously declared that as long as the Americans threatened the Chinese with an escalation of the war, Beijing would never accept any peace negotiations. As a precondition of the conference, Zhou demanded that France, Britain, and the Soviet Union make the U.S. stop its air strikes on North Vietnam and Laos, and allow South Vietnam self-determination. Zhou claimed France was especially responsible for pressing the U.S. to accept these premises. If the Americans swallowed them, a conference on Cambodia could be held. If this conference was successful, and only then, could they begin to talk about Vietnam.57 In contrast, the Soviet Union was far more conciliatory. On April 3, as co-president of the Geneva Conference, it proposed to the British that the two countries should support Sihanouk’s proposal of a conference on Cambodia; they agreed to utilize the Cambodian conference for solving the Vietnamese problem.58 Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko flew to Paris on April 24 and confirmed that the Soviet position was almost identical to the French one and that the two countries should collaborate to set up a conference covering both Vietnamese and Laotian issues and to launch a peace process.59 According to the Quai d’Orsay’s analysis, Sihanouk, being deeply pessimistic, seemed convinced that after the U.S. withdrawal, Vietnam would be communized, and that China would then be the only guarantor of his country’s future and his own. So he would not act against the expressed intentions of the Chinese government. Sihanouk always behaved like a weathercock, and his constantly changing positions reflected the competing pressure from the different concerned parties. The Chinese influence was all the more strongly felt because Phnom Penh had broken off diplomatic relations with the U.S., South Vietnam, and Thailand.60 In this phase of the war, France did not see any realistic chance for peace negotiations, and this analysis was confirmed by the outcome of the Indochina Peoples’ Conference. So, instead of undertaking any further mediation initiatives, France made all possible efforts to develop diplomatic ties, and even trust, with the East, hoping this would provide France with a stronger position as a mediator in the near future. However, de Gaulle’s overtures to the Communist powers ended up generating tension with the U.S. and reduced the acceptability of France’s proposal for mediation. This was a dilemma for de Gaulle’s peace diplomacy on Vietnam.

166

Yuko Torikata

The few months following the Da Nang landing were marked by an exchange of diplomatic offensives, which did not open any path to peace making. Consequently, de Gaulle remained silent, just trying to maintain workable relations with both sides. The first move came from the U.S. On April 7, in his speech at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, President Johnson called for an “unconditional discussion” among all countries concerned. This was clearly the U.S. government’s response to international opinion demanding peace more and more impatiently. Not only had the “non-aligned” seventeen nations and the UN secretary general appealed for peace negotiations in late March, but the most loyal of U.S. allies, including Britain and Canada, had offered their good offices for peace talks. At first, the French government was not unanimous regarding Johnson’s Baltimore speech. The Quai d’Orsay paid special attention to the U.S. decision to abandon all preconditions, including Hanoi’s suspension of any aggression against the South. According to its analysis, the American “concession” intended to divert to the Communist side the responsibility for not holding peace talks; therefore, Johnson had achieved a considerable “tactical success.”61 However, de Gaulle’s condemnation was quite clear-cut: As long as the bombing of North Vietnam continued, the U.S. call for peace “discussions” could not be anything but a bluff.62 De Gaulle’s position was quite similar to the Communists’ reaction, which in general considered the Baltimore speech a call for the North Vietnamese to surrender and concluded that the U.S. was determined to continue the war. One day after Johnson’s speech, North Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Van Donh made the famous “Four Points” address, setting the absolute conditions for any peace settlement. Both the Soviets and the Chinese immediately expressed their support. They urged the U.S. to pull out of Vietnam, approve the NLF as a negotiator, secure Vietnamese national self-determination, and accept Vietnam’s peaceful reunification. In particular, China vehemently criticized Johnson’s tactics of “carrot and stick” diplomacy, claiming that the U.S. was just trying to justify the stationing of U.S. troops in the South.63 To make its proposal for peace discussions more convincing, the Johnson administration stopped the bombing of North Vietnam on May 13. Surprisingly enough, North Vietnam reacted positively to the American move. On May 19, Mai Van Bo, North Vietnamese representative in Paris, came to see Etienne Manac’h and asked the French to act as a go-between. The North Vietnamese had once withdrawn their request for French mediation as a result of the bombing, and Hanoi’s new move meant they were ready to go back to their position before the American escalation. In effect, the North Vietnamese representative agreed, although unwillingly, that an American unilateral pullout would not be necessary for launching peace negotia-

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

167

tions.64 Immediately after being informed of this by the Quai d’Orsay, Charles Bohlen, American ambassador to Paris, conveyed to the Department of State Mai Van Bo’s wish to contact the Americans.65 Then, Robert McBride, deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Paris, asked Manac’h about Hanoi’s real intention. Manac’h abruptly replied that France had just conveyed the message, without any intention of offering mediation.66 Since Paris still saw no realistic hope of successful peace mediation for the moment, no offer should be made.

French Rapprochement with the Communists to pressure the U.S. into concessions Manac’h’s refusal of mediation did not mean that the French had completely given up on making peace in Vietnam. On the contrary, repeatedly solicited by both sides, the Quai d’Orsay became increasingly confident of France’s strong position as a mediator of the Vietnamese problem. Not just because of de Gaulle’s instructions, Manac’h himself was very sure that France should wait for the right moment to mediate between the Free World and the Communist camp: “As long as there is no direct agreement between Washington and Beijing, action should be taken by an independent big power which inspires respect both in the U.S. and China.” Although several other countries had also offered their good offices, including the UK, Canada, and the non-aligned nations, only France maintained workable relations with both the U.S. as well as North Vietnam and China. No one else could bridge the two blocs, and so France did not have to rush to join a peace mediation race. Paris could wait until the conditions for peace were in place. Indeed, the longer France would wait, the more concessions could be expected from both sides, which would then reduce the gap between the two camps and enhance the chances of de Gaulle’s mediation initiatives.67 Yet, the French government was not just boasting of its relatively advantageous position as a mediator. Knowing their bargaining power was still insufficient to extract a sizable concession from the U.S., de Gaulle and the Quai d’Orsay continued to strengthen their ties with the Communists. As of July 1965, de Gaulle strongly believed, on the one hand, that the war would last several years more or even a decade, and he showed no signs of being upset, even after Johnson’s announcement raising U.S. fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men.68 On the other hand, the French Foreign Ministry became seriously anxious about a further escalation of the war involving the superpowers. According to the French embassy in Moscow, the Soviet Union had sent to the U.S. a serious warning that if the U.S. continued its escalation, Moscow would start giving military assistance to Hanoi, and that relations with the U.S. would inevitably worsen.69 Soon

168

Yuko Torikata

after this, a U.S. military airplane was shot down on July 24, 1965 by a missile manufactured in the Soviet Union and perhaps operated by a Soviet engineer. While paying much attention to U.S. peace moves, such as Harriman’s visit to Moscow, Johnson’s letter to the UN secretary general, and a series of U.S. statements showing changing nuances on negotiations,70 the Quai d’Orsay saw this incident as the critical turning point of the war. For the first time since the beginning of the war, the Communists had responded to the escalation in a way which might open the door to another world war.71 Therefore, it became more vital to figure out whether the Soviets and Chinese were thinking of expanding the war in Vietnam. De Gaulle told Alphand on July 24 that behind the scenes, France should establish better relations with Beijing, Moscow, Hanoi, and Washington so as to play a significant role when the time came.72 Now, for its own security, France decided to sound out the Communists about the war in Vietnam. To begin with, France exchanged visits with the Soviet Union and China at the ministerial level to establish more cooperative relations. In fact, such a French diplomatic endeavor had already started in April 1965 with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko’s official visit to Paris. Six months later, French Foreign Minister Couve de Murville returned a visit to Moscow.73 With China, Cultural Minister André Malraux, an entourage of de Gaulle, flew to Beijing in July–August 1965 and met Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai privately.74 Then, in late July 1965, Manac’h met Huynh Van Hieu, representative of the NLF in Algiers, and agreed to have a regular secret dialogue.75 From the beginning, France considered the NLF to be an important Vietnamese nationalist actor, and judged that the war could not be ended without its agreement.76 As the next step in de Gaulle’s diplomatic efforts with the Asian Communists, two French diplomats with extensive experience in Indochina were sent to China, North Vietnam, and Cambodia in order to gather information about their domestic political situations as well as their attitudes toward the Vietnam War. In early December 1965, de Gaulle sent Jean Chauvel as an informal presidential envoy to Beijing and Hanoi. Chauvel was an experienced Gaullist diplomat who had served as the French representative at the Geneva Conferences in 1954 and 1962. The purpose of this mission was to discover how ready the two countries were to begin peace negotiations. In order not to lose his prestige as a mediator, it was absolutely necessary for de Gaulle to know, before beginning any mediation activity, if the situations in those countries were ripe enough for his peace initiatives.77 The French immediately conveyed Chauvel’s findings to the U.S. At a meeting on December 13 in Paris, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou explained that every time the French found a small but encouraging

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

169

sign of North Vietnam’s willingness to negotiate, the Chinese never failed to apply pressure, and North Vietnamese willingness quickly disappeared. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk showed interest in the nuances behind the North Vietnamese declarations.78 At the beginning of 1966, the rate of increase in the number of U.S. military personnel in Vietnam neared its highest level. The escalation in Vietnam also had an impact on the Atlantic Alliance. In early March, de Gaulle sent unilateral notice to Johnson that France would withdraw its forces from NATO’s military command.79 In a press conference on February 21, de Gaulle explained that France was worried about the risk of getting involved in the hostility in Asia.80 In addition, de Gaulle wanted to avoid the so-called burden sharing of NATO’s conventional forces, repeatedly requested by the Americans since 1961.81 The most important factor leading to de Gaulle’s diplomatic decisions was a reduction of the Soviet threat, which was bringing a burgeoning détente. Since French–Soviet talks concerning Vietnam and the MLF started in October 1964, de Gaulle had gradually become convinced that the Soviet Union no longer intended to attack the West.82 Since the Soviet threat had gradually decreased, de Gaulle could feel somewhat released from his responsibility to ensure European security. Thus, so as to bring about a détente and a nonsupranational Europe for France, de Gaulle made even greater efforts to approach the Communists. His visit to the Soviet Union in June 1966 marked the climax of his Ostpolitik. In 1966 de Gaulle’s Vietnam policy was thus integrated with his other policies for independence and grandeur, such as Ostpolitik and third world policy. In early 1966, considering the result of the Chauvel mission, de Gaulle decided to send another mission to the Communists in Asia. On February 24, 1966, de Gaulle asked Jean Sainteny to visit Beijing, Hanoi, and Phnom Penh to sound out the real motivations of these countries’ leaders.83 Sainteny had been profoundly trusted by de Gaulle since the period of the Free French movement during the Second World War. Also, he had won the profound confidence of many Vietnamese leaders since he had served as the French representative at the Fontainebleau Peace Conference in 1946.84 In mid-May 1966, de Gaulle and Couve de Murville had talks with Huang Chen, Chinese ambassador to Paris, who was then planning to see Mao and Zhou upon his return to Beijing. De Gaulle expressed his strong wish not to see the Chinese involved in the Vietnamese conflict, as this might lead to a world war. In order to achieve peace, he explained, France had to persuade the U.S. to withdraw its forces, and he urged China to conduct itself reasonably. De Gaulle also tried in May 1966 to get Zhou En-lai to visit France.85 Then, in late June, when de Gaulle had talks with the Soviet leaders in Moscow, they basically agreed with de Gaulle’s analysis and responded that they were ready to make any efforts to prevent the conflict from escalating to a full-scale war between the great powers.86

170

Yuko Torikata

From late June through mid-July, as scheduled, Sainteny was sent to Beijing, Hanoi, and Cambodia to inquire about the intentions of these states’ leaders regarding the war; the prospects for a peace settlement turned out to be less than encouraging.87 After this series of meetings, Sainteny concluded that Hanoi would not necessarily refuse negotiations; in spite of its persistent determination never to surrender, Hanoi might agree to some compromise if the U.S. military should decide to withdraw.88 However, he worried about China’s stiff attitude, concluding that “it is perhaps an exaggeration to affirm that the Vietnam War leads inevitably to the Third World War, but we cannot help but confirm that all kinds of dangerous factors of a new Korean War are coming from Vietnam.”89 At almost the same time, in early June 1966, the French Foreign Ministry resumed its approaches to the NLF. Manac’h flew to Algiers to have talks with the representatives of the NLF mission.90 Subsequently, at the end of June, Sainteny met NLF officials in Phnom Penh on his way to Hanoi.91 Finally, Manac’h discussed issues with a member of the NLF’s Central Committee on August 28, when he accompanied de Gaulle on his trip to Cambodia.92 In summer 1966, after France had finished sounding out the Communist countries, the prospect for peace was still somber. De Gaulle was planning an official visit to Cambodia at the end of the summer. It was the first visit of a French President there since France’s withdrawal from Indochina. If de Gaulle made a declaration on Vietnam, it would surely have a considerable symbolic impact.

The Phnom Penh speech as the turning point in de Gaulle’s peace diplomacy On the evening of August 24, 1966, just before de Gaulle’s departure for Asia, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk sent a letter to Couve de Murville, asking France to convey an American message to the Communists: “We have repeatedly stated our intention to withdraw our forces once this [North Vietnamese] interference is at its end. This intention is categorical. .Â€.Â€. It is of course always possible that the result might be achieved simply by announced reciprocal actions, made known between ourselves and Hanoi through secret channels.”93 During his stay in Phnom Penh, de Gaulle had an informal meeting with Ngyuen Thuong, chief of the North Vietnamese diplomatic mission to Cambodia, on August 31, but de Gaulle never informed his counterpart of Rusk’s letter.94 On the following day, de Gaulle dared to deliver his Phnom Penh speech in front of 100,000 people, describing the battles in South Vietnam as a war of “national resistance” and asserting that “France is totally confident that the United States will not be able to bring about a military solution.”95

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

171

In view of the substantial concession expressed in Rusk’s letter, why did de Gaulle not comply with his request? And why did he so harshly criticize the U.S.? Although no document has been found to shed direct light on de Gaulle’s intention, de Gaulle seemed disappointed by the insufficient concession the U.S. government offered in the letter. De Gaulle was convinced that the U.S. should first declare its intention to unilaterally pull out of Vietnam. According to Charles Lucet, French ambassador to Washington, de Gaulle said to him on July 25: “The time for France has not yet arrived; the moment will perhaps come when the Johnson administration finally declares itself prepared to fix the date for its troop withdrawal.”96 Through French contacts with Beijing, Hanoi, the NLF, and Moscow, de Gaulle was convinced that without a unilateral U.S. withdrawal, the Communists would not agree to come to the peace table. It is true that a unilateral withdrawal was a very difficult decision for the U.S. government to take, but de Gaulle was all the more confident of France’s bargaining power as a mediator because of its reinforced relations with the Communists. In fact, he expected the U.S. to concede. Compared to de Gaulle’s high expectation, Rusk’s concession was apparently too little, too late.97 The failure of de Gaulle’s strategy for peace in Vietnam was evident at this moment. Although he had talked with all the Communist countries involved and thus mobilized all the resources available, the U.S. had not made the expected concession, and peace seemed to be still far away. There was nothing more de Gaulle could do to extract a bigger concession from the Johnson government. As the situation had evolved since the beginning of de Gaulle’s peace diplomacy, the time had finally come to change his strategy. As far as French security in Europe was concerned, the danger of a prolonged war in Vietnam had now turned out to be far smaller than initially feared. At the time of de Gaulle’s visit to Cambodia in September 1966, the total number of U.S. forces in South Vietnam exceeded 300,000, but Johnson would not agree to any cut in the U.S. forces in Western Europe despite increasing pressure from the U.S. Senate. In addition, France had withdrawn from the NATO military organization in July 1966, and de Gaulle was now immune from American pressure for burden sharing of NATO’s conventional forces. Moreover, the threat of the Soviet Union itself had considerably diminished since de Gaulle’s visit to Moscow in June 1966, which convinced him that the Russian leaders would never risk a westward invasion.98 In sum, France did not have to worry about the fallout of the Vietnam War on its security in Europe any more. Since the beginning of his peace diplomacy over Vietnam, the two competing and conflicting motivations had made de Gaulle’s stance very ambiguous; while increasingly approaching the Communists and criticizing the U.S. war effort, de Gaulle was serious about bringing about peace in

172

Yuko Torikata

Vietnam and had made several offers of peace mediation to the U.S., as long as there was realistic hope of success. But now, with the Phnom Penh speech, he abandoned one of his two objectives, that of preventing a war in Vietnam for the sake of France’s security in Europe. The tensioned equilibrium between the two goals had thus suddenly disappeared. De Gaulle was now free to pursue the other of his motivations: to enhance France’s global prestige, especially in the Third World and communist states. The common image of de Gaulle as an anti-American propagandist was thus born, and his image as an earnest peacemaker forgotten. Whatever de Gaulle’s motivations, the Johnson administration, of course, was furious at de Gaulle’s speech. A week later, Under Secretary of State George Ball, as Rusk’s deputy, made strong protests to French Ambassador Charles Lucet, saying de Gaulle’s “speech gave the U.S. enemies a plausible excuse for taking a hard line.”99 Averell Harriman also conveyed to Couve de Murville his concern that de Gaulle’s speech had galvanized the Vietnamese Communists.100 The American government concluded that “the French position has moved from an initial critical but neutral attitude to one of open public opposition to us.”101 On the other hand, his Phnom Penh speech earned de Gaulle praise and respect from many Third World countries. De Gaulle had always aspired to the role of a paternalistic supporter of the Third World, especially the former French colonies and the nonaligned countries.102 In this regard, the speech was a very deliberate performance, and it turned out to be successful. Not only had the speech made de Gaulle a recognized “leader of the decolonization movement,” it also contributed to partially erasing the bad memories of France’s own colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria.103 The bottom line is that de Gaulle sacrificed good relations with the U.S. to gain more influence among the Communists and Third World countries and to demonstrate his political independence from the U.S.

Conclusion: de Gaulle, the United States, and Vietnam By examining in detail these secret peace initiatives, this chapter demonstrates that de Gaulle’s pursuit of diplomacy for peace in Vietnam was largely motivated by his deep concerns about France’s security in Western Europe. The archival documents show how worried de Gaulle was that, based on his conviction that the Americans could never defeat Vietnamese nationalism, a deeper military commitment of the U.S. in Vietnam would inevitably increase the risk of American disengagement from Western Europe’s defense. Being a cool-headed realist, de Gaulle was perfectly aware of his country’s inconvenient reality, its military dependence on the U.S. despite his claims

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

173

of independence. To keep his contradictions covered, it was absolutely necessary for him to solve the conflict in Vietnam. It was the only way for France to keep American troops in Western Europe without asking for them. Second, to answer the other question posed in the introduction, as a result of its contacts with the Communists, France became convinced that there was no possibility of another world war. But it could not completely eliminate the concern that military escalation might lead to a Korean-type regional war. Therefore, de Gaulle needed to bring the parties concerned to the negotiation table. In the face of the widening gap between the U.S. and the Asian Communists after the bombing of North Vietnam and the escalation of the war, de Gaulle tried to extract a sizable concession from the U.S. by strengthening France’s own bargaining position as a mediator. The rapprochement with the Communists was his strategy, which was more or less effective, as was demonstrated by Rusk’s letter in August 1966. It was at least much more effective than Britain’s approach of just wooing, and can be said to be a well-thought-out choice for a country with relatively limited economic and military power. Yet, it had serious side effects. By consolidating relations with the Communist countries, de Gaulle was increasing tension with the U.S. The more he succeeded in strengthening ties with the East, and the more he strengthened his position as a peace mediator, the more the U.S. came to doubt France’s reliability. At the time of his Phnom Penh speech, de Gaulle should have been aware that if he leaned any further to the East on Vietnam, this would destroy U.S. trust in France, an unspoken but indispensable foundation of his mediation diplomacy. Until then, de Gaulle’s decisions to withdraw from NATO and his ten-day visit to the Soviet Union had already embarrassed the Americans: he had gradually been losing the American’s trust and his bargaining power with them. This was one of the reasons de Gaulle, in July 1966, requested Ambassador Lucet to be careful “not to overstep a certain limit” in the two countries’ relationship.104 But with his Phnom Penh speech, de Gaulle himself crossed the Rubicon, Thereafter, any mediation or persuasion attempted by de Gaulle became unacceptable and useless in the U.S. eyes. To make matters worse, a year later, almost all of de Gaulle’s foreign policies, especially his European tasks, had been stalemated: Among them, de Gaulle’s decision to reject British entry into the EEC in particular deeply offended most European countries. Seen in this context, de Gaulle should have felt fortunate when in a speech on March 31, 1968 Johnson made a decisive concession to phase out U.S. forces in the South and to partially suspend bombing of the North. Furthermore, it was decided that U.S.–North Vietnamese peace negotiation was to be held in Paris. Allowing the French to host these peace talks gave them the opportunity to claim to have fulfilled its part in the path to peace

174

Yuko Torikata

in Vietnam. Ironically enough, it was Johnson himself that rescued de Gaulle from the diplomatic impasse he found himself after the Phnom Penh speech. Not only Johnson’s policy shift in the Vietnam War, but also his decision not to run for reelection should have buoyed de Gaulle’s efforts to restore France’s diplomatic positions. De Gaulle then enjoyed an excellent and close personal connection with the incoming U.S. President Richard Nixon. However, as we all know, de Gaulle would not have room or time enough to fully profit from those fortunate developments before the May 1968 events and even until his own resignation in late April 1969.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. II (Paris: Fayard, 1994), pp. 683–84. â•‡ 2.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 684–85. â•‡ 3.â•‡ Marianna Sullivan, France’s Vietnam Policy (Westpoint: Greenwood, 1978), introduction and chapter 1; Anne Sa’adah, “Idées simples and idées fixes,” in De Gaulle and the United States, ed. Robert O. Paxton and Nicholas Wahl (Providence: Berg, 1994), p. 298. â•‡ 4.â•‡ George Herring, America’s Longest War, 4th ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002), pp. 85–86. â•‡ 5.â•‡ Documents diplomatiques français (DDF) 1963, I, pp. 293, 300. â•‡ 6.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Mémoirs d’Espoir (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 268–69; DDF 1961, I, pp. 676–79; “President’s Visit,” Wednesday Afternoon Talks, May 31, 1961, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston (JFKL), National Security Files (NSF), Box 233; “Berlin, Laos, Communiqué,” June 1, 1961, JFKL, NSF, Box 233A. â•‡ 7.â•‡ De Gaulle, Mémoirs d’Espoir, pp. 271–73. â•‡ 8.â•‡ Note “Stratégie,” 15 novembre 1963, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris (MAE), Série Pactes et Désarmement, Sous-série Sérvice des Pactes (PDP) 267. â•‡ 9.â•‡ De Gaulle, Lettres, Notes et Carnets (LNC), tome 9 (Paris: Plon, 1970), p. 230; DDF 1962, tome 2, p. 184; DDF 1963, tome 2, p. 368; DDF 1965, tome 2, pp. 158–59; “Evolution récente des rapports soviéto-américains,” 23 novembre 1966, MAE, Série Europe, Sous-série l’URSS 2653. 10.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, tome 2, p. 649; U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1961–1963, IV, p. 55; Le Monde, August 31, 1963. 11.â•‡ Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 6–7, 14–15; FRUS 1961–1963, IV, p. 326; New York Times, May 9, 1963. 12.â•‡ DDF 1963, II, pp. 225–26, 246. 13.â•‡ FRUS 1961–1963, IV, pp. 93–94. 14.â•‡ DDF 1962, II, pp. 29–33, 41–43, 452–53, 513–16; DDF 1964,II, pp. 452–53; DDF 1965, II, pp. 452–54. 15.â•‡ For example, see DDF 1963, II, pp. 255–56, 371. 16.â•‡ De Gaulle, LNC, vol. 9, pp. 155–58, 270–71. 17.â•‡ Sullivan, France’s Vietnam Policy, introduction and chapter 1. In addition to de Gaulle’s motivation for French grandeur, Vaïsse and some French scholars have

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

175

demonstrated that de Gaulle’s initiatives can be best explained by France’s colonial experience in Indochina and Algeria, which made him aware of how difficult it was to suppress rising Third World nationalist movements. Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998), pp. 523–25; Maurice Vaïsse, “De Gaulle et la guerre du Vietnam,” in La Guerre du Vietnam et l’Europe 1963–1973, ed. Christopher Goscha and Maurice Vaïsse (Bruxelles: Bruylant, 2003), pp. 169–78; Maurice Vaïsse, “De Gaulle and the Vietnam War,” in The Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1964–1968, ed. Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), pp. 162–65; Jean Lacouture, “De Gaulle et Indochine,” in La Politique etrangère du général de Gaulle, ed. Elie Barnavi and Saul Friedlander (Geneva: Publications de l’Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, 1985), pp. 139–47; Philippe Devillers, “De Gaulle et l’Asie,” De Gaulle et le Tiers Monde, ed. Institut Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Pedone, 1984), pp. 299–327. With regard to de Gaulle and the other countries’ peace diplomacy, see Logevall, Choosing War. 18.â•‡ Concerning de Gaulle’s Third World policy, see Institut Charles de Gaulle, De Gaulle et le Tiers Monde. However, in contradiction of this supposed sympathy for Third World nationalism, de Gaulle proposed, on July 23, 1964, a Geneva type of negotiations: the five great powers should bring all the parties concerned to talk, and then make a peace agreement. Of special note was that the NLF was excluded from this process in the early stage of his peace initiative. 19.â•‡ Sullivan, France’s Vietnam Policy, pp. 25–27; DDF 1963, I, p. 313; Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. II, pp. 650, 660; “Schéma de la position française au sujet du problème vietnamien,” 27 mai 1965, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (Paris), Fonds Sainteny, 1SA20 Dr1. 20.â•‡ For a discussion about Atlantic security, see Thomas Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); Frédéric Bozo, Deux stratégies pour l’Europe: de Gaulle, les Etats-Unis et l’Alliance atlantique, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1996); Maurice Vaïsse, Pierre Mélandri, et Frédéric Bozo (eds.), La France et l’OTAN 1946–1996 (Paris: Complexe, 1996). 21.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. II, p. 657; DDF 1963, I, pp. 363, 541, 554–55; DDF 1963, II, p. 359; FRUS 1961–1963, XIII, pp. 774, 786–87; Logevall, Choosing War, pp. 95–96, 103–6. 22.â•‡ De Gaulle, Mémoirs d’Espoir, p. 214; Maurice Couve de Murville, Une politique étrangère 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1971), p. 126; Vaïsse, La grandeur, p. 515; Edgar Faure, Mémoires (Paris: Plon, 1982), p. 674. 23.â•‡ DDF 1963, II, pp. 469–78. 24.â•‡ Garret Martin, “Playing the China Card: Revisiting France’s Recognition of Communist China, 1963–1964,” Journal of Cold War Studies 10, no. 1 (2008), pp. 52–80; Logevall, Choosing War, p. 95–96, 103–6; Thi Minh-Hoang Ngo, “De Gaulle et l’unité de la Chine,” in Revue d’histoire diplomatique 112, no. 4 (1998), pp. 391–412. 25.â•‡ Logevall, Choosing War, p. 48. 26.â•‡ Logevall, Choosing War, pp. 81, 90, 93; George McT. Kahin, Intervention (New York: Knopf, 1986), pp. 182–202. 27.â•‡ DDF 1964, I, p. 87; FRUS 1964–1968, XV, pp. 5–8. 28.â•‡ DDF 1963, II, p. 592; DDF 1964, I, p. 321.

176

Yuko Torikata

29.â•‡ Fredrik Logevall, “The American Effort to Draw European States into the War” in La Guerre du Vietnam et l’Europe 1963–1973, pp. 3–16. 30.â•‡ DDF 1964, II, pp. 134–35, 146–47; Hervé Alphand, L’étonnement d’être (Paris: Fayard, 1977), p. 438. 31.â•‡ Alphand, L’étonnement d’être, pp. 435, 441. 32.â•‡ De Gaulle, Discours et messages (DM), IV, pp. 234–37. 33.â•‡ DDF 1964, II, pp. 570–74. 34.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, pp. 14–15. 35.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, pp. 99–100, 102. In their meeting on January 15, China also expressed its expectation that France would influence the U.S. to come to the peace table. Note pour le cabinet du ministre, “Entretien avec Charge d’Affairs de Chine,” 16 janvier 1965, MAE, Série Asie-Océanie, Sous-série Conflit Vietnam (AOCV) 143. 36.â•‡ Hubert Bonin, “L’émergence de la coopération industrielle, bancaire, et commerciale franco-soviétique dans les années 1960,” in De Gaulle et la Russie, ed. Maurice Vaïsse (Paris: CNRS édition, 2006), pp. 229–49. 37.â•‡ DDF 1964, II, pp. 323–24. 38.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, pp. 59, 93–94. 39.â•‡ Ibid., pp 9–12. 40.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 92–94. 41.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 217–20; Aide memoire remis au Général de Gaulle par M. Vinogradov, 23 février 1965, AOCV 162. 42.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, pp. 242–43. 43.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 412–13. 44.â•‡ Projet de Télégramme, pour Peking et Hanoi, 12 février 1965, MAE, AOCV 162; FRUS 1964–1968, II, pp. 352–54. 45.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, p. 135. 46.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 201–8; FRUS 1964–1968, II, pp. 332–36. 47.â•‡ Entretien franco-cambodgien entre Le général de Gaulle, MM. Pompidou, Couve de Murville, Nhiek Tioulong et le Prince Sihanouk, Paris, 25 juin 1964, MAE, Série Sécretariat général, Sous-série Entretiens et Messages (EM) 21. Because of its policy of neutrality, de Gaulle himself highly regarded Cambodia as an example for Southeast Asian countries. Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. I, p. 660. 48.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, p. 164. 49.â•‡ Ibid., p. 163. 50.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 230–32. 51.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 290–91. 52.â•‡ Note no. 205, “Position soviétique à propos du Vietnam,” 15 avril 1965, MAE, AOCV 111. In a meeting on March 16, Soviet minister Yuri Dubinin told Manac’h that the American bombing had ruined Soviet hopes for peaceful coexistence with the U.S. Note pour le Ministre “Position soviétique dans l’affaire du Vietnam,” 17 mars 1965, MAE, AOCV 111. 53.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, pp. 251–52 54.â•‡ Alphand, L’étonnement d’être, pp. 459–60; Note no. 233/AS, “Conditions et cadre d’une éventuelle initiative française au sujet du Vietnam,” 4 août 1965, MAE, AOCV 162. 55.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, p. 557.

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

177

56.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 556–58. 57.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 305–11. The conversations between Paye and Zhou were paid attention to by the British government, which simultaneously attempted to search for peace in Vietnam through Sihanouk’s Indochina Conference. Note “Conversations de M. Paye avec Chou En-Lai le 17 mars,” 24 mars 1965, MAE, AOCV 143. 58.â•‡ Note no. 203, “L’Union soviétique et coprésidence des conferences de Genève sur l’Indochine,” 15 avril 1965, MAE, AOCV 111. 59.â•‡ Entretien entre le général de Gaulle at M. Andrei Gromyko à Paris, Comptesrendus, 27 avril 1965, MAE, EM 24. 60.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, pp. 558, 658. 61.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 427–30. 62.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. II, p. 687. 63.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, p. 574. 64.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 605–6; FRUS 1964–1968, II, p. 673. 65.â•‡ FRUS 1964–1968, II, pp. 682–83, 687. 66.â•‡ DDF 1965, I, pp. 667–68. In the summer of 1965, because of Manac’h’s information, the U.S.–Vietnamese preliminary secret contacts, code-named “XYZ,” started. But Manac’h never went any further in his mediation. FRUS 1964–1968, II, pp. 686–87; ibid., vol. 3, pp. 312, 334; George Herring (ed.), The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1983), pp. 74, 89–90. 67.â•‡ Note no. 233/AS, 4 août 1965, MAE, AOCV 162. 68.â•‡ Conversation entre le général de Gaulle et le prince Souvanna Phouma, 20 juillet 1965, MAE, AOCV 162; De Gaulle, DM IV, pp. 386–87; Alphand, L’étonnement d’être, p. 460; Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. II, pp. 687–90. 69.â•‡ DDF 1965, II, pp. 141–42. 70.â•‡ Télégramme de Washington, no 4202-5, 2 août 1965, Projet de télégramme, 7 août 1965, Télégramme de Washington, no 4350-5, 9 août 1965, MAE, AOCV 119; Note no 371, “Position américaine sur le Vietnam (conference du Président Johnson du 27 juillet 1965,” 29 juillet 1965, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (Paris), Fonds Sainteny, 1SA20 Dr1. 71.â•‡ DDF 1965, II, pp. 152–53. 72.â•‡ Alphand, L’étonnement d’être, p. 460. 73.â•‡ Entretien franco-soviétique, Le général de Gaulle et M. Gromyko, 27 avril 1965, MAE, EM 24; Entretien franco-soviétique, Moscou, MM. Couve de Murville, Gromyko, Kossyguine et Brejnev, Comptes-rendus, 29 octobre et 1 novembre 1965, MAE, EM 25. 74.â•‡ Entretien de M. Malraux avec MM. Chou En-Lai et Mao Tse-Tong, Pékin, 2–3 août 1965, MAE, Série Asie-Océanie, Sous-série Chine 532. 75.â•‡ Compte-rendu Alger, 29 juillet 1965, MAE, AOCV 29. 76.â•‡ Text de l’intervention sur le Vietnam prononcée par M. Couve de Murville à Londres devant le conseil atlantique, 12 mai 1965, MAE, EM 25; Audience de M. Goldberg par le général de Gaulle, 31 décembre 1965, MAE, EM 26; Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, tome 2, p. 687. 77.â•‡ Note de la direction d’Asie-Océanie pour M. Alphand, Secrétaire Général du Ministère, 22 novembre 1965, MAE, EM 26. 78.â•‡ In late November 1965, Rusk showed his interest in Chauvel’s information to French Ambassador Lucet. DDF 1965, p. 664; Entretien de M. Pompidou avec

178

Yuko Torikata

M.Â€Rusk à l’hôtel Matignon, 13 décembre 1966; Entretien entre MM. Couve de Murville et Rusk, 13 décembre 1965, MAE, EM 26. 79.â•‡ De Gaulle, LNC, vol. X, pp. 261–62; Bozo, Deux stratégies, pp. 152–55. On Johnson’s reaction to de Gaulle’s decision to withdraw from NATO, see Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson, pp. 100–2. 80.â•‡ De Gaulle, DM V, p. 18. 81.â•‡ DDF 1962, II, pp. 29–33, 41–43, 452–55, 513–16; DDF 1964, II, pp. 452–53; DDF 1965, II, pp. 452–54. 82.â•‡ Note “Visite au général de Gaulle de M.Lucet avant son depart pour Washington,” 12 novembre 1965, MAE, EM 26; Alphand, L’étonnement d’être, pp. 444, 452. 83.â•‡ Claude Dulong, La dernière pagoda (Paris: Grasset, 1989), pp. 138–39. 84.â•‡ Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Ruler 1945–1970 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992), p. 87; Chester Cooper, The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1970), p. 348. 85.â•‡ DDF 1966, I, pp. 874–77. 86.â•‡ Entretiens: le général de Gaulle, MM. Couve de Murville, Brejnev, Kossyguine, Podgorny, Gromyko, Comptes-rendus, 29 octobre et 2 novembre 1965, MAE, EMÂ€27. 87.â•‡ On July 21, Sainteny made Charles Bohlen, the U.S. ambassador to Paris, aware of his belief that Hanoi was actually searching for a path to peace. Rostow informed Johnson of Sainteny’s report. Rostow’s memo to the President, July 22, 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas (LBJL), NSF, Central Files France 172; FRUS 1964–1968, IV, pp. 508–10. 88.â•‡ Rapport de la Mission de Jean Sainteny au Nord-Vietnam, juillet 1966, Archives Nationales (AN), 5AG 1–240. 89.â•‡ Voyage de M. Sainteny en Chine (Aspects chinois du conflict), juillet 1966, AN, 5AG 1–226. 90.â•‡ Entretien à Alger entre MM. Manac’h, directeur d’Asie, et Huynh Van Tam, chef de la mission permanente du Front National de Libération du Vietnam à Alger, 6–7 juin 1966, MAE, EM 27. 91.â•‡ Voyage de M. Sainteny au Cambodge, juillet 1966, Entretiens avec MM. Tran Buu Kiem et Pham Van Huyen, juillet 1966, AN, 5AG 1–222. 92.â•‡ Compte-rendu d’un entretien entre MM. Manac’h et Nguyen Van Hieu, Alger, 27 août 1966, MAE, AOCV 29. 93.â•‡ Telegram From Rusk to Embassy Paris, Department of State, August 23, 1966, LBJL, NSF, CF France. 172; Rusk’s letter, 24 août 1966, MAE, AOCV 162. 94.â•‡ DDF 1966, II, p. 562. 95.â•‡ de Gaulle, DM V, p. 76. 96.â•‡ Entretien entre de Gaulle et M. Lucet, Note d’entretien, 25 juillet 1966, MAE, EM 28. 97.â•‡ Ibid.; The Quai d’Orsay’s note shows the French government made this evaluation of Rusk’s letter. Note “Lettre de M. Rusk au sujet des Problèmes cambodgien et vietnam,” 25 août 1966, MAE, AOCV 121; DDF 1966, p. 562. 98.â•‡ Entretien entre de Gaulle et M. Lucet, Note d’entretien, 25 juillet 1966, MAE, EM 28. 99.â•‡ Télégramme de Washington, NR 5153/55, 3 septembre 1966, MAE, AOCV 162; Telegram Department of State 44624, September 9, 1966, LBJL, NSF, CF, France 172.

The U.S. Escalation in Vietnam and de Gaulle’s Secret Search for Peace

179

100.â•‡ Entretiens franco–américains entre MM. Couve de Murville et Averell Harimann, Paris, 3 novembre 1966, MAE, EM 28; FRUS 1964–1968, IV, p. 821. 101.â•‡ “Memorandum for the President,” Call by the French Foreign Minister, October 1, 1966, LBJL, NSF CF France 172. 102.â•‡ Télégramme pour M. Galichon (Burin des Roziers), Secret confidentiel, septembre 1966, AN, 5AG 1–431; Note no. 500, “Les réactions dans le monde au discours prononcée à Phnom-Penh par le Général de Gaulle,” 21 septembre 1966, MAE, Série Asie-Océanie, Sous-série Cambodge 302. 103.â•‡ Dépêche spécial d’AFPO 99, 2 Septembre 1966, AN, 5AG 1–429. 104.â•‡ Entretien entre de Gaulle et M. Lucet, Note d’entretien, 25 juillet 1966, MAE, EM 28.

9 Seeking a Multipolar World: China and de Gaulle’s France Qiang Zhai

Introduction In 1964, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and France established diplomatic relations. Escaping from the restraints of the rigid Cold War alliance structure, Mao Zedong and Charles de Gaulle took the bold and extraordinary move to forge a new relationship based on the geopolitical calculations of countering American–Soviet domination of world affairs. What motivated Mao’s policy toward France? How did he view de Gaulle? How did the changes in the international system in the early 1960s affect Mao’s perceptions and calculations? Why did the Sino–French opening in 1964 fail to herald a new era of Sino–West European strategic cooperation? This chapter will use newly released Chinese documents to address these questions. The recent availability of new archival materials from China has transformed the study of Beijing’s role in the Cold War, enabling us to take a closer look at the calculations and maneuvers behind Mao’s decisions. Most writings, however, have focused either on Beijing’s relations with the United States and the Soviet Union or on its interactions with its allies in Asia: North Korea and North Vietnam.1 China’s encounters with Western Europe, including France, have not received much scholarly treatment.2 An examination of China’s connection with de Gaulle’s France will enrich our understanding of Mao’s Cold War policy in several ways. First, it will illuminate the changes in Mao’s perceptions of and reactions to the international system in the wake of the rise of de-colonization and the emergence of the Sino–Soviet split. Second, it will demonstrate the way Mao’s preoccupation with resisting the two superpowers shaped his attitude toward Western Europe. Third, it will reveal both the strength and weakness in Mao’s analysis 181

182

Qiang Zhai

and predictions of international events, especially concerning Washington’s relations with its European partners. Finally, it will shed light on how the PRC defined its place in the world during a critical period in twentiethcentury history.

PRC–French contacts before 1958 When Mao established the PRC in 1949, he made an alliance with the Soviet Union against the United States. Firmly committing China to the Communist camp, Mao opposed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which included France as a member. In 1950, the PRC recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and supported Ho Chi Minh’s struggle against the French imperial authority. Beijing’s assistance was crucial in helping Ho Chi Minh to turn the tide of the war, culminating in the decisive victory at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. Beijing’s recognition of the DRV was the main reason for France’s decision to abandon its initial plan to recognize the PRC.3 At the Geneva Conference in 1954, Chinese and French diplomats discussed both the Indochinese War and their bilateral relations. The Chinese delegation led by Premier Zhou Enlai tried to exploit Franco–American differences to overcome Washington’s opposition and to achieve a settlement of the war. He met with French Prime Minister Mendes-France in Berne on June 23. Striking a moderate tone, Zhou told Mendes-France that his purpose at Geneva was to restore peace in Indochina and that his government objected to the expansion and internationalization of the war. He professed that the PRC, like the DRV, was prepared to recognize the two kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos and to follow a policy of nonintervention toward them. He added that the PRC was willing to establish a friendly relationship with France. While pledging respect to the independence of the three Indochinese countries, Zhou declared that China opposed the establishment of American military bases there. Expressing appreciation for Zhou’s role in resolving the Cambodian and Laotian issues at Geneva, Mendes-France indicated that he wanted a quick settlement in Indochina. Responding to Zhou’s concern about the introduction of American military bases in Indochina, the French prime minister said that France had no such plan. Mendes-France closed the talk by declaring that he would do his best to establish friendly relations between France, the PRC, and the DRV.4 France was prepared to consider recognizing the PRC once peace was achieved in Indochina. At Geneva, Colonel Jacques Guillermaz, counselor to the French delegation, told Wang Bingnan, secretary general of the Chinese delegation, that if Beijing played an important role in restoring peace

Seeking a Multipolar World

183

in Indochina, France had no reason not to consider establishing normal diplomatic and trade relations with the PRC.5 In 1955, the French government made several gestures toward the PRC regarding the establishment of diplomatic relations. On August 9, an envoy from the office of the French prime minister met with Chinese Ambassador to Poland Wang Bingnan in Geneva. The French official proposed that the two countries develop economic ties as a first step toward the eventual establishment of diplomatic relations. Two weeks later on August 22, the director of the Asian Department of the French foreign ministry suggested to Wang Bingnan that the PRC restore the French consular office in Beijing. But he refused to consider the opening of a PRC consular office in Paris. The Chinese government turned down the French request on the ground that it implied a “two China” solution because Paris maintained diplomatic relations with Chiang Kai-shek’s government on Taiwan.6 Clearly, although the PRC wanted French recognition, it opposed the creation of a “two China” situation. The French recognition of the Chiang Kai-shek government became a roadblock in the establishment of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Paris. Zhou Enlai reiterated his government’s objection to the “two China” policy during his conversation with a French parliamentary delegation led by Daniel Mayer, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, on November 1, 1955. Zhou declared that the PRC was willing to establish diplomatic relations with France, but Paris should first terminate its recognition of the Chiang Kai-shek regime before recognizing the PRC. If the French government had difficulties in doing that, the Chinese premier continued, the PRC could wait. Zhou ended his remarks on an optimistic note: the PRC and France “can concentrate at the moment on trade and cultural exchanges to prepare for the eventual French separation of ties with Chiang Kai-shek and recognition of New China. With efforts from both sides, the establishment of diplomatic relations between the PRC and France would happen in a not too distant future. The United States cannot stop that development.”7 Clearly Zhou was confident about the prospect of the normalization of PRC–French relations. Zhou Enlai’s optimistic prediction about the establishment of Sino– French diplomatic relations within a short period of time, however, appeared premature. Events, first in Egypt and then in Algeria, stalled the tentative process of the normalization of relations between Beijing and Paris. When the Suez crisis broke out in 1956, Beijing stood firmly behind Egypt. In a meeting with the Egyptian ambassador on September 17, Mao applauded Egypt’s seizure of the Suez Canal as “a job well done” and called President Gamal Abdel Nasser “a national hero,” who had united the Arabic people into a solid anti-imperialist front. He pledged full Chinese support to Egypt.8

184

Qiang Zhai

After British and French forces invaded Egypt in October, the PRC issued a protest on November 3 to the British and French governments, denouncing their invasion as “a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter, a wanton challenge to the people of Asia and Africa, and a serious threat to world peace.” A week later, Zhou Enlai notified Nasser that the PRC would offer 20 million Swiss francs as cash donation to Egypt. In the meantime, the Chinese Red Cross informed the Egyptian Red Crescent that it was willing to provide medical supplies and send medical teams to Egypt.9 Clearly the PRC valued Asian–African solidarity over relations with France. Mao’s attitude toward France hardened in the wake of the Suez crisis. He told Indonesian President Sukarno on September 30 that China was not eager to establish diplomatic relations with France. Calling the United States, Great Britain, and France imperialist and colonialist countries, Mao contended that by not establishing relations with them, China denied them legitimacy. Insisting that there could be only one China in the United Nations, he emphasized that so long as Chiang Kai-shek’s representatives were in the United Nations, the PRC was not anxious to become a member.10 Inspired by the surge of Third World national independence movements epitomized by Nasser’s challenge to the West during the Suez Crisis, and emboldened by the Soviet launching of the world’s first artificial satellite “Sputnik” in October 1957, Mao became more confident and militant in his foreign and domestic policies. He announced at a meeting of Communist parties in Moscow on November 18, 1957 that the socialist forces were superior to the imperialist forces and that “the East wind is prevailing over the West wind.”11 In 1958, Mao decided to quicken the pace of socialist transformation of China by launching the Great Leap Forward.12 Internationally, Mao opted for confrontation with the United States. He believed that the United States had its weaknesses because its power was over-stretched in the world. He summarized his confrontational approach to Washington as the “noose” strategy. According to Mao, the United States tended to intervene globally against revolution, but each tension spot in the world constituted a noose on the American neck. The more nooses there were on the United States, the more difficult it would become for Washington to suppress national liberation movements, and the more beneficial it would be for the cause of international socialism. After the Anglo-American intervention in Jordan and Lebanon in July 1958, Mao pointed out that a new noose had been put on the United States in the Middle East. He decided to support the revolution in the Middle East by exerting pressure on Washington in East Asia—the bombardment of Quemoy on August 23. In Mao’s reckoning, the tension in the Taiwan Strait represented an additional noose around the American neck.13 The radical turn in Mao’s policy in 1958 disturbed the leaders in Washington and Moscow. His reckless behavior in the Taiwan Strait escalated the

Seeking a Multipolar World

185

Cold War tensions in East Asia. His anti-imperialist rhetoric and pressure forced the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to take a harder line on the Berlin issue and pay more attention to the national independence struggles in the Third World.14

Chinese Views of de Gaulle De Gaulle became Prime Minister in June 1958 and was elected President six months later. Unhappy with Washington’s domination of world politics, he was determined to increase France’s influence on the international stage. He was troubled by the U.S. intervention in Lebanon. America’s apparent willingness to risk global nuclear conflict during the Taiwan Strait Crisis accorded him another reason for pursuing a greater voice in Western councils. De Gaulle particularly resented the fact that Washington had intervened in both Lebanon and Taiwan without warning Paris. Unwilling to become an instrument of the United States, he pushed for a united and independent Europe.15 The Chinese leaders reacted to de Gaulle’s return to power in France with mixed views. On the one hand, they admired his tendency to seek independence from the United States. On the other hand, they were uncertain of his intentions toward China and critical of his policy toward the Algerian insurrection. Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi spoke to a group of French journalists about his views of de Gaulle in July 1958: We have not engaged in any direct contact with General de Gaulle. Therefore, we have neither especially favorable opinions nor especially negative feelings about him. . . . But I want to point out that General de Gaulle is inclined to keep independence and is unwilling to submit to Great Britain and the United States. I remember that after de Gaulle came to power, he once indicated that France was prepared to recognize the PRC, but he has not taken any actual steps yet. . . . I want to add that if France wants to recognize the PRC, it must kick out Chiang Kai-shek’s embassy. Otherwise, even if he recognizes us, we are not going to respond.16

Chen Yi made clear Beijing’s bottom line on normalization: no “two China” solution. Similarly, Mao expressed his mixed assessments of de Gaulle during a speech at the Fifteenth Supreme State Conference on September 5, 1958. He pointed out that there were both disadvantages and advantages in de Gaulle’s assumption of power in France. According to Mao’s analysis, because the French Communist Party and the French people had opposed de Gaulle, he would now seek his revenge by “oppressing” them. On the other hand, because de Gaulle had a track record of creating disputes with the United States and Great Britain, he would be very likely to continue doing

186

Qiang Zhai

so, and that would be beneficial to the socialist world. In addition, Mao believed that de Gaulle’s policy on behalf of the capitalist interest could serve to waken the class-consciousness of the French working class. In this regard, Mao compared the role of de Gaulle to that of Chiang Kai-shek in China. Switching to the topic of international recognition of the PRC, Mao contended that many countries, including France, wanted to recognize the PRC, but did not dare to do so because of American opposition.17 Mao further explained his mixed views of de Gaulle when he talked with Marshall Bernard Montgomery on May 27, 1960. Mao said that de Gaulle “is not bad,” but he “has shortcomings.” Mao praised the French leader for his courage to insist on autonomy from the United States, for his refusal to allow the Americans to establish air force bases in France, and for his decision not to let Washington (through NATO) control his army. As to de Gaulle’s shortcomings, Mao faulted him for committing troops in Algeria. Insisting that the Algerian war must be resolved, Mao contended that the conflict was not beneficial to France because it had cost Paris a lot of soldiers and money. Seeking to drive a wedge between the United States and its West European allies, Mao prodded Great Britain and France to improve cooperation and to act independently of Washington.18 Clearly Mao’s preoccupation with resisting the American threat conditioned his positive appraisal of the independent streak in de Gaulle’s foreign policy. On the whole, Mao considered de Gaulle’s rise to power in France as a positive development in international politics. He believed that de Gaulle’s assumption of power would spur the growth of neutralism and anti-Americanism in Europe.19 Mao felt encouraged by de Gaulle’s foreign policy because it reinforced his conviction that the Western bloc was disintegrating and that “the East Wind was prevailing over the West Wind.” The disintegration of Western Europe, Mao declared in 1959, indicated that “our enemies are rotting with each passing day, and we are getting better with each passing day.”20

Beijing’s Support to the Algerian Revolution The intensification of the Algerian struggle against the French colonial rule in 1958 seemed to validate Mao’s diagnosis of the chaos and decline of the West. When the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) in Algeria asked for Beijing’s recognition, Mao did not hesitate to cooperate. On September 22, 1958, Zhou Enlai called a meeting with his foreign policy advisers to discuss the recognition request made by Ferhat Abbas, chairman of the Gouvernement provisoire de la République algérienne (GPRA). It was decided at the meeting that the PRC would grant recognition and also inform the Soviet Union of its decision. After the meeting,

Seeking a Multipolar World

187

Zhou reported his plan to Mao, who immediately approved it. On the same day, the PRC announced its recognition of the GPRA, becoming the first non-Arabic country to do so.21 In December, a GPRA delegation, headed by Minister of Social Affairs Benyoucef Ben Khedda, visited China and received the kind of warm welcome usually reserved for the most prominent statesmen, including a nationwide celebration of “Algeria Day.” The delegation obtained China’s agreement to provide weapons. Mao met with the delegation in Wuhan on December 11, 1958. Promising firm Chinese backing, Mao specified that the Algerian revolution was making a major contribution to the world and that it was China’s international obligation to support the GPRA.22 In 1959, Beijing granted the GPRA $10 million to purchase military supplies and agreed to provide large quantities of American weapons captured in Korea.23 The GPRA adopted a strategy of brinkmanship. By threatening France and its allies with actual and increasing Communist support, including the employment of Chinese “volunteers,” it sought to compel them to grant independence.24 Drawing upon the experiences and lessons of his own revolution, Mao offered the Algerian rebels advice on people’s war. In a meeting with a GPRA delegation led by Foreign Minister Belkacem Krim on May 17, 1960, Mao urged the Algerians to rely on the masses and to wage a protracted war to wear down the French. Stressing the importance of a broad anti-French united front with all social groups, Mao advised his visitors to pay attention to the mobilization of the 400,000 Algerians who lived in France. Citing the 1958 Iraqi revolution and the 1959 Cuban revolution as examples, Mao emphasized that there was no need to fear imperialism. Contending that those revolutions had provided support to the Algerian struggle, Mao pointed out that France, like the United States, was actually weak and vulnerable because it was militarily overcommitted and overstretched. Worried that the Algerians might rely too much on negotiations in dealing with the French, Mao said that GPRA should not solely depend on negotiations to win independence; instead it should adopt the dual approach of fighting while talking. Speaking of Moscow’s reluctance to support the GPRA, Mao defended his ally, reasoning that “the Soviet Union does not want France to fall completely into the American orbit. . . . The USSR exploits the contradictions existing between the Americans, the French, and the British.” Reaffirming China’s support for Algeria, Mao mentioned that he was not afraid of alienating de Gaulle. Connecting the issues of Algeria and Taiwan, Mao remarked: “France refuses to recognize the PRC. Chiang Kai-shek has an ambassador in Paris. Why should the PRC not support you? Why should we not carry out exchanges with you?” Mao ended his conversation by instructing the Algerian revolutionaries not to lose self-confidence in the struggle against imperialist powers: “De Gaulle is looking down upon us because we

188

Qiang Zhai

have such a big population and produce little steel while France has exploded two atomic bombs. . . . But in ten years, we will produce more steel and have atomic bombs. . . . The oppressed people should not yield. They should have guts.”25 Mao viewed the Iraqi, Cuban, and Algerian revolutions as reflecting a powerful emerging trend of national independence movements. In his mind, anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were related and mutually supportive and reinforcing. They were forming a broad anti-imperialist international united front, forcing imperialist powers to overstretch their forces. He saw the Algerian insurgency as representing a noose around the French neck. He told a group of African social and peace activists and labor leaders on May 7, 1960 that the Algerian war was helping the anti-imperialist movements in other parts of Africa, including Guinea, because it tied down 500,000 French troops. Asserting that there were many contradictions among imperialist countries, such as those between the United States and Britain, Mao maintained that “we should exploit those contradictions.”26 While seeking to drive a wedge between the United States and its European partners, Mao also worried that Washington was using neocolonialism to replace European old colonialism in places like Algeria. He made his concern known to GPRA chairman Abbas during the latter’s visit to China in late September and early October 1960. Upon arriving in Beijing, Abbas received a rapturous welcome from hundreds of thousands of cheering Chinese. His trip happened to coincide with the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the PRC, and he was placed as a guest of honor at Mao’s right.27 Mao reassured Abbas that China would not abandon its support to the GPRA for the sake of winning French recognition. Using Congo as an example, Mao warned Abbas the danger of inviting the United Nations to Algeria. “The United States has used the United Nations to commit aggression against Congo.” Mao also advised Abbas against the use of torture in treating the French and their Algerian collaborators.28 In his talk with Abbas on October 3, Zhou Enlai dwelled on Mao’s earlier emphasis on the principle of fighting while talking, adding that fighting should be primary and talking secondary. Zhou asked Abbas not to repeat the lessons of Congo.29 As the Algerian War drew to a close, Mao became more concerned about the possibility of the United States taking the place of France in Algeria. He told a Japanese peace activist on January 3, 1962 that Washington wanted to control Algeria because there was oil in the southern part of the country. Mao contended that “the French oil capitalists have contradictions with the American oil business tycoons.”30 Operating from a classical Marxist perspective, Mao was convinced that the American capitalist groups dictated the policy of their government.

Seeking a Multipolar World

189

Road to Normalization By throwing its lot with the Algerian insurgents, the PRC paid a price in its relations with France. The French had indicated to the Chinese that the normalization of relations hinged on Beijing’s suspension of aid to the Algerian rebels.31 But Mao brushed aside the French condition, believing that solidarity with national liberation movements was more important than obtaining the French recognition. Mao’s determination to identify with the Algerian insurgency was closely related to his ideological dispute with Khrushchev at the time. The four years of the Algerian War coincided with the development of the Sino–Soviet split. Mao was eager to use the support for the Algerian Revolution to discredit Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence with the West and to establish his leadership position among the national liberation movements. Beijing’s support for the Algerian insurrection was a main reason behind de Gaulle’s decision to postpone recognizing the PRC. Before he returned to power in 1958, de Gaulle had shown interest in relations with the PRC. In 1957, after reading a book by Edgar Faure, a former prime minister who advocated the establishment of diplomatic relations with the PRC, de Gaulle had responded that he agreed with Faure’s view. But as President of the Fifth Republic, de Gaulle’s foreign policy priority was the settlement of the Algerian War. So long as Beijing supported the GPRA, no change in France’s attitude toward the PRC was possible.32 In July 1959, the French government proposed a compromise solution to the deadlock of Sino–French relations: Paris would abandon relations with Chiang Kai-shek’s government in return for Beijing’s dropping of support to the GPRA. But the PRC turned down this proposal, declaring that under no circumstances would it suspend its support for anticolonial struggles.33 During his visit to China in early 1961, Senator François Mitterrand told the Chinese that the establishment of diplomatic relations had to wait until the Algerian issue was settled.34 In March 1962, France and the GPRA signed the Evian Agreement that ended the Algerian War. As a result, the main obstacle in the improvement of PRC–French relations was removed. In the ensuing months, a number of developments drew Beijing and Paris closer, preparing the way for normalization negotiations. In 1962, the Sino–Soviet dispute intensified. During the Sino–Indian border war, Moscow sided with New Delhi. The Kremlin had come to consider China as a possible geopolitical threat along the common border in Central Asia. From 1961 through 1962, about 60,000 Chinese Muslims had crossed the border into the Soviet Union to escape from the famine in the wake of the Great Leap Forward. The specter of a new great game arose: the competition between the Soviet Union and China for influence among the

190

Qiang Zhai

Central Asian population divided by the Chinese–Soviet border. It was the first hint of the major border clashes between Moscow and Beijing in the later 1960s.35 After the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out, China first criticized the Russians for “adventurism” by introducing missiles and later for “capitulationism” by removing them. The propaganda machines of the Chinese and Soviet Communist parties exchanged polemics, accusing each other of deviating from Marxism–Leninism.36 From November 1962 to January 1963, the Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czechoslovak, and East German Communist parties held their national Congresses, where Moscow orchestrated harsh invectives against China and Albania. The Chinese refutations were increasingly sharp.37 Mao perceived the conclusion of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (LNTBT) in July 1963 as an attempt by Washington and Moscow to prevent China from developing nuclear weapons. No longer viewing the Soviet Union as a socialist country, Mao believed that the two superpowers were conspiring to dominate the world. The LNTBT triggered the most vehement phase of Sino–Soviet polemics. It quickly became obvious that China’s ideological attack against Moscow formally represented Beijing’s separation from the old socialist camp and the creation of a rival Chinese power center in Asia. In establishing a third camp, Mao attempted to establish a broad international united front of all countries and groups which opposed American–Soviet global hegemony.38 In 1963–1964, Mao developed the concept of “Two Intermediate Zones.” The first zone referred to developed countries, including capitalist states in Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The second zone referred to underdeveloped nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These two zones existed between the two superpowers. Mao believed that countries in these two zones had contradictions with the United States and the Soviet Union and that China should befriend them to create an international united front against Washington and Moscow.39 The “Two Intermediate Zones” theory represented Mao’s plan to reconfigure global politics and to create a multipolar international system. It provided the intellectual justification and foundation for his rapprochement with France. By reaching out to Paris, Mao aspired to humiliate the United States, to break China’s isolation, and to improve its position in the international arena. If more countries followed the French lead, Beijing’s efforts to obtain a United Nations seat would be strengthened.40 Mao’s fear of American–Soviet domination of world affairs was shared by de Gaulle. When he returned to power in 1958, he was troubled by the structure of the international system: a bipolar contest in which no “third grouping” had developed, and in which France had selected its side. Despite his opposition, Paris had committed itself to the integrated military

Seeking a Multipolar World

191

structure of NATO under Washington’s leadership. De Gaulle was determined to preserve French independence and to maximize its influence because he believed that a reasonably stable and peaceful world required something like the concert of great powers that had existed after the Vienna Conference in the nineteenth century. Between 1959 and 1966, he gradually withdrew France’s forces from the integrated command of NATO.41 De Gaulle was especially annoyed by the exclusion of France from the Anglo–American negotiations with the Soviet Union on the LNTBT. Interpreting those Soviet–American talks as a step toward the creation of dual hegemony that would relegate France to a subordinate position in the world, he took measures to strengthen France’s nuclear capabilities as a way to maintain its independence. Reaching out to China for cooperation constituted another way to highlight France’s independence and to enhance its great-power status. Like Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger later, de Gaulle believed that the nightmare of a China engaged with the West would help push Moscow to be more cooperative with the West.42 De Gaulle’s decision to recognize the PRC was also driven by his concern over the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. On August 29, 1963, de Gaulle’s government issued a statement expressing apprehension over the “serious situation in Vietnam” and calling for a political settlement of the conflict.43 Convinced that Beijing should be part of any lasting solution to the Vietnam War, de Gaulle hoped that cooperation with China, coupled with France’s historical ties with Vietnam and the United States, might allow Paris to play a unique mediating role in settling the conflict, in the process enhancing France’s influence and prestige on the world stage. The concern over the Vietnam situation explained the timing of de Gaulle’s secret initiative to the PRC.44 Accordingly, Sino–French contacts and communications accelerated in late 1963, culminating with Edgar Faure’s journey to China as de Gaulle’s envoy in late October and early November. In their discussions, Zhou Enlai and Faure first exchanged views on major strategic issues and developments in the world. Zhou commended France for granting independence to Algeria and for rejecting the LNTBT. The two leaders expressed agreement on the need to oppose the monopoly of global politics by a few big powers. Both recognized that international peace could be maintained only when all countries were treated as equals. Turning to bilateral relations, Faure stated that France wanted to strengthen relations with the PRC despite the objection of the United States and the Soviet Union. Realizing China’s sensitivity to the Taiwan issue, Faure said that de Gaulle did not endorse a “two China” position, but it was difficult for France to abruptly cut relations with Chiang Kai-shek because de Gaulle still remembered him as a Second World War ally. Zhou Enlai reiterated Beijing’s opposition to the “two China” policy, claiming that the American intervention in Chinese internal affairs had al-

192

Qiang Zhai

lowed Chiang Kai-shek to keep his government in Taiwan. Responding to de Gaulle’s personal attachment to Chiang Kai-shek, Zhou remarked that the French leader “should not inject his individual feelings into state-tostate relations.”45 Yet to achieve the strategic goal of Sino–French cooperation, Zhou made a concession on the thorny issue of Taiwan. He dropped Beijing’s standing policy of insisting on the separation of official ties with Chiang Kai-shek’s government as a precondition for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the PRC. He agreed to establish diplomatic ties with France first, allowing Paris to end its relations with Taiwan “naturally.” Faure and Zhou Enlai concluded their negotiations by signing a draft protocol agreement.46 Washington opposed France’s rapprochement with the PRC.47 To embarrass de Gaulle, American officials urged Chiang Kai-shek not to sever relations with France.48 On December 24, the Chinese Nationalist leader wrote to de Gaulle, appealing to him to cancel the initiative. On January 14, 1964, de Gaulle replied: “It is indeed true that in the fairly near future my government will enter into diplomatic relations with the Beijing government. I am quite aware that the announcement I am making to you will no doubt not fail to disappoint your expectations. But France cannot ignore any longer a fact that has been established.”49 To smooth Chiang Kai-shek’s ruffled feathers and to prevent him from blocking his opening to Beijing, de Gaulle dispatched two envoys to Taipei in January 1964: General Zinovi Peshkov, who had served in the French embassy in Chongqing during the Second World War, and Colonel Jacques Guillermatz, a China specialist. Chiang begged the French emissaries to persuade de Gaulle to delay his decision for three to five years. Appealing to de Gaulle’s personal sentiments, Chiang compared his government’s current position to that of de Gaulle when he was in exile in London during the Second World War, implying that France should not abandon Taiwan at this critical moment. Claiming that countries like Britain and India had not benefited from recognizing the PRC, Chiang warned Paris not to fall into Beijing’s trap. He also alerted his French interlocutors to the possible negative impact of France’s recognition of the PRC on French-speaking countries in Africa. While Peshkov and Guillermatz were visiting Taipei, a Foreign Ministry spokesman of the Chiang Kai-shek government declared at a press conference that his government opposed the “two China” policy.50 But de Gaulle was determined to press ahead with the negotiations with the PRC. He sent Jacques de Beaumarchais, director of the European Department of the French Foreign Ministry, to the PRC embassy in Berne, where the two sides finalized the draft agreement prepared by Faure and Zhou Enlai two months earlier. On January 27, 1964, Beijing and Paris simultaneously announced that they had agreed to establish diplomatic relations and would exchange ambassadors within three months. Despite

Seeking a Multipolar World

193

Washington’s pressure, Chiang Kai-shek’s government terminated its diplomatic ties with France on February 10.51 Mao was satisfied with the new connections with France. He looked to further political and economic cooperation between the two countries when he met with a delegation of the French National Assembly on January 30, 1964. He stressed two areas of common interests between Beijing and Paris: opposition to Soviet–American hegemony and commercial exchanges. On the first issue, Mao pointed out that the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to dominate the world with their nuclear superiority. “They have produced a large number of atomic bombs, and they frequently waved their nuclear bombs to intimidate people.” Mao was pleased that neither China nor France participated in the LNTBT. Calling the treaty a document of deception and blackmail, Mao stated that he did not object to the French production and possession of nuclear weapons and that he was confident that eventually China would explode its own atomic bombs. Urging France to persuade other West European countries like Britain, West Germany, Belgium, and Italy to separate from the United States, Mao envisioned a “third world” running from London, Paris through China to Japan.52 As to the second area of common interests, Mao asked France to lift the export ban on strategic materials to China. Realizing that it was the United States that masterminded the export ban, Mao claimed that “eventually this ban would be breached.” Lamenting that Washington forbade Paris from selling oil to China and that the existing Sino–French trade only covered merchandises such as wheat, Mao pleaded the French to expand trade to include nonstrategic materials like aircraft. “Britain has sold us some airplanes, and we can also conduct this kind of business.” Mao concluded his remarks by repeating his famous metaphor that “the United States was a paper tiger.” But on this occasion, he hastened to add that “the Soviet Union was also a paper tiger.” Mao used the bickering of Cambodia’s head of state Norodom Sihanouk with Washington as an example to demonstrate that small countries should not cave in to big powers: “Cambodia is a country with a population of only five million people, but it has the guts to confront the United States.” Mao continued to encourage de Gaulle’s independent foreign policy when he spoke to the head of the French Technological Exposition on September 10, 1964. Mao began by praising de Gaulle for a speech given on July 23, in which he criticized West Germany for following too closely Washington’s position. “It is a wonderful criticism. It will force West Germany to reconsider its practice of taking too much American advice. Great Britain also deserves a criticism because it also follows too closely the American policy.” Returning to the theme of opposing American–Soviet hegemony, Mao contended that the two superpowers could not control the way the world was changing and that China would not be intimidated by

194

Qiang Zhai

their nuclear blackmail.53 Mao was clearly frustrated that a united Europe speaking with one voice was not emerging. He had underestimated the differences between the West European countries. The normalization of diplomatic relations between the PRC and France reflected the convergence of their strategic interests: the maintenance of their respective influence in world affairs, the resistance to American–Soviet hegemony, and the creation of a multipolar international system. The dramatic Sino–French opening displayed the diplomatic acumen and creativity of Mao and de Gaulle. They found themselves in similar geopolitical situations. Each sought to remove the shackles on a more independent and active policy. And they both exploited their new connection to assert their independence from the superpowers and to enhance their authority at home. As the White House and the Kremlin bristled at the Sino–French opening, Mao and de Gaulle rejoiced in the confusion and havoc they made with their assertion of national independence. Their new relationship introduced complexity and instability into the Cold War system.

Disappointment and Setback Although the establishment of diplomatic relations represented a major breakthrough in the foreign policies of the PRC and France, it did not yield as many immediate political benefits as Mao and de Gaulle had expected.54 Certainly, in the area of economic relations, much progress was made from 1964 through 1966. In 1964, Sino–French trade reached 100 million U.S. dollars, making France China’s second largest trade partner in Western Europe after Britain. The French government loosened up the export restrictions against the PRC and removed the quota limits on certain Chinese imported goods. In 1966, the two countries signed the “Sino–French Aviation and Transportation Agreement,” making France the only Western country in the world that operated direct flights to China. In that same year, Beijing and Paris prepared for a series of joint commercial expositions as well as plans for cooperation in naval construction, mining, and oil production. While China obtained advanced technological knowledge from France, the French industry benefited from Chinese orders and a favorable balance of trade.55 But in terms of political benefits, expectations fell short. For Mao, the French recognition did not quickly lead to similar moves by other West European countries, and a united Western Europe independent from the United States was not in the making. De Gaulle, on the other hand, found a number of his foreign policy efforts in areas like Indochina and Africa at loggerheads with Beijing’s militant approaches. The absence of further progress in Sino–French political cooperation was primarily the result of

Seeking a Multipolar World

195

the rapid radicalization of Mao’s international stance driven by his dispute with the Soviet Union. One of the objectives in de Gaulle’s opening to China was to strengthen his hand in his efforts to promote a peaceful settlement of the Indochina conflict. But Mao’s opposition to peace talks on Vietnam frustrated de Gaulle’s endeavors. While de Gaulle saw the normalization of relations with the PRC as an asset in his Vietnam diplomacy, Mao actually perceived it as a liability in his relations with the Vietnamese communists. He was afraid that rapprochement with France might produce an impression among national liberation movements in the world, including Vietnam, that the PRC was more interested in wooing capitalist states than in backing their causes.56 Beijing therefore refrained from engaging in high-level visits with France between 1964 and 1966 despite Paris’s strong interest in doing so. In May 1964, the French Foreign Ministry notified the Chinese embassy that Minister of State Andre Malraux hoped to visit the PRC. Beijing did not respond at the time primarily for the fear that Malraux’s journey might create a negative impact on Hanoi’s war against the United States. The PRC government declined to accept de Gaulle’s invitation for Premier Zhou Enlai to visit France in 1966 for similar reasons.57 On July 19, 1965, Malraux finally made his trip to China. He arrived in Beijing as a special envoy of de Gaulle. Among other topics, Malraux discussed Vietnam with Mao and Zhou Enlai. He proposed a “neutralization of Indochina” plan that would redraw the boundaries of Vietnam. According to the plan, Vietnam would be divided along the Truong Son Ra Mountain. The area east of the mountain, including Saigon, would belong to the DRV or the NLF; the area west of the mountain, as well as Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, would be “neutralized.” Malraux also asked the Chinese whether it would be possible to conduct negotiations if the United States “promised” to withdraw troops from Vietnam. Zhou immediately rejected Malraux’s “neutralization” plan, claiming that the boundaries in Indochinese countries were long established; furthermore, the independence and neutrality of Cambodia and Laos should be respected on the basis of the Geneva Agreement of 1954. As to the intentions of Washington, the Chinese premier believed that the United States did not want to exit Vietnam. He told the French visitor that China would firmly support the Vietnamese struggle against the United States.58 The Cultural Revolution launched by Mao in 1966 further disrupted Sino–French relations. The fanatic Red Guards took over the foreign ministry for a brief period of time, pushing the moderate Zhou Enlai and Foreign Minister Chen Yi out of the decision-making process and replacing diplomatic caution and realism with revolutionary romanticism and xenophobia. Eager to export the experience of the Chinese revolution, PRC diplomats stationed abroad distributed copies of Mao’s little “Red Book” as well

196

Qiang Zhai

as Mao badges to local populations. They wanted foreign countries to follow China’s example of making revolution.59 Mao’s policy of encouraging insurgency in the Third World and peddling the Chinese revolutionary model antagonized de Gaulle, who wanted to protect and preserve French influence in French–speaking countries in Africa. He urged those countries to improve their defense and coordinate their political and economic developments in order to resist the infiltration of Maoist ideology. He asked them to boycott the “second Bandung” Afro-Asian conference in Algiers, which was being actively promoted by Beijing, and not to establish relations with the PRC. The French media warned African capitals of the danger of the “yellow peril” and “red dragon” coming from China. The French embassies in Africa tried to minimize the appeal of visiting Chinese delegations. For example, they attempted to control the number of people attending Chinese dance and acrobatic performances by either limiting the issuance of tickets or announcing wrong dates for the Chinese shows. Wishing to remain neutral in the Sino–Soviet dispute, many African governments rejected Beijing’s request to distance themselves from Moscow. Between 1965–1968, six African states either broke or froze relations with the PRC and seven expelled New China News Agency correspondents from their soils.60 When student demonstrations broke out in France in May, 1968, the PRC expressed sympathy to the protesters and blamed the French authorities for suppressing them. De Gaulle’s government responded by disbanding proPRC associations and groups and prohibiting the sale and distribution of Chinese publications in France. The Chinese Foreign Ministry lodged a protest over an incident, in which the Chinese embassy windows were smashed and Chinese national flags were torn down in Paris.61 Mao’s extremist foreign policy during the Cultural Revolution made the PRC more isolated in the world. Sino–French relations suffered serious disruptions and setbacks. Despite these developments, however, de Gaulle never wavered in his basic belief that France and the PRC should cooperate in opposing the domination of the world by Washington and Moscow. On a number of occasions in 1967–1968, he referred to China as “an emerging strong power” and expressed the hope of continuing cooperation with Beijing. Even on the eve of his stepping down as president in April 1969, de Gaulle instructed Manac’h, the newly appointed French ambassador to Beijing, to strengthen political, economic, and cultural relations with the PRC and to arrange a visit to France by a high-level Chinese leader.62

Conclusion China’s relations with France were determined by changes in the global system and by its interactions with the two superpowers. When Mao decided to

Seeking a Multipolar World

197

court de Gaulle, he was motivated primarily by his strategic calculation of resisting American–Soviet domination of world affairs and by his political aspiration of restoring China’s great power status. If de Gaulle harbored no illusions about what he described as the “malevolent” behavior of Mao’s government at home and abroad,63 Mao was fully conscious of what he called the “oppressive” policy of de Gaulle’s administration “against the French Communist Party and the French people.” But the two men were able to transcend their ideological differences to build a relationship based on geopolitical realism. The intention to break the American–Soviet nuclear monopoly led Mao to accelerate China’s own nuclear program and encourage France’s independent nuclear force. The Chinese and French nuclear capabilities challenged the international dominance of Washington and Moscow. The Sino–French rapprochement changed the dynamics of the Cold War. De Gaulle’s recognition of the PRC prepared the way for the eventual trip to China by U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972. While Mao was certainly visionary in his search for a multipolar world, he could also fall victim to his own wishful thinking. When he showed frustration with the lack of progress in the formation of a united Western Europe, he clearly failed to pay sufficient attention to the contradictions and disagreement within the West European community. The gap between de Gaulle’s anti-Atlantic conception of Europe’s future and West German reliance on Washington for security prevented the emergence of Franco– German unity. Britain remained America’s Trojan horse in Europe. Beijing’s normalization of relations with France in 1964 did not lead to a new era of Chinese–West European cooperation largely because it foundered on the rocks of Mao’s uncompromising position on Vietnam and on the chaos of his Cultural Revolution. Although Mao fell short in realizing his designs for a new, multipolar balance, he was pleased with the “great upheaval under Heaven” that he played a role in creating in the 1960s. He was eager to fill the international stage and leave his imprint in history. If he could not dislodge the two superpowers, he could at least share the stage with them and divert the spotlights to himself because his statements and actions caught the attention of the world.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War: The Masking of the Sino–American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Michael M. Sheng, Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Comrades in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino–Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Shu Guang Zhang, Economic Cold War: America’s Embargo against China and the Sino–Soviet Alliance, 1949–1963

198

Qiang Zhai

(Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); Yafeng Xia, Negotiating with the Enemy: U.S.–China Talks during the Cold War, 1949–1972 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006); Simei Qing, From Allies to Enemies: Visions of Modernity, Identity, and U.S.–China Diplomacy, 1945–1960 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007); Lorenz M. Luthi, The Sino–Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). â•‡ 2.â•‡ Zhang Xichang and Zhou Jianqing, Zhanhou Faguo waijiaoshi [A Diplomatic History of Post-WWII France] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1993). â•‡ 3.â•‡ On China’s role in the First Indochina War, see Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), chapter 1. â•‡ 4.â•‡ Memorandum of Conversation (MemCon) between Zhou Enlai and MendesFrance, June 23, 1954, in the PRC Foreign Ministry Archive, comp., 1954 nian Rineiwa huiyi [The Geneva Conference of 1954] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 2006), pp. 292–98. See also Jean Lacouture, Pierre Mendes France (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1984), pp. 219–22. For further discussion on Zhou Enlai’s diplomacy at the Geneva Conference, see Qiang Zhai, “China and the Geneva Conference of 1954,” China Quarterly, no. 129 (March 1992), pp. 103–22. â•‡ 5.â•‡ MemCon between Jacques Guillermaz and Wang Bingnan, May 18, 1954, in the PRC Foreign Ministry Archive, 1954 nian Rineiwa huiyi, pp. 259–60. â•‡ 6.â•‡ Pei Jianzhang (ed.), Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, 1949–1956 [Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1956] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1994), p. 317. â•‡ 7.â•‡ Ibid.; the CCP Central Documentary Research Department (ed.), Zhou Enlai nianpu, 1949–1976 [A Chronology of Zhou Enlai’s Life, 1949–1976], 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1997), vol. I, p. 513; the Diplomatic History Research Office of the PRC Foreign Ministry (ed.), Zhou Enlai waijiao huodong dashiji, 1949–1975 [A Chronicle of Zhou Enlai’s Diplomatic Activities, 1949–1975] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1993), p. 129. â•‡ 8.â•‡ The Foreign Ministry of the PRC and the CCP Central Documentary Research Department, comp., Mao Zedong waijiao wenxuan [Diplomatic Writings of Mao Zedong] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe and Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1994) (hereafter Mao waijiao wenxuan), pp. 247–49. â•‡ 9.â•‡ Pei, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, 1949–1956, pp. 283–84. 10.â•‡ Memorandum of conversation between Mao and Sukarno, September 30, 1956, Mao waijiao wenxuan, pp. 263–74. 11.â•‡ Ibid., pp. 291–300. 12.â•‡ On the Great Leap Forward, see David M. Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China: The Institutional Origins of the Great Leap Forward (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Dali L. Yang, Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996); Frederick C. Teiwes, with Warren Sun, China’s Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians, and Provincial Leaders in the Unfolding of the Great Leap Forward, 1955–1959 (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1999). 13.â•‡ Mao explained twice his “noose” strategy during the Fifteenth Supreme State Conference in September 1958. See Mao waijiao wenxun, pp. 341–52.

Seeking a Multipolar World

199

14.â•‡ On China’s role in undermining Khrushchev’s efforts to seek détente with the West in the late 1950s and early 1960s, see Qiang Zhai, “Coexistence and Confrontation: Sino–Soviet Relations after Stalin,” in Kenneth A. Osgood and Klaus Larres (eds.), The Cold War after Stalin’s Death: A New International History (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), pp. 177–92. 15.â•‡ Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: politique étrangère du Général de Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998). 16.â•‡ Wang Taiping (ed.), Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, 1957–1969 [Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, 1957–1969] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1998), p. 363. 17.â•‡ Mao waijiao wenxun, p. 345. 18.â•‡ MemCon between Mao and Marshall Montgomery, May 27, 1960, Mao waijiao wenxun, pp. 421–35. 19.â•‡ Lin Ke, “Mao Zedong’s Striking Impression on Me,” Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), No. 4, 1992, pp. 67–68. 20.â•‡ Luo Qingchang, “My Observations of Mao Zedong’s Fine Style,” Dangde wenxian (Party Documents), no. 3, 1993, p. 42. 21.â•‡ The CCP Central Documentary Research Department (ed.), Zhou Enlai nianpu, 1949–1976, vol. II, pp. 173–74; the CCP Central Documentary Research Department (ed.), Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao [Mao Zedong’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the PRC], 13 vols. (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1987– 1998), vol. VII, pp. 424–25. 22.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, p. 114; Han Huaizhi and Tan Jingqiao (eds.), Dangdai Zhongguo jundui de junshi gongzuo [Contemporary Military Works of the Chinese Armed Forces], 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1989), vol. I, pp. 577–78; Liu Shufa, ed., Chen Yi nianpu [Chronicle of Chen Yi’s Life], 2 vols. (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), vol. II, pp. 758–60; Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954–1962 (London: Macmillan, 1977), pp. 316–17. 23.â•‡ Anne Gilks and Gerald Segal, China and the Arms Trade (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), p. 37; John W. Garver, Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China (Eaglewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1993), p. 139. Between 1958–1963, China supplied the FLN 150,000 guns and cannon—about 30,000 of them were U.S. made. See Han and Tan, Dangdai Zhongguo jundui de junshi gongzuo, vol. I, p. 578. 24.â•‡ Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), chapter 8. 25.â•‡ MemCon between Mao and the GPRA delegation, May 17, 1960, Mao waijiao wenxun, pp. 416–20; Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution, p. 226. See also Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, p. 114; Anthony Clayton, The Wars of French Decolonization (London: Longman, 1994), p. 165. 26.â•‡ MemCon between Mao and visitors from twelve African countries and areas, May 7, 1960, Mao waijiao wenxun, pp. 403–13. 27.â•‡ Horne, A Savage War of Peace, p. 405. 28.â•‡ Summary of Mao’s talk with Abbas, September 30, 1960, in the CCP Central Documentary Research Department (ed.), Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao, vol. IX,

200

Qiang Zhai

pp. 296–99. See also Edgar O’Balance, The Algerian Insurrection, 1954–1962 (London: Farber and Farber, 1967), p. 160. 29.â•‡ The Diplomatic History Research Office of the PRC Foreign Ministry (ed.), Zhou Enlai waijiao huodong dashiji, 1949–1975, p. 291. 30.â•‡ Mao waijiao wenxun, pp. 485–89. 31.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, p. 114. 32.â•‡ Edgar Faure visited Beijing in May 1957 and talked with Mao and Zhou Enlai. After the trip, he wrote a book The Snake and the Tortoise. The title was inspired by Mao’s poems. Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Ruler, 1945–1970 (London: Harvill, 1991), p. 406; Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, p. 362. 33.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, p. 363. 34.â•‡ Ibid., p. 364; Li Jiasong, chief ed., Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiao dashiji (Chronicle of Main Diplomatic Activities of the People’s Republic of China) (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 2001), vol. 2, p. 185. Following his visit to China, Mitterrand wrote a book titled China Under Challenge and began advocating publicly that France should establish diplomatic relations with the PRC. Wayne Northcutt, Mitterrand: A Political Biography (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1992), p. 59. 35.â•‡ Constantine Pleshakov, “Nikita Khrushchev and Sino–Soviet Relations,” in Westad, Brothers in Arms, pp. 226–45; Li Danhui, “A Historical Examination of the Origins of the Yita Incident in Xinjiang in 1962: New Documents from the Xinjiang Archives,” Beijing he Mosike: Cong lianmeng zouxiang duikang, ed. Li Danhui [Beijing and Moscow: From Alliance to Confrontation] (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2002), pp. 480–509. 36.â•‡ Allen Whiting, “The Sino–Soviet Split,” in Roderick MacFarquhar and John K. Fairbank, (eds.), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 14, The People’s Republic, Part I: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1949–1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), chapter 11; Odd Arne Westad, “The Sino–Soviet Alliance and the United States,” in Brothers in Arms, ed. Westad, pp. 165–88. 37.â•‡ Wu Xiuquan, Huiyi yu Huainian [Recollections and Memories] (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), pp. 344–65. Wu Xiuquan led the CCP delegation to those East European party congresses. See also William E. Griffith, The Sino–Soviet Rift (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964), p. 83. 38.â•‡ Chai Chengwen, Huang Zhengji, and Zhang Changjin, Sanda tupo [Three Breakthroughs] (Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1994), pp. 308–9. 39.â•‡ For Mao’s statements on the “Two Intermediate Zones,” see Mao g waijiao wenxun, pp. 506–9. 40.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 358–72. 41.â•‡ Stanley Hoffmann, “The Foreign Policy of Charles de Gaulle,” in The Diplomats, 1939–1979, ed. Gordon A. Craig and Francis L. Loewenheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 238–54; Frederic Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States and the Atlantic Alliance (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). 42.â•‡ Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 76–77; Hoffmann, “The Foreign Policy of Charles de Gaulle,” p. 237. 43.â•‡ Zhang Xichang, Wang Yihao, Wang Taiping, and Huang Zhiliang, Fengluan dieqi: Gongheguo disanci jianjiao gaochao [Summit After Summit: The Third High Tide

Seeking a Multipolar World

201

in the PRC’s Establishment of Diplomatic Relations] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1998), p. 29. 44.â•‡ On the role of Vietnam in the timing of de Gaulle’s opening to China, see Fredrik Logevall, “The French Recognition of China and Its Implications to the Vietnam War,” in Behind the Bamboo Curtain: China, Vietnam, and the World beyond Asia, ed. Priscilla Roberts (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 153–71; Garret Martin, “Playing the China Card: Revisiting France’s Recognition of Communist China, 1963–1964,” Journal of Cold War Studies 10, no. 1 (2008), pp. 52–80. 45.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 365–69; Zhang et al., Fengluan dieqi, pp. 36–51; Xie Li, “A Major Breakthrough in Our Country’s Relations with Western States: A Factual Record of the Negotiations on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between France and China” in The Diplomatic History Research Office of the PRC Foreign Ministry (ed.), XinZhongguo waijiao fengyun [Episodes in New China’s Diplomacy] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1990), pp. 99–108. 46.â•‡ Lacouture, De Gaulle, pp. 406–7; Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 365–69; Zhang et al., Fengluan dieqi, pp. 36–51; Xie Li, “A Major Breakthrough in Our Country’s Relations with Western States,” pp. 99–108. 47.â•‡ Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, “Threats, Opportunities, and Frustrations in East Asia,” in Warren I. Cohen and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, (eds.), Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World: American Foreign Policy, 1963–1968 (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 102, Robert Garson, The United States and China since 1949: A Troubled Affair (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994), p. 99; Pan Jingguo and Zhang Ying, “The Factors of the United States and Taiwan in the Normalization of Sino–French Relations,” in Dangdai Zhonghuoshi yanjiu (Contemporary China History Studies), no. 3, 2002, pp. 91–97. 48.â•‡ See President Lyndon Johnson’s undated letter to Chiang Kai-shek, which was included in Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s telegram to the U.S. embassy in Taipei on January 16, 1964, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, XXX, pp. 4–5. 49.â•‡ Quoted in Lacouture, De Gaulle, pp. 406–7; Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 369–71. 50.â•‡ Lacouture, De Gaulle, pp. 406–7; Zhang et al., Fengluan dieqi, pp. 58–61. 51.â•‡ Lacouture, De Gaulle, 1945–1970, pp. 406–7; Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 369–71; Zhang et al., Fengluan dieqi, pp. 47–71. 52.â•‡ This and the following paragraph are based on the MemCon between Mao and the delegation of the French National Assembly, January 30, 1964, Mao waijiao wenxun, pp. 520–25. 53.â•‡ MemCon between Mao and the head of the French Technological Exposition, September 10, 1964, Mao waijiao wenxun, pp. 542–43. 54.â•‡ China specialist Michael Yahuda writes that the breakthrough in establishing diplomatic relations with France in 1964 turned out to be “a false dawn” for China. Michael B. Yahuda, “China and Europe: The Significance of a Secondary Relationship,” in Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, ed. Thomas W. Robinson and David Shambaugh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 266–82. 55.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 376–79; Zhang et al., Fengluan dieqi, pp. 77–78; Suri, Power and Protest, p. 77.

202

Qiang Zhai

56.â•‡ This dilemma also applied to China’s subsequent rapprochement with the United States in 1971–1972. See Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, chapter 9. 57.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 373–75. 58.â•‡ Chinese Foreign Ministry circular, “Malraux’s Visit to China,” August 12, 1965. Q3124, J123, Jiangsu Provincial Archive; Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 373–74; Zhang et al., Fengluan dieqi, pp. 79–80; Oliver Todd, Malraux: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), pp. 381–94. For Malraux’s account of his visit to China in 1965, see Andre Malraux, Antimemoirs (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968), pp. 325–80. But the book makes no mention of Malraux’s suggestion of redividing Vietnam. In the words of French scholar Jean Lacouture, Malraux’s proposal was “the most wildly improbable idea that ever emerged from the brain of a novelist.” See Jean Lacouture, Andre Malraux (New York: Random House, 1975), p. 431. On Paris’s Vietnam policy, see W. W. Kulski, De Gaulle and the World: The Foreign Policy of the Fifth French Republic (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1966); Marianna P. Sullivan, France’s Vietnam Policy: A Study in French–American Relations (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978); Frank Costigliola, France and the United States: The Cold Alliance since World War II (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1992), chapter. 4. For further treatment of Beijing’s opposition to French peace initiatives on Vietnam, see Qiang Zhai, “China’s Response to French Peace Initiatives,” in The Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1964–1968, ed. Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), pp. 278–91. 59.â•‡ Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen, Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution (London: Kegan Paul International, 1998); Ma Jisen, The Cultural Revolution in the Foreign Ministry of China (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2004); Chen Yangyong, Kucheng weiju: Zhou Enlai zai 1967 [Saving a Dangerous Situation: Zhou Enlai in 1967] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1999), chapter 12; Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 202–3. 60.â•‡ Burundi, Dahomey, the Central African Republic, and Ghana severed diplomatic relations. Tunisia closed its embassy in Beijing until 1971; Kenya did likewise until 1978. See Xie Yixian (ed.), Zhongguo waijiao shi: Zhonghua renmin gongheguo shiqi, 1949–1979 [A Diplomatic History of China: The Period of the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1979] (Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1988), pp. 385–87; Philip Snow, “China and Africa: Consensus and Camouflage,” in Robinson and Shambaugh (eds.), Chinese Foreign Policy, pp. 306–7; Rosemary Foot, The Practice of Power: U.S. Relations with China since 1949 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 213; Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 382–83. 61.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, p. 385; Zhang et al., Fengluan dieqi, pp. 86–87. 62.â•‡ Wang, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, pp. 384–86; Zhang et al., Fengluan dieqi, pp. 87–88. 63.â•‡ Suri, Power and Protest, p. 73.

10 A Hot Summer: France, Israel, and the Middle East Crisis in 1958 Gadi Heimann

Introduction In May 1967 a crisis occurred in the Middle East that led, within a few weeks, to war between Israel and its neighboring Arab states. As well-documented, this crisis and the war that followed created a rift between Israel and its most important ally in the previous decade—France. Intensive argument still continues around the reasons for this rift. Some claim that its origin lies in the circumstances of the time and implicitly suggest that if things had not developed as they did, relations between Israel and France would have continued to be amicable as they had been in the past.1 Others see the source of the rift between the two countries as resulting from fundamental conflict of interests that lay beneath the surface for years, and were revealed only in the presence of a crisis.2 One of the problems facing scholars in attempting to reconcile the various interpretations is the fact that the Middle East had been relatively “quiet” from 1958 to 1967. Despite recurrent incidents and a permanent state of tension, no significant crisis had erupted in the Middle East for almost a decade. For this reason, the region constituted a secondary arena for the great powers, and even if conflicts of interest existed between small countries and their patrons, these remained latent and created the impression that everything was in order. This situation underscores the importance of analyzing the crisis that took place in the Middle East in the summer of 1958, as the previous major crisis in the region. The circumstances surrounding this crisis were very different from those of 1967, as were some of the actors that took part in it. However, its very existence forced the great powers, among them France, to 203

204

Gadi Heimann

assess the state of affairs, reconsider their interests, identify sources of danger, and formulate a strategy. This offers scholars an opportunity to learn about the French and Israeli approaches during this period and from this also to gain insight into the crisis that erupted a decade later. This article suggests that: 1) France and Israel, despite the common interests they shared, perceived the crisis from different angles and differed in regard to the goals they pursued. While France wanted to keep the Anglo– Saxons out of Lebanon and Jordan, Israel desired a deeper involvement of the western powers in the region that would guarantee the status quo. 2)Â€The crisis revealed fundamental divergences in the way Israel and France viewed each other. Israel’s perception of the commitment of France to particular Western interests was exaggerated, as well as her inclination to identify the Soviets behind Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s threat. France, on the other hand, failed to comprehend the intensity of Israel’s survival anxiety and the way she assessed the threats confronting her. In these two factors we can identify the roots of the 1967 split between France and Israel, which where already visible in the 1958 crisis, but stayed dormant because of various factors.

Background The roots of the 1958 crisis in the Middle East are inherent in two factors: The first was Nasser’s challenge to the status quo in the Middle East by raising the flag of pan-Arab ideology, and the fact that this call appealed to the hearts of the masses throughout the Arab world. The second factor was the cold war and the fact that conservative Arab states were supported by the Western powers, while Nasser enjoyed the support of the Soviet Union since 1955. The Suez crisis (1956) greatly strengthened Nasser’s prestige in Arab countries in particular and the Third World in general. Not only did his military failure in the campaign not tarnish his image, but it was actually enhanced since his rout was blamed on the involvement of France and Britain, and he was perceived as a victim of imperialist aggression. His success in surviving this aggression and turning it into a diplomatic victory earned him credit in the Arab world. Nasser’s charisma and prestige contributed even more to the attractiveness of his call to unite the Arab world into a single country “from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf”. This in turn constituted a direct threat to the positions of the other Arab rulers, but the popularity pan-Arabism enjoyed among the wider Arab public meant these same rulers had to pay lip service to this principle, while simultaneously attempting to present Nasser as a demagogue using pan-Arabism as a cover for the ambition to impose Egyptian hegemony on the region.3

A Hot Summer

205

In February 1958, pan-Arabism chalked up an impressive victory with the unification of Egypt and Syria as a new state—the United Arab Republic (UAR). It seemed that the unification of the Arab people into a single political entity was inevitable. The conservative Arab leaders had no choice but to ride the wave in an attempt to control it. In mid-February Iraq and Jordan announced their unification, which was intended to challenge Nasser’s monopoly over the title of savior of Arab nationalism. In this context of growing hostility and suspicion between the two camps, any internal opposition to the regime in one of the conservative Arab states was perceived as emanating directly from Cairo. What gave this fact universal resonance was the rivalry between the two blocs over the hearts of the Arab states in the region. The West viewed Nasser as a willing, or not-so-willing, tool of Soviet expansionist ambitions: Pan-Arabism would firstly lead to the fall of West-supported Arab leaders and secondly prepare the path for an alliance between the Arab world and the Soviet Union. An internal revolution in one of the conservative Arab countries could lead to the rise of a radical regime and thus remove an ally of the West. Worse, it could create a momentum that might lead to the collapse of other countries.4 The Cold War thus turned local, internal struggles between political and ethnic parties in small states into a multidimensional international crisis. Against this background, it is possible to understand why the civil war in Lebanon and the successful coup d’état in Iraq so terrified the Western powers in the summer of 1958. A broad literature exists on the subject of the internal crisis in Lebanon and Iraq that led to the American–British intervention and therefore it will not be addressed here.5 In Lebanon, an internal violent struggle erupted between the Maronite president, Camille Chamoun, and the opposition about the willingness of the first to be reelected president, in contradiction with the Lebanese constitution. As the protest intensified in May 1958, Chamoun realized that his survival depended on the willingness of the Western powers to intervene and restore order in the country. Lebanon under his leadership was the only Arab state to openly accept the Eisenhower Doctrine.6 The United States was worried by the possibility that Lebanon would fall into the direct sphere of influence of Cairo, but understood that direct intervention would probably exacerbate the problem. It would certainly incite the masses in Arab countries and would make the situation of the local leaders even more fragile.7 The U.S. realized it would be preferable to avoid a coup d’état in Lebanon through agreement with Nasser or by an internal Lebanese arrangement under which Chamoun would relinquish his position to someone acceptable to all camps. Attempts were made to pursue both these avenues but they all failed.8 On the July 14, a military coup occurred in Baghdad which threatened to deprive the West one of the most important strongholds in the Middle East:

206

Gadi Heimann

Iraq was the only Arab member state of the Baghdad Pact (composed of Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Britain); her oil resources, extracted by foreign companies (which composed the Iraq Petroleum Company IPC) had become the main supplier of Western Europe, which was almost completely dependent on external sources; given its size and tradition, Iraq was also one of the few Arab states that could compete with Egypt’s leadership ambitions in the region. It is no wonder then that Western governments were very concerned when the news of a military coup broke out. It seemed that if speedy action was not taken, the whole Middle East might fall into the hands of Nasser and his Soviet patrons.9 The position of King Hussein’s Jordan was particularly precarious. Similarly, the Lebanese regime, in a situation of distress even before the aforementioned events, seemed on the verge of collapse. The U.S. and Britain decided to intervene. An invasion of Iraq designed to put an end to the coup d’état was rejected out of hand because of the broad popular support the rebels enjoyed, and in the absence of a local opposition on which legitimacy could be based. It was, however, still possible to save Lebanon and Jordan. U.S. marines landed on the shores of Lebanon on July 15. The following day, Britain asked Israel for permission to fly paratroop battalions over its territory to Jordan with the aim of protecting Hussein’s regime, and started the flights even before the request was granted. Israel, despite weighty reasons for refusing to grant this authorization,10 finally submitted and agreed to the flights in order not to create a crisis with the U.S. and to help secure the survival of the Jordanian monarch. France, despite its many interests in and special connections with Lebanon, was not a party to the decision to intervene, and contented itself with the dispatch of naval forces close to the Lebanese shore to please the Lebanese government and to convey her long standing interest in that country. In the following days, the crisis in the Middle East occupied a prominent place on the international agenda; it was the great powers’ focus of interest. Israel and France, two countries with a special interest in the crisis besetting the region, took an active role in the diplomatic campaign conducted around it. Their approaches and attitudes to the crisis enable us to identify the way in which they perceived their interests and the extent to which these interests overlapped.

France’s attitude to the great powers and the embargo plan During the crisis France adopted a policy that differed from its Anglo– Saxon allies, a policy that did not always please the latter. France did not see Nasser, nor the Soviets, as the only or even the major threat to French inter-

A Hot Summer

207

ests in the Middle East. From the French perspective, the United States and Britain were the main competitors for political and cultural influence in the region.11 Ultimately, it was not the Soviet Union but the United States and Britain that were dominant in the Middle East.12 France feared that regional instability would lead to intensified involvement of the Anglo–Saxon powers and to the further erosion of the influence it still enjoyed there. Paris was particularly sensitive about preserving its special status in Lebanon and to a certain extent in Syria. It is thus easy to understand why French President of the Council Charles de Gaulle viewed with concern the landing of the Anglo–Saxon forces in Lebanon and Jordan. A few days prior to the start of the crisis, in his first meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on July 5, de Gaulle expressed his explicit reservations about the possibility of an American intervention in the Lebanese crisis.13 The French President of the Council, despite his preference for finding a local solution to the problem of Lebanon and preventing the direct intervention of the powers, was determined not to allow this intervention to be executed without France being a party to it. To de Gaulle’s regret, matters developed differently. In the wake of the news of the coup d’état in Iraq, the United States and Britain decided to operate rapidly without consulting France. There is more than a shred of evidence to believe that this was the result of a deliberate decision not to further complicate the fragile position of the Western powers in the region by being overly close to “boycotted” France.14 This, of course, was not how the U.S. and Britain presented matters to an irate France. They claimed that the severity of the situation forced them to act rapidly, which did not allow time for discussions and joint coordination.15 De Gaulle was not impressed. After all, the United States had sufficient time to coordinate its policy with Britain. It was clear, at least with regard to the Middle Eastern arena, that France was perceived as a nuisance that should be kept at bay. We can hardly exaggerate the anger de Gaulle felt toward the utter disregard of France in this matter. To add insult to injury, U.S. bases in France were used for the operation without informing Paris. Yet, a late unilateral intervention by France was out of the question, for de Gaulle did not intend to appear as a satellite of the Anglo–Saxons. French involvement at this stage would have made her a target for criticism of the Arab states, the Eastern bloc and the Third World as a whole, without conferring the advantages of being an equal partner in a triumvirate of powers. Any French move would also have been regarded with hostility by the United States at a time when it was important for France to foster as much goodwill as possible.16 It seemed better to simply dispatch a naval force close to the shores of Lebanon in order to remind French allies that Lebanon was a country in which she had special interests, and also not to appear as having turned her back on the president of Lebanon’s request for intervention. Pos-

208

Gadi Heimann

sibly, some benefit could nevertheless accrue from the existing situation. In the following days, France inaugurated a campaign of complaints, protesting against the allied behavior toward France in the crisis.17 Admittedly, de Gaulle agreed with the invasion itself, for it was clear that in light of the dramatic events in Iraq, this was the only way of saving the regime in Jordan and possibly the one in Lebanon. Yet, he expressed strong opposition to the fact that this was not done in coordination with France. Furthermore, the intervention could have severe international repercussions in that the Soviet Union was liable to react resolutely, for example in Western Europe. De Gaulle would not agree to being involved in a conflict, and possibly even a war between the powers, without making the French position known and without participating in shaping policy. In light of the failure of the spontaneous coordination between the Western allies in the previous crisis, there was a need for preliminary consultation between the three powers. In other words, there was a need to formulate a joint strategy and to conduct a detailed discussion on possible scenarios in various world arenas. What de Gaulle was actually trying to do was to leverage disagreements with the U.S. and Britain and the defensive positions they were pushed into, in order to achieve an arrangement that would enable France to occupy a more central international role. If Paris did not manage to prevent U.S. penetration into Lebanon, and if France was destined to lose a certain amount of influence and prestige for not participating in the Western intervention, the establishment of a Western triumvirate involving equal status with Washington and London would constitute substantial compensation. De Gaulle, however, was not only looking for compensation. He also wanted to minimize as far as possible the damage arising from the American and the British entry into the Middle East. In fact, he wished to find a way of removing them from there as quickly as possible. Already in the first days following the incursion, France called for an evacuation of the foreign forces as soon as order was restored and the immediate danger to the safety of the regimes in Lebanon and Jordan had passed. Even prior to the dual invasion, France claimed that if international intervention was unavoidable, it would be better if it were done by United Nations forces,18 certainly an exceptional position on de Gaulle’s part considering his animosity towards the Organization. Now, France began to float the idea that the U.S. and British forces should be replaced by UN soldiers within a short time. However, the most striking expression of the French “containment policy,” directed not toward the Soviets but her allies, was the adoption of the idea of a quadripartite summit and the embargo plan in the Middle East. On JulyÂ€19, the Soviet Union decided to react to U.S. decisiveness by sending an open letter to the leaders of the three largest Western powers calling for a summit meeting of the four great powers with the participation of India and the UN Secretary General.19 An arrangement among the powers would

A Hot Summer

209

enable the Soviet Union to remain an important actor in the Middle East, even to improve her current positions.20 However, the generally aggressive tone of the letter played into the hands of the U.S. who had no intention of granting the Soviet Union access to the region. The British government, torn between the wish to close ranks with the U.S. administration and the desire to appear in public opinion as doing everything possible to achieve détente between the two superpowers, proposed arranging the summit meeting in the framework of the UN Security Council, a format that would be more acceptable to the Americans.21 France, on the other hand, saw the Soviet proposal as a perfect opportunity to achieve precisely what it was looking for. Paris would benefit from an arrangement between the superpowers in the Middle East, under which the U.S. and Britain would withdraw from the region, while the status quo, the stability of the conservative regimes, would be ensured. If, as part of a summit conference of this kind, it would be possible to reach a permanent agreement—based for example on the neutralization of the states in the region—that would include a nonintervention agreement and an arms embargo to the region, especially favorable conditions would be created for maintaining and even strengthening French influence. France knew she did not have sufficient resources to compete effectively with the two superpowers; the best solution from a French point of view would be an arrangement in which each would neutralize the other, and would create a kind of vacuum from which France could benefit. Against this background it is possible to understand the French view that Soviet interests in the Middle East could not be ignored, and that the Soviet Union should be part of any arrangement in the region.22 What form would this neutralization take? And to what area would it apply? Such issues were up for debate at the summit. De Gaulle, however, was uncertain how genuine the Soviet call for a summit conference was. He, no less than his U.S. and British counterparts Dwight Eisenhower and Harold Macmillan, suspected that Nikita Khrushchev’s real motive behind his proposal was a propaganda gain by denouncing the West in a well-publicized international forum. The aggressive tone of the Soviet letter to de Gaulle did not bode well, nor did the fact that Khrushchev chose to send it openly. De Gaulle had to transmit a clear message to the Soviets—a war of words would not promote a solution. Only a practical, rational and decisive approach could serve the interests of the great powers.23 Thus, de Gaulle responded cautiously to the first letter; he expressed strong criticism of Khrushchev’s style and agreed in principle to the idea of the summit on condition that it was not intended for political wrangling.24 However, on July 23, Khrushchev sent a second letter declaring that he had decided to accept the British proposal to hold the meeting in the framework of a special session of the UN Security Council. In de Gaulle’s eyes,

210

Gadi Heimann

this devaluated the meeting. A summit including the ten non-permanent members of the Council, as well as India and Arab states (as requested by the Soviets) would not be able to reach any practical arrangement and would only function as a propaganda brawl between the parties. Nothing in this framework could give France the side benefit of a summit meeting, i.e., prestige from the very fact of being part of an exclusive concert of powers. It is not therefore surprising that de Gaulle rejected the Soviet proposal and aimed at reviving the idea of a summit conference.25 In order to promote this solution, Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville started a campaign at the end of July to sway Italy and West Germany, which had so far opposed the idea of a summit conference for various reasons. The Italian Prime Minister, Amintore Fanfani, could not be convinced to abandon the position that the Middle East crisis should be discussed under the auspices of the UN.26 In Germany, Couve de Murville met with Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. He claimed that since it was not possible to remove the Soviet Union from the region, an attempt should be made to reach an arrangement with Moscow. The solution, he thought, was a territorial status quo, and non-intervention in the internal affairs of the countries of the region, including an embargo on the supply of arms. The French foreign minister used a very interesting argument here: an arms embargo in the Middle East and a guarantee of the existing borders by the superpowers were good for the West because they freed it from the heavy burden undermining its status in the region, namely the assistance to Israel. The Soviet Union should be forced to share the unpopularity of this support.27 Evidence that this reasoning represented the official French political line can be found in the fact that it was included in the foreign ministry instructions to French representatives in various countries.28 As will become apparent, Israel perceived the embargo plan as very dangerous. Was this the first preliminary evidence of a rift between France and Israel? To answer this question, we need to examine the Israeli approach to the Middle East crisis in the summer of 1958.

Israel’s security anxiety Israel’s approach to the crisis was very different from that of France, despite the fact that the Israeli foreign ministry tried to downplay differences. The major concern troubling Israel since the diplomatic failure in Suez, in fact since its foundation, was that of ensuring its survival. Since a peace arrangement with the Arab states under acceptable conditions (that is to say, without a major revision of its borders and without the massive return of refugees into its sovereign area) did not seem realistic in the foreseeable future,

A Hot Summer

211

Israel saw its security as resting on two foundations. The first was maintaining a positive balance of power against the Arab states, which, to Israel, seemed to crumble. The Cold War was decisive in this regard. The rival superpowers saw the supply of arms to their clients in the Middle East as a lever for increasing their influence and a means of ensuring the security of these loyal countries against external attack or internal pressures. From 1955, Egypt received impressive amounts of weapons, some of high quality, from the Eastern bloc. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, perceived as Western allies, obtained weapon supplies from the U.S. and Britain. Israel, on the other hand, was considered as a nuisance rather than an asset, and Washington and London were most hesitant about selling her weapons. Only France gave Israel, from the mid fifties, weapons of sufficient quantity and quality to keep her in the regional arms race. However, Israel’s position was deteriorating for several reasons. First, its sparse resources did not enable her to purchase weapons of the quantity and quality that Egypt received from the Soviet Union under exceptionally good terms. Second, the arsenal that France could offer was limited relative to that of the Soviets and the Americans. The second foundation of Israel’s quest for security was enlisting external allies that would guarantee her existence and come to her aid if attacked. The major objective was to obtain the sponsorship of at least one of the Western powers. The Tripartite Declaration (the United States, Britain and France) of May 195029 was too general and Israel did not perceive it as a sufficient guarantee for its security. Israel was looking for a real ally, or at least firmer guarantees. Yet its efforts came to naught. The United States and Britain were wary of endangering their relationship with the Arab states. France, on the other hand, was the most promising candidate for establishing a formal alliance with Israel because of her hostility to Nasser, and the close relationship between the military establishments of the two countries. However, despite the pressure exerted by Israel in this direction, France refused to take the further step of becoming Israel’s official ally or even granting it explicit guarantees. France had too much to lose and too little to gain from such a flagrant demonstration of intimate ties with Israel.30 Therefore, on the eve of the 1958 crisis, Israel was not close to achieving these fundamentals perceived as vital for its security. The coup d’état in Iraq, and the assessment that Jordan would soon follow in its footsteps and fall into radical hands, added to Israel’s security anxiety. It seemed that Israel would very soon be surrounded on all sides by states prepared to follow Nasser’s leadership and capable of conducting a joint and well-coordinated campaign against her in the future. For this reason, Israel welcomed the American and British intervention in Lebanon and Jordan, and this explains why Israel agreed to allow British aircraft to fly over its airspace. Unlike France, which hoped that the Anglo–Saxon presence in

212

Gadi Heimann

Lebanon and Jordan would be as short-lived as possible, Israel was interested in a more lasting presence,31 which would ensure the stability of the regimes hostile to Nasser in the two countries, and would also reduce the likelihood of joint Egyptian–Syrian–Iraqi aggression. However, it was also clear to Israel that the evacuation of the forces was ultimately only a matter of time. From Israel’s point of view, it was important to take advantage of the present crisis in order to obtain not only the weapons it needed, but more importantly the substantial guarantees for its security. The first target of this political strategy was France. Israel’s General Director of the Ministry of Defense Shimon Peres was sent to Paris on July 19, a visit arranged previously and meant to be a routine visit. Yet in light of the events, it assumed special importance. In a meeting with the French Minister of Armies, Pierre Guillaumat, Peres asked for the arms that Israel urgently required: Super Mystere fighter aircraft that could compete with the MiG-17 the Egyptians were receiving from the Soviet Union and which were superior in quality to the Mysteres currently in Israel’s possession. The major request, the one that interested Israel more than anything, was for an alliance. The time was ripe for Israel and France to enter into an official alliance, said Peres. He hinted that Israel had other options that the French would not be pleased with, like turning to the Americans.32 This was not the first time that Israel approached France on this matter. Yet, it was the first time the subject had been broached since de Gaulle’s rise to power, at a time when his policy toward the Middle East was not completely clear. In fact, there were many signs that de Gaulle was not interested in an alliance of this kind. It had been reiterated to Israeli representatives that de Gaulle wanted to renew relations with the Arab world, and that this would probably lead to reducing the publicity surrounding relations with Israel (although not to reducing the friendship). Shimon Peres heard these claims during a visit to Paris in June.33 In light of these signs, the likelihood was not strong that France would respond to this daring proposal. The fact that it was presented at all and the way this was done possibly attest to the deep concern on the part of the Israeli leadership in the initial days of the crisis. Guillaumat’s reply, as expected, was not forthcoming. He noted that France had to view Middle Eastern matters through a North African prism and thus had to reject the Israeli proposal.34 Peres did not lose hope. In his meeting three days later with Information Minister Jacques Soustelle and the Minister of Veterans and War Victims, Edmond Michelet, he again raised the subject of the alliance, this time more indirectly. Soustelle, an enthusiastic supporter of the alliance, who at the beginning of June openly declared that he intended to promote it now that de Gaulle was in power, nevertheless chose to ignore the request.35 He had probably already learned about de Gaulle’s attitude on the matter, and couldn’t act against it. The French channel had thus failed.

A Hot Summer

213

At the time when Peres was in Paris, a similar attempt was being made with Britain— the Western power with the most reservations about Israel. The British, who had just lost Iraq, their major bastion in the Middle East, and who needed Israeli cooperation in order to defend Jordan, appeared more understanding of Israel’s needs. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s request for closer cooperation between Israel and Britain according to the format of relations with France,36 was well received by Macmillan and his Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, in a way that even surprised the British Foreign Office.37 Among others, Lloyd expressed willingness to sell Israel the submarines it needed. On the American track, Israel received encouraging signs as well, at least relative to what it was accustomed to until then. On July 22, Ambassador Abba Eban presented a list of requests to Dulles: weapons and clear assistance if attacked (that is to say, concrete guarantees), cooperation and consultation in the military field, extending patronage to efforts to establish a peripheral alliance. In response, Dulles expressed his government’s commitment to Israel’s security, even though the administration did not feel that a formal alliance was the ideal way of achieving this. With regard to weapons, the United States said it would examine the Israeli request in light of the new circumstances.38 A commitment to Israel’s security and territorial integrity was also expressed two days later by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a response to a long letter from Ben-Gurion in which he requested U.S. assistance for the Israeli effort to establish the Peripheral Alliance.39 Thus, both Britain and the United States reacted positively to the Israeli requests, especially regarding arms, and demonstrated a greater willingness than in the past to accommodate Israel’s position. This was probably helped to no small extent by the fact that the two powers needed Israel’s cooperation in the present crisis. In general, therefore, Israel’s achievements were mixed. In the armaments field, it seemingly had made impressive gains on all three tracks. France agreed in principle to supply Israel with the sophisticated aerial weapons it needed, while Britain and the United States expressed a willingness to supply Israel with essential weapons that the French were unable to supply. On the other hand, Israel failed in its attempt to obtain firmer guarantees for its security. France rejected the proposal for a formal alliance between the two states, while Israel only obtained hazy and general messages from Britain and the United States. It is at this time that the Israeli government first heard rumors about French acceptance of the embargo project. The conventional wisdom in Jerusalem was that the Soviet Union was interested in promoting this solution, as it served her goals. In the previous months the Soviet Union had raised this idea at least twice—the last time in the letter of July 19. However, various news items, both within and outside the media pointed to the French foreign ministry as the source of the initiative.40 Israel greatly feared a disarmament

214

Gadi Heimann

agreement in the Middle East that would include an arms embargo toward the region. An agreement of this kind would perpetuate the present advantage enjoyed by the Arab countries in the quantity and quality of weapons. Furthermore, Israel did not believe that the Soviet Union would comply with this agreement, and the assessment was that while the flow of arms to Israel would cease completely, the Arab countries would continue to receive them through various channels.41 The Western powers reassured Israel that no decisions would be taken contrary to its interests. If the Arab states were to be invited to a summit, as the Soviet Union demanded, they would insist that Israel be involved together with other interested states such as Turkey and Iran. Israel received explicit assurances of this from France, the United States, and Britain.42 Yet Israel continued to worry. Ben-Gurion tried to fight this trend in the memorandum sent to Eisenhower and de Gaulle at the end of July, warning against the persistent Soviet expansionist tendencies, and drawing attention to the fact that only by means of assistance to noncommunist countries could the danger be warded off.43 If there was a wish in Ben-Gurion’s memorandum to cause France to desist from its embargo plan, it seems to have made little impact on French policy in practice. As mentioned, at the end of July, Couve de Murville held a series of meetings in which he placed this issue on the agenda. In de Gaulle’s response to Ben-Gurion (on July 30), he delicately clarified that France continued to see an arrangement with the Soviets as the best way to solve the crisis in the Middle East: “As I wrote to Khrushchev, in the required conditions of objectivity and calmness, it will be possible to make progress.”44 He wrote that a way had to be found to ensure the territorial status quo and the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of the Middle Eastern states. It would also be necessary to think about a more equitable division of the region’s natural resources. De Gaulle did not explicitly mention an embargo, which was, however, camouflaged more than once in the wording “nonintervention in the internal affairs of the region states.” He possibly did not wish to excessively highlight the contradictory perceptions between the two countries. Before de Gaulle’s nonencouraging reply reached Ben-Gurion, rumors reached him that U.S. Secretary of State Dulles welcomed the idea of the embargo. This led him to send a letter to Abba Eban, in which the ambassador was required to demand explanations about the sudden change in U.S. policy.45 The Americans, for their part, totally denied such a change. They had no idea where these rumors sprang from and emphasized that the embargo plan was a Soviet proposal that the United States would oppose vociferously.46 Great confusion reigned about the plan and those who were behind it. France, too, contributed to the obfuscation. Pierre Sebillieu, head of the Africa–Levant Department in the Quai d’Orsay, hinted to the Israeli diplomatic envoy that Moscow was pushing the embargo plan, and that he had reservations about

A Hot Summer

215

it. He did not believe that the Soviets would comply with its conditions.47 However, a few days later, Sebillieu read to Meir Shneorson, an Israeli chargé d’affaire, the wording of a memorandum on the embargo that he had prepared, in which he asked that Soviet intentions should be seriously examined.48 It was convenient for the French to present the plan as a Soviet initiative and to give the impression they were simply reacting to it. In any event, it seems that what really bothered Ben-Gurion was the adoption of the embargo plan in Washington. Probably this was due to the assessment that it would only be viable with U.S. support. It was, however, important also to discuss the matter with the French and explain to them the dangers of the plan without presenting Israel as opposing it in principle.49 This was the background of the Israeli minister of foreign affairs’ trip to Paris.

Golda Meir’s visit to Paris and the end of the crisis In early August, Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir left for a round of talks in Paris. It was important for Israel to clarify to the French the dangers she saw in the tendency to appease Nasser and to try and distance him from the Soviets. Israel knew that Italy supported this position. Therefore, it was important to fight any French tendency to adopt a similar outlook. The danger of the embargo plan had to be made clear to the French, together with the need to actively support Israel and the peripheral states, and to try to promote the idea of the guarantees for their security and territorial integrity. Both Israel and France were keen on this meeting. What particularly concerned the French—as well as the other Western powers—was the possibility that in light of the attempted coup d’état in Jordan, Israel would make a move and conquer the West Bank. Such a step was liable to further complicating the situation in the region and even causing it to slide into war.50 French diplomats sought more than once to clarify with their Israeli counterparts whether Israel intended to act decisively in such a case.51 They tried to hint that it would be a great mistake on Israel’s part to cause additional complications. To their dismay, the message they received from the Israeli was always unequivocal: Israel would not remain aloof if Hussein were deposed. De Gaulle and Couve de Murville realized that there was no point in trying to twist Israel’s arm on this issue. If a great-power agreement was achieved, one that would firmly fix the existing borders and prohibit intervention in the internal affairs of the region states, this would tie Israel’s hands in any event. Despite this, the French decisionmakers felt it was important to raise the issue in talks with Israel’s foreign minister. The first discussion arranged for Golda Meir was with her counterpart Couve de Murville. Meir found Couve de Murville cold, “Anglo–Saxon” in nature. The Israeli foreign minister referred to the need to extend Western patronage of the pe-

216

Gadi Heimann

ripherial countries, in particular Israel, and warned of the danger of the embargo. The discussion, however, rapidly developed into an argument over a more fundamental issue, namely Golda Meir’s analysis of Nasserism and Arab nationalism. Couve de Murville disagreed with her analysis and instead defended a position that saw pan-Arabism as a natural, deterministic process that would shape the political reality in the region sooner or later. In his view, the present Arab states were artificial, and the monarchical governments did not enjoy internal legitimacy—as the coups d’état in Iraq and Egypt had shown. It was unfortunate that the powers defended something artificial, he said. Couve de Murville asked whether Israel had taken into account the possible disintegration of Jordan. The message the French foreign minister was trying to convey to Israel was that it should not act in Jordan if the expected coup d’état took place there—this was an inevitable and natural process. It is unclear whether the Israeli foreign minister grasped the purpose behind the French foreign minister’s comments. She was concerned by his readiness to accept Nasser’s pan-Arabism as an indisputable fact. Did this attest to a new willingness within the Quai d’Orsay to appease the Egyptian leader? However, besides this point, Couve de Murville expressed a supportive approach to the Israeli positions, and Golda Meir left the meeting feeling fairly satisfied.52 Her feeling further improved after a discussion with de Gaulle in the afternoon. Unlike his foreign minister, de Gaulle, it seems, was more prepared to accept the Israeli thesis regarding Nasser and the way he was using Arab nationalism. He also expressed an interest in Israel’s security and territorial integrity and reminded his interlocutor that this was one of the reasons why he had accepted the Soviet proposal for a summit conference. Yet, he also found it important to raise the Jordanian question, indirectly. Why was it not possible to station UN soldiers in Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, he asked.53 The imprint of the Jordanian agenda is obvious. UN soldiers in Jerusalem would protect Jordan from Israel no less than protecting Israel from Jordan. De Gaulle clarified the way he perceived the balance of power between Israel and its neighbors: Israeli was stronger and did not need to fear an Arab attack. He was amazed at the lack of confidence displayed by Golda Meir about Israel’s strength, and her exaggerated assessment, at least in his opinion, of the threats Israel faced. At the end of the discussion, de Gaulle expressed French friendship towards Israel and his desire that the close relations would continue. Yet for tactical (and only tactical) reasons, discretion needed to be maintained.54 Golda Meir left Paris confident in de Gaulle’s true friendship but a little worried about the conceptions of the French Foreign Minister. Without getting into nuances of style, it was an illusion because the two French statesmen said basically the same things using different words (and maybe a different level of affection). Setting aside Couve de Murville’s perceptions, it was de Gaulle who

A Hot Summer

217

dictated French policy orientation, at least as long as the Middle East continued to be the prime concern of the great powers. From Paris, Golda Meir went to Rome to persuade the Italians to desist from their appeasement plans toward Nasser. Her next stop was London, where she learned that the signs that appeared in the first days of the crisis were real: there was evidence of a change for the better in the way Britain appreciated Israel’s role in the Middle East—a change expressed, among others, by London’s willingness to sell Israel arms.55 At this stage the crisis in the Middle East was almost over. Already during Golda Meir’s stay in Paris, the likelihood of convening a summit conference either in the Security Council or elsewhere, was fading away. When Khrushchev adopted the proposal to convene a special session of the UN General Assembly on August 6, the initiative for a summit conference was finally laid to rest. From here the spotlight moved to the special session of the UN Plenum that convened for the first time on August 8. Ultimately, a moderate proposal initiated by the countries of the Arab League was accepted, which called for maintaining the independence and the sovereignty of the countries in the region. In an almost unprecedented manner, all the states (including Israel) voted in favor of this proposal. The great international crisis in the Middle East was over, and even though local crises would erupt at times in the coming years, it would take almost nine years before Middle East matters again placed the great powers in a situation of severe confrontation.

Conclusion: New trends and portents of things to come The 1958 crisis in the Middle East reveals several trends, some with important ramifications for French–Israeli relations in the immediate aftermath of the “hot summer” of 1958. Conflicts of Interest As has been shown, there was a contradiction between French and Israeli interests in the 1958 crisis, arising from the different aspirations of the two parties. France wished to maintain its influence in the Middle East and to create convenient conditions for increasing this influence when circumstances allowed. Because of this, she wished to distance the superpowers from Middle East matters. The chosen approach was to involve the Soviet Union in an arrangement in which the powers would undertake not to harm the regional status quo and to impose limitations regarding the supply of weapons. Israel, on the other hand, saw an essential need for intensified intervention of the Western powers in Middle East matters. Primarily, it wished to enter

218

Gadi Heimann

into a formal alliance with one of these powers, and if this could not be achieved, then at least to obtain substantial guarantees for the integrity of its borders and a willingness to supply it with a sufficient quantity and quality of arms. Ultimately, the incompatibility between the French and the Israeli goals did not lead to tension in the relations between the two states, let alone a break. One of the reasons was the fact that the summit conference did not take place after all, so that the opposing conceptions remained at a hypothetical level. Another factor that certainly assisted in defusing the tension between the two was the material and moral support France provided Israel during the crisis. France, despite the reservations it expressed to the Israeli request to conclude an alliance between the two states, displayed a positive attitude to Israel’s request to purchase arms. This willingness was perceived by Israel as the ultimate test of friendship. At the same time, the French, and primarily Charles de Gaulle, showed considerable understanding toward Israel’s problems and aspirations. Over and again they claimed that their position was dictated to a large extent by the wish to provide Israel with security, and that the summit conference was supposed to serve this goal. France also expressed sensitivity to Israeli interests in discussions with other states. Couve de Murville insisted in his discussions with the Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani that the problem of the refugees had to be solved by settling them in Arab states, a clearly pro-Israeli position.56 De Gaulle, in a discussion with Fanfani a few days later, expressed reservations about the Italian proposal to impose a peace arrangement on Israel under the auspices of the powers.57 Above all, Israel and France shared a similar perception of the threat of “Nasserist revisionism,” and this in itself constituted a broad basis for cooperation between them. Despite this, the crisis exposed at least one crack in the overall Israeli conception of what underlay the friendship between Israel and France, namely the Cold War as the glue binding the two states by virtue of their joint loyalty to the Western camp. It became apparent that in regards to the Middle East, France viewed the United States and Britain as rivals. This was not all that clear at the time especially that within a short time new tension erupted in Europe (Berlin crisis) which led to a closing of ranks in the West, France included. The Limits of French Patronage One of the major advantages for France in supporting Israel was the acquisition of a position of influence in the Middle East at a time when France no longer enjoyed much influence in this region. The ability to affect Israeli policy, that is to say to restrain it, constituted an asset both in relation to the other powers as well as in relation to the Arab states. This ability was a consequence of the fact that Israel was dependent on France for its security: without French arms, Israel would have found it difficult to maintain any

A Hot Summer

219

balance in the arms race against the Arab states. However, the patron’s ability to influence his client is always dependent on the importance the client attributes to the issue under discussion. Israel would have been prepared to sacrifice political and economic interests in order to maintain cordial relations with France and provide “compensation” for the security assistance it provided, but was not prepared to relinquish its positions on issues that seemed no less vital for its security than the French assistance. Yet these were precisely the issues France wanted Israel to comply with. The Jordanian problem during the crisis exemplifies this well. France, like the other Western powers, was most worried by the possibility that an attempted coup in Jordan would lead to Israel conquering the West Bank. However, all attempts to dissuade Israel from this intention were in vain: Israel made clear its determination to execute this plan if the scenario of deposing King Hussein were to come about. France avoided entering into direct confrontation with Israel on this matter, and in discussions that de Gaulle and Couve de Murville held with Golda Meir, this issue was raised in a roundabout manner. Golda Meir, on her part, chose not to understand. This did not prevent de Gaulle from telling Italian Prime Minister Fanfani that “France advised Israel not to initiate incidents, particularly in Jordan, and Israel understood France’s position.”58 As we have seen, this statement hardly reflected what happened in reality, and exposed France’s need to present itself to the outside world as capable of restraining Israel. In his discussion with Fanfani, de Gaulle also expressed his opinion that Israel had an exaggerated anxiety about its security—a position that does not reflect the real balance of power in the region. France knew well that the more the Israelis feel insecure, the less she can restrain her client actions. This was another reason for trying to refute Israel’s fears. This interpretation of exaggerated Israeli security anxiety, together with Israel’s overemphasis on the impact of the cold war on France’s political orientation (namely, her commitment to the western block), would be ever-present in Israeli–French relations throughout the decade leading to June 1967.

Notes Abbreviations AMAE — French foreign ministry archive. AL- Afrique-Levant department. IS- Israeli desk. ANF — French national archive. AHC — French contemporary history archive. CM- Couve de Murville private archive. IFAA — Israeli foreign affairs archive. DDF — Documents diplomatiques français.

220

Gadi Heimann

â•‡ 1.â•‡ Fanny Cohen, “De Gaulle et Israël: le sens d’une rupture,” in La politique étrangère du général de Gaulle, ed. E. Barnavi and S. Friedlander (Paris: presses universitairs de France, 1985), pp. 192–202; Maurice Couve de Murville, Une politique étrangère 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1970); K. Samir and F. Mardam-Bei, Itineraires de Paris a Jerusalem: La France et le conflit israelo-arabe, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Les Livres des la Revue d’etudes Palestiniennes, 1993). â•‡ 2.â•‡ Bar-On I., “Leidata u’nefilata sel yedidut: Yahasei Israel-Zarfat 1956–1967 [Hebrew],” in Medina, Mimshal v’yehasim bein-leumiim 35 (1991), pp. 67–98; G. Refael, Destination Peace: Three decades of Israeli Foreign Policy (New York: Stein & Day, 1981); E. Rouleau, “French Policy in the Middle East,” The Word Today 24, no. 5 (1968), pp. 209–18; H. M. Sahar, Israel and Europe: An Appraisal in History (New York: Vintage Books, 2000); J. Soustelle, Vingt-huit ans de Gaullisme (Paris: Table Ronde, 1968). â•‡ 3.â•‡ Fawaz A. Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics, 1955–1967 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), p. 101. â•‡ 4.â•‡ Alan Dowty, Middle East Crisis: U.S. Decision-Making in 1958, 1970, and 1973 (Berkley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 25–34. â•‡ 5.â•‡ See for example: Michael J. Cohen, Strategy and Politics in the Middle East 1954– 1960: Defending the Northern Tier (London: Frank Cass, 2005); Dowty, Middle East Crisis; Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East; Michael B. Oren, “The Test of Suez: Israel and the Middle East Conflict of 1958,” Studies in Zionism 12, no. 1 (1991), pp. 55–83, p. 67; Salim Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). â•‡ 6.â•‡ The Eisenhower Doctrine was born at the end of 1956, as a plan intended to check Soviet intrusion into the Middle East. It was supposed to be a system based on bilateral agreements between the U.S. and the region states, in which the former would supply the latter with economic and military aid. It also envisaged the employment of American armed forces to protect those states against Soviet aggression. See Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism, pp. 81–85, 206. â•‡ 7.â•‡ Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 110. â•‡ 8.â•‡ N. J. Ashton, Eisenhower, MacMillian and Nasser: Anglo-American Relations and Arab Nationalism (London: MacMillan Press, 1996), p. 159. â•‡ 9.â•‡ Cohen, Strategy and Politics, p. 198. 10.â•‡ For example Israel feared that its position would annoy the British Labour Party that opposed the campaign; it also feared the reactions of Asian and African countries that would view this agreement as proof that Israel serve imperialist objectives; and finally, Israel feared the Soviet reaction (the Soviet threat on the day following the Suez War was still fresh in its mind). See Oren, “The Test of Suez,” p. 67. 11.â•‡ This perception of the Quai d’Orsay is well reflected in a series of memoranda written by experts in the Africa-Levant Department in the wake of de Gaulle’s election. See: AMAE AL-gen.-545 25.5.58, 10.6.58 12.â•‡ Fawaz A. Gerges, “Lebanon,” in Y. Sayigh and A. Shlaim (eds.), The Cold War and the Middle East (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 89. 13.â•‡ ANF AG5(1)200. 14.â•‡ Frank Costigliola, France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992) p. 122. 15.â•‡ AMAE AM-EU-432, July 17, 1958.

A Hot Summer

221

16.â•‡ France hoped to obtain technology and knowledge from the United States that would accelerate its nuclear plan. 17.â•‡ Participating in this campaign were the French ambassadors in Washington and London. On July 17 the French government sent a letter to Washington and London that was highly critical of the decision to intervene without consulting France. See: AMAE AM-EU-432, July 17, 1958. 18.â•‡ On July 14, the French ambassador in Washington told U.S. Secretary of State Dulles that France felt the intervention must pass through UN mediation: DDF 1958, II, p. 70. 19.â•‡ ANF AG5(1)189. 20.â•‡ Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 121. 21.â•‡ G. Barraclough, Survey of International affairs 1956–1958 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962). 22.â•‡ The French foreign minister reiterated this during the crisis. Thus, for example, in his discussion with the German foreign minister on July 29. See DDF 1958, II, pp. 184–87. 23.â•‡ Maurice Couve de Murville, Une politique étrangère 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1971), pp. 25–26. 24.â•‡ ANF AG5(1)189. 25.â•‡ Meanwhile the British responded to the American pressure and withdrew from the idea of a high-level meeting in the framework of the Security Council. 26.â•‡ AHC CM 1, July 27, 1958. 27.â•‡ DDF 1958, II, pp. 184–89. 28.â•‡ DDF 1958, II, pp. 206–10. 29.â•‡ A declaration in which the three powers agreed to limit and coordinate the arms supply to the Middle East. The declaration expressed in addition a weak commitment to act against an aggressor who tried to violate the status quo. See Documents of Israel’s foreign policy, V, no. 248. 30.â•‡ Israel tried also two other ways to get the security guaranties she wanted: through NATO (widen the area of defense covered by the alliance to include the Middle East); and through what was known as the “peripheral alliance”—an Israeli attempt to connect itself to the states surrounding the Middle East which also felt threatened by Nasser: Turkey, Iran, Sudan, and Ethiopia. 31.â•‡ Eban said this explicitly to Alphand on July 22, 1958. See DDF 1958, II, pp.Â€124–26. 32.â•‡ AMAE AL-IS-50, July 19, 1958. 33.â•‡ M. Golan, Shimon Peres: A Biography (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982). 34.â•‡ Ibid. 35.â•‡ IFAA 208/11, July 23, 1958. 36.â•‡ Documents of Israel’s foreign policy, XIII, no. 13. 37.â•‡ Ibid., nos. 17–19. 38.â•‡ Ibid., nos. 21–22. 39.â•‡ Ibid., no. 31. 40.â•‡ See, for example, the “Yediot Aharonot” newspaper, July 23, 1958. 41.â•‡ IFAA 208/10, July 26, 1958. 42.â•‡ De Gaulle actually used the claim of the necessity of Israel’s participation in order to cool Soviet enthusiasm for a conference as part of the Security Coun-

222

Gadi Heimann

cil, and to return them to the original idea of the summit conference. See: AN AG5(1) 189. 43.â•‡ IFAA 208/10 26.7.1958. 44.â•‡ IFAA 208/10 30.7.1958. 45.â•‡ Documents of Israel’s foreign policy, XIII, no. 206. 46.â•‡ Ibid., no. 40. 47.â•‡ IFAA 208/11, July 27, 1958. 48.â•‡ IFAA 208/11, August 1, 1958. 49.â•‡ IFAA 3120/18, August 4, 1958. 50.â•‡ Oren, “The Test of Suez,” p. 77. 51.â•‡ As in discussions with Sebilleau on July 27, with Couve on July 28, and with Vinceneau (Director of the Israeli desk at the Quai d’Orsay) on August 1. See IFAA 208/11. 52.â•‡ AMAE AL-IS-50, August 5, 1958. We can ascertain Meir’s feeling of satisfaction with the general position expressed by Couve de Murville from her comments to the government: Records of meetings of the sixth government of Israel, August 25, 1958. 53.â•‡ Did de Gaulle forget that UN soldiers were already stationed in the Gaza Strip? Or, possibly, he wished to be seen as emphasizing the security of Israel’s borders and not those of Jordan. 54.â•‡ AMAE AL-IS-50, August 5, 1958. 55.â•‡ Documents of Israel’s foreign policy, XIII, no. 301 56.â•‡ AHC CM 1. 57.â•‡ DDF 1958, II, pp. 241–45. 58.â•‡ Ibid.

IV Africa and Latin America

11 “Je ne vous ai pas compris”: De Gaulle’s Decade of Negotiation with the Algerian FLN, 1958–1969 Jeffrey James Byrne

Introduction The Algerian War of Independence, 1954–1962, and the subsequent period of Franco–Algerian coopération up to Charles de Gaulle’s retirement in April 1969 have long suffered from a highly-politicized historiography on both sides of the Mediterranean. More is at stake than the assignation of blame for the numerous dark chapters in this longest, and perhaps cruelest, of wars of decolonization, for the historical presentation of the conflict actually serves as the foundation for national political mythologies in Algeria as well as in France. In Algeria, a local glasnost is finally allowing alternatives to the sanitized history of “the Revolution” used for decades to legitimate one-party rule and the official version of the national culture. However, in France an equally-programmatic orthodoxy has proven more tenacious. There, the majority of historians still concur with the essentials of de Gaulle’s implausible self-congratulatory memoirs where it concerns his handling of the war from the spring of 1958 to the Evian Accords of March 1962.1 Moreover, neither le Général nor his admirers devote many pages to the history of Franco–Algerian relations after Evian, even though that exercise would seem essential in order to evaluate the success of the accords in transforming old hatreds into a harmonious new era of post-colonial ‘inter-dependence’ or coopération. As a corrective, therefore, this paper analyses the entirety of de Gaulle’s relations with the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), from 1958 to 1969. Using new evidence from multiple archives in both Paris and Algiers, it is argued firstly that Evian represented the failure of de Gaulle’s original war aims, and secondly that coopération itself subsequently failed, made obsolete by 225

226

Jeffrey James Byrne

the revolutionary socioeconomic principles which, ironically, the French president had inadvertently forced on his Algerian adversaries. To the French public de Gaulle sold the Evian Accords, which stipulated the maintenance of strong French economic and political influence in Algeria in exchange for very substantial economic assistance to the new state, as the lynchpin of France’s new global mission, i.e., the transformation of the old empire into a community of “inter-dependent” African nations mentored by Paris. This ambition grew out of large-scale development schemes initiated in the latter stages of the war with the goal of winning the support of the impoverished Muslim majority. The central assumption was always that, even if traditional empire was out of date, the Africans needed French guidance. As one wartime French report put it: “The Algerians cannot solve their problems by themselves, except at the cost of one or two generations, and then with uncertain results. . . . [O]nly France can provide them with the timely amount of necessary support that is indispensable.”2 By presenting the Evian arrangement as a new model of North–South relations, de Gaulle put his own personal credibility and that of his country on the line. Algeria was to be a showpiece for other countries: the proof of France’s restored grandeur and its continued relevance in a world dominated by the competing visions of human progress emanating from Washington and Moscow. “Algeria is also and above all the ‘narrow doorway’ through which we enter the Third World,” a senior French official admitted in 1964, “A quarrel with Algeria goes beyond the limits of Franco–Algerian relations and risks undermining the efforts of our diplomacy in the whole world.”3 As this study will show, the French president was keenly aware of the stakes. From 1962 to 1969, he strove to preserve the illusion of harmonious coopération by repeatedly forcing his skeptical officials to concede quietly to the Algerian government’s de facto renegotiations of the Evian settlement. For the FLN had long since adopted a “Third Worldist” worldview hostile to the concept of Euro–African interdependence, and which perceived economic relations between North and South as inherently exploitative.4 At a congress of the movement’s leadership held in Tripoli in May–June 1962, two months after the signing of the Evian Accords and a month before formal independence, FLN figurehead Ahmed Ben Bella unveiled a document that called for socialist revolution and for the nationalization of French-owned economic assets. He told his colleagues that “[c]ooperation as conceived in French eyes is the maintenance of colonialism in the form of neocolonialism.”5 In September 1962 Ben Bella became the first prime minister of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria (RADP). Born under the dueling stars of Evian and the so-called “Tripoli Program,” independent Algeria immediately became a battleground for the ideological passions that shaped the decolonization world at the height of the Cold War. The country de Gaulle had once called a “box of sorrows” had many trials in store for the French president still.

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

227

A French Solution, 1958–1962 When the Algerian crisis brought de Gaulle back to power in May 1958, he famously surrounded his intentions with ambiguity. “Je vous ai compris” (“I have understood you”) he told a rapturous crowd of hopeful white settlers— enigmatically known as the pieds-noirs, or “black feet”—in Algiers the following month. A masterful politician, the General’s studied utterances permitted a variety of optimistic interpretations without really committing to any of them. In his memoirs he claimed a greater clarity of purpose than the evidence suggests, and sure enough, to his chief counselor on the Algerian question he “gave the impression of a man who was still searching.”6 Yet if the final objective was elusive, of his immediate task de Gaulle was certain: to destroy the FLN as a military and political force. Whatever became of Algeria, its fate would be determined by France, not the rebels. “A special place is destined for the Algeria of tomorrow,” he declared in his presidential inaugural address on January 8, 1959, “an Algeria that will be pacified and transformed, developing its personality itself and closely associated with France.”7 By that point le Général had already greenlit a substantial military escalation. Over the next two years, de Gaulle’s challenge brought the FLN to the brink of annihilation, but ultimately their revolution persevered through adaptation, and that adaptation brought lasting consequences for the future of Algeria. As the Algerian historian Daho Djerbal explains, de Gaulle deployed a comprehensive military–political strategy in order to sideline the FLN and to facilitate the emergence of a “third force,” by which he meant a more moderate or cooperative Muslim constituency.8 Most obviously, the strategy featured a bulked-up, refined counterinsurgency campaign managed by a new commander, General Maurice Challe. There was also a socioeconomic development program on a much grander scale than previous efforts, which de Gaulle announced in the eastern city of Constantine in October 1958. In addition to the “Challe Plan” and “Constantine Plan,” Paris reinvigorated its international campaign to isolate the FLN by blackmailing its NATO allies with the menace of nonalignment, and by peacefully dismantling its empire elsewhere in Africa with a mind to depriving the Algerians of allies in the continent.9 On September 16, 1959, de Gaulle added a political dimension to the military, social and diplomatic ones when he unexpectedly announced his intention to guide Algeria to autodétermination, or self-autonomy. He defined autodétermination as: The government of Algerians by Algerians, backed up by French help and in close relationship with her, as regards the economy, education, defense, and foreign relations. In that case, the internal regime of Algeria should be of the federal type, so that the various communities—French, Arab, Kabyle, Mozabite—who live together in the country would find guarantees for their own way of life and a framework for cooperation.10

228

Jeffrey James Byrne

Collectively, de Gaulle’s challenge presented the gravest threat yet to the FLN. Challe landed serious blows on the National Liberation Army (ALN) by deploying mobile “hunting commandos” in American helicopters to sweep the country region-by-region. This much-lauded strategy relied on enormous resources: troop levels reached 600,000 by 1959, and impenetrable barriers of electrified fences and minefields had already been built along the frontiers of Morocco and Tunisia to cut the moudjahideen off from their base areas.11 French estimates concluded that the ALN’s numbers were cut by half between 1958 and 1960, and the FLN’s own reports also testify to the grave reduction of their organizational structures and combat potential inside Algeria proper.12 However, de Gaulle’s essential dilemma was to sap the rebellion of support by satisfying the legitimate grievances of nine million Muslims, while also placating one million querulous and intransigent piedsnoirs and slaking the military’s thirst for victory at any cost. Yet seemingly complementary components of the strategy in reality undermined each other. On the one hand, the ravages of the military campaign impeded social development projects while, on the other, his ambiguous, ever-shifting definition of autodétermination eventually failed to satisfy either the European or the Muslim communities. More importantly, by shifting the terms of the conflict to questions of economic development or the definition of the nation, he spurred the revolutionaries into a profound political evolution that then became an obstacle to his post-independence objectives. In headlong pursuit of tactical gains, Challe repeated—even exacerbated— his predecessors’ fundamental error of tearing apart the fabric of Muslim society.13 As Mohammed Harbi notes, French commanders believed that they had learnt the harsh lessons of “revolutionary warfare” in Indochina, but in practice they mistreated the civilian population as a strategic asset to be denied the enemy.14 Regroupement, the policy of forcibly relocating peasants into guarded camps with a grim reputation for nutritional and medical neglect, reached its apogee in 1960 when it encompassed two million Muslims, or nearly a third of the total rural population. Meanwhile, beyond the fences, a napalm-fuelled scorched-earth policy in the abandoned “pacification zones” destroyed villages, crops, livestock and the rural economy generally.15 Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the countryside for the overcrowded slums in the cities, which exploded in protest in December 1960, and to the FLN’s camps in Morocco and Tunisia. Talking to a journalist from Le Monde, a French colonel defended regroupement thus: “Call me a fascist if you like, but we must make the population docile and manageable; everybody’s acts must be controlled.”16 Breaking spirits in the camps—where the boredom was unbearable even in cases where the living conditions were tolerable—ran counter to the aspirations of civilian officials striving to modernize Algeria’s terribly underdeveloped bled, or countryside. A report on development objectives by the

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

229

administration in Algiers deemed the real task to be the transformation of the peasants’ mentality and traditional living patterns—a classic example of the high modernist ambitions of late colonialism and the Cold War in the developing world.17 Economic and social progress, the report concluded, required the voluntary participation of the Muslim masses and elites, and “an effort to form men, minds and skills.” Yet its author also admitted that the traumas of the military campaign impeded these lofty efforts, and argued that little could be achieved while the country was still aflame: To elevate the masses is to adapt them without too much shifting of current social realities. Social structures being broken by change or by the consequences of conflict, . . . it is quite evident that the efforts currently undertaken for the adaptation of the masses to social progress can really only have spectacular results once peace has returned.18

Challe, however, defied the entreaties of the civil authorities to end the practice of regroupement.19 Promoting the Constantine Plan, de Gaulle claimed that “a vast physical and spiritual transformation is under way in Algeria”, but the reality of Algeria’s transformation, as the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu found, was misery, trauma, and dislocation on a massive scale.20 The well-known student of revolutions, Theda Skocpol, notes that revolutionary ideologies rarely determine the dynamics of revolutionary situations. Such was the case for the FLN, where the tumultuous transformation of Algerian society, playing out against a backdrop of grandiose rhetoric, largely preceded and prompted the elaboration of the movement’s sociopolitical doctrine.21 In order to expand its international strategy, the Front formed the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) on September 18, 1958, which lobbied for diplomatic recognition in foreign capitals. The following year, Houari Boumedienne took charge of the ALN ‘border army’ that bivouacked beyond Challe’s grasp in Tunisia and Morocco, and he prioritized recruiting from the refugees camps and drilling the moudjahideen into something approximating a professional force. The GPRA’s Ministry of External Affairs (MAE) and Boumedienne’s general staff (known by its French acronym, EMG) deliberately recruited a new generation of young, university-educated Muslims who were better suited for sophisticated political or technical duties than their predecessors.22 An important meeting of the Front’s leadership in Tripoli at the end of 1959 reflected the advances in its political strategy. A report produced from the meeting acknowledged that The current situation of our people in Algeria is grave. . . . Our first objective must be a policy of rallying the people and reorganising the masses. To establish a political, economic and social program capable of achieving the prosper-

230

Jeffrey James Byrne

ity of the Nation, and to mobilise the people to build the country . . . [W]e must pursue a political strategy as if this alone could lead us to the liberation of the country. We should [also] prosecute the war as if this alone must lead us to the same result.23

With the new cohort of young intellectuals taking up positions of influence in the FLN’s diplomatic, military, and propaganda apparatus, this urgent need to produce “concrete results” propelled the Algerian revolution on a radical, easterly course. On the economic front, the traumatic landscape of a war-ravaged countryside and the pieds-noirs’ continued domination of the rural economy presented the FLN with the opportunity to justify its struggle on the basis of social justice. El Moudjahid, the movement’s primary propaganda organ, repeated the theme of redistributing European-owned land with statements like “the land to the peasants,” or “agrarian reform will be an agrarian revolution or it will be nothing at all,” as did the ALN’s radio broadcasts from neighboring countries.24 In late 1961, a local official in the Kabylia region warned that “the propaganda theme running through the maquis is ‘nationalisation of half of all properties’. . . . If this does not come from an official source, the information is perhaps all the better for it.”25 It is true, as historian Slimane Chikh notes, that the wartime FLN only put together a very vague economic program, but pressing the land question and co-opting the theme of industrialization in the name of economic justice sufficed to steal the Constantine Plan’s thunder.26 As the war wore on, in fact, the revolutionaries began looking forward to inheriting the Plan’s bounty, and French intelligence noted that the Front was encouraging its militants to enlist in various development projects in order to take them over after independence.27 In the military domain, for all of his operational successes, Challe failed to defeat the ALN because ultimately the moudjahid’s mission was a political one. By 1959 it had already been largely accomplished, because the Front had spread throughout the territory of Algeria during its first four years, sweeping aside every other Muslim political force in the process. Although Challe’s flying columns pounded rebel units into tiny fragments, the surviving fragments were all the more difficult to extract from their environment. Desperate and scattered moudjahideen fell back on the rural population for protection, who now took up themselves the tasks of concealment, logistics and intelligence, strengthening their connection with the struggle.28 Moreover, the survivors were psychologically stronger for their ordeal, and more committed to radical socioeconomic change to vindicate their mutual suffering.29 In September 1959, Boumedienne and the other ALN chiefs reminded their commanders that the goal was not to drive the vastly superior French army into the sea, and criticized them for having formed larger, more exposed units with the misguided aim of taking on bigger targets.30

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

231

Boumedienne, therefore, told his colleagues that the mighty French army would be defeated by outlasting it, but that this battle of wills required proper revolutionary conviction on the part of their fighters. He insisted that the moudjahid fought not just for national independence, but also for social revolution: “the fighter must also be a militant [of the revolution] because he’s not a mercenary, he’s supported by an ideal.”31 Putting this principle into practice, he instigated more sophisticated political training for the troops under his remit in Tunisia and Morocco. The Martinican polemicist Frantz Fanon, who served as an envoy for the GPRA in Africa, was also invited to lecture the troops on his internationalist and anticapitalist vision of Third Worldism, accompanying the wisdom of Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Fidel Castro in the ALN curriculum.32 Political commissars drilled ALN officers on a systemic understanding of colonialism as a political and economic system, which they then in turn passed on to the men under their command.33 A sympathetic journalist who visited the camps was astonished to find that the moudjahideen even learnt that “the enemy is not France or Frenchmen, but the colonialists—who happen in this case to be French.”34 The extent and depth of the ALN’s political training should not be exaggerated, for it certainly does not compare to a genuine Marxist–Leninist organization in this regard. Yet, given the huge influence of the army in Algerian politics after independence, the proliferation of concepts like neocolonial economic exploitation and internationalist solidarity in Boumedienne’s camps would have substantial consequences for the country’s direction. This radicalization was replicated in the FLN’s diplomatic apparatus. Originally hoping that Western governments, particularly the United States, would broker an end to the war, the Front tried to maintain a studied neutrality in the Cold War’s political and ideological balance. But the cogs of diplomacy moved agonizingly slowly in the United Nations while Challe’s commandos relied on American equipment to hunt the moudjahideen. Finally in January 1960 Belkacem Krim, recently appointed head of the MAE, called for an end to the policy of “childish blackmail” by which the FLN had only flirted with Peking in the hope of provoking Washington to pressure France.35 Since the Communist countries alone seemed willing and capable of providing substantial military assistance, he concluded that “nearly six years of war have demonstrated sufficiently that Western solidarity plays in France’s favour. . . . It is necessary to determine to what extent the East is susceptible, at the present time, to making an important contribution to the process of our liberation.”36 It was not coincidental, therefore, that from 1959 to 1962 as the Algerians became increasingly reliant on Chinese, Czechoslovak, and later Soviet material support, they also shifted definitively to the left of world politics. During talks at the Czechoslovak embassy in Tunis, for example, two MAE representatives insisted that “after it liberates the country from foreign

232

Jeffrey James Byrne

dominance, [the Revolution] will unveil socialist achievements,” and noted in their report that their Communist interlocutors “expressed a great deal of attention to the idea that the Algerian people fight not only for political independence, but also for economic progress and social justice.”37 In mid1960, a senior member of the MAE explained to the GPRA’s representatives in Europe why the Algerian nationalists had reconciled with the muchloathed French Communist Party (PCF) and taken positions on international issues that antagonized the West—a tendency known in the language of the period as “positive neutralism.” He explained that “aid from the Communist countries takes into account our fundamental attitude to the [PCF]. . . . We cannot go to China and smile and [then] make declarations of a different tone in Western Europe.”38 It would be easy to dismiss such language as a case of simply telling the Communist countries what they wanted to hear if it were not for copious documentary evidence from the FLN’s internal communications, in the latter years of the war, that reveals a general pro-socialist, anti-Western consensus in the movement’s middle and upper ranks.39 Most contemporary and later observers seem to have underestimated the extent of the Front’s leftward drift because this evidence was not previously accessible and because the most senior figures in the GPRA—representatives of the old generation like Belkacem Krim and Ferhat Abbas—continued to be its public face in the West, where they carefully maintained a moderate image. Yet other influential and well-organized factions of the FLN, such as its affiliated labor and student unions, also openly advocated a socialist model for Algeria.40 By 1961, indeed, the Front’s weak organizational coherence was disappearing altogether. It was almost as if there were two FLNs, and de Gaulle was negotiating with the wrong one. Although de Gaulle wrote in Memoirs of Hope that the Evian Accords of March 1962 “contained everything we wanted them to contain,” the substance of the treaty basically implemented the objectives outlined by the FLN in their first proclamation of November 1, 1954. Even so, after nearly eight years of war, Algerian nationalism’s radical turn had already moved the goalposts beyond the Evian framework. The accords were the culmination of several years of incremental concessions on de Gaulle’s part; first to negotiate with the FLN at all, then to negotiate without a cease-fire, to accept the FLN as his sole interlocutors, and finally to accept Algeria’s full independence and its sovereignty in the energy-rich Sahara.41 Evian preserved for Paris privileged access to the oil and gas resources in the desert, long-term leases on several key military installations (most notably the Mers-El-Kebir naval port and atomic test sites in the Sahara), and legal protection of the Europeans’ existing businesses, property, and cultural rights. Yet all of these issues were already menaced by the ascendant radical outlook in the FLN which aimed to nationalize European assets, saw itself as

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

233

part of an international antiestablishment movement, and which envisaged a nondemocratic, monocultural Algeria. There was, therefore, a certain disjuncture between Algerian realities and de Gaulle’s policy of cooperation, for which the Evian Accords were the highest-profile example. By even negotiating with the GPRA, Paris assumed incorrectly that moderate, high-profile figures like Belkacem Krim—tellingly the sole signatory of the accords on the Algerian side—could deliver on the FLN’s commitments. In mid-1961, de Gaulle even suggested that the GPRA might welcome the presence of the French army in independent Algeria in order to preclude the creation of an Algerian army that could constitute a political rival, an idea far removed from the reality of what the FLN would accept and the existence of Boumedienne’s loyal troops. As Matthew Connelly notes, the final negotiations had a surreal quality as the two sides painstakingly hashed out the legalistic details of the status of the European minority, even while the notorious pied-noir terrorist group the “Secret Army Organisation” (OAS) waged a brutal and vindictive scorched-earth campaign in Algeria.42 Like most of his compatriots, he was desperate to be rid of Algeria and harried his negotiators to wrap things up. But he was also determined to present the messy end of the war as a seminal achievement, and France eager to believe him. “International life may be transformed by this, in the direction of our spirit, which is that of liberty, of equality, and fraternity,” de Gaulle declared on the signing of the Evian agreements, “By adopting this vast and generous plan, the French people are going to contribute, once more in their history, to the enlightenment of the world.”43 The riposte to Evian came quickly. When the FLN leadership gathered in Tripoli in late May, the movement’s rifts finally became public. The GPRA chiefs stormed out early, conceding the field to Ahmed Ben Bella who had overseen the drafting of an explicitly socialist program of action for independent Algeria. This so-called Tripoli Program rejected the assumptions of Franco–Algerian cooperation, and North–South economic relations more broadly, using the Third Wordlist terminology that had proliferated within the FLN during the previous few years: It is evident that the concept of cooperation thus established constitutes the most typical expression of French neocolonialist policies . . . [The FLN] must equally develop, from this moment, an effective strategy to check the neocolonialist enterprises that represent a grave danger to the Revolution because they take on the seductive guises of liberalism and of financial and economic cooperation which purports to be disinterested.

In the months and years to come French policy would be based on the premise that the socialist ideals of the Tripoli Program could be reconciled with harmonious, mutually-beneficial cooperation across the Mediterranean. Yet, it is highly significant that the principles of autodétermination that de

234

Jeffrey James Byrne

Gaulle proposed in September 1959—economic interdependence, limited sovereignty, multicommunal federalism—were essentially the opposite of the FLN’s program in 1962. The latter consisted of socialism on the basis of economic nationalism, unfettered independence, and monolithic Arabism. De Gaulle had changed the Front, it had come to occupy the political high ground, which in the context of the era meant radicalism. The Evian solution might have been viable ten years previously, but the Revolution had moved the goalposts of nationalism to encompass a concept of modernity that not only rejected French leadership, but actually aspired to compete with it.

Coopération, 1962–1969 In the copious literature on the Algerian War, bilateral relations after July 5, 1962 are typically an afterthought. This dearth of analysis is odd given that, if the lofty principles of the Evian framework were to be taken seriously, the success of de Gaulle’s Algeria policy can only be evaluated by looking also at the post-colonial period. The decade following the Evian Accords witnessed the steady dismantling of French economic interests, culminating in the nationalization of Algeria’s oil and gas sector in 1972, by that time the United States had supplanted the former colonial métropole as the country’s primary trade partner. What the Algerian political elite came to call the “period of clarification” was largely the triumph of Tripoli over Evian. Yet when the eminent historian Charles-Robert Ageron concluded that, from 1962 to 1969, de Gaulle presided over Algeria’s maturation to full independence, he epitomized a conveniently tautological perspective by which le Général’s policy would be a success regardless of Evian’s viability.44 In other words, when the Algerians cooperated with Paris they were deemed to be governing responsibly, but when they defied French policy they were simply “learning to stand on their own two feet.” The reality, as the archives show, is that the grand themes of Evian quickly degenerated into hardheaded bargaining in each country’s economic self-interest. With his reputation tied to his controversial ending of the war, de Gaulle secretly complied with Evian’s piecemeal obliteration in order to avoid coopération’s public collapse. During the summer of 1962, Paris did not intervene in the contest between the GPRA leadership and the opposing coalition led by Ben Bella, whose main partner was Houari Boumedienne and his loyal ALN border army, even though the latter attacked the GPRA for having agreed to the “neocolonial” Evian settlement. In the French media, the GPRA faction led by Benyoussef Benkhedda was seen to be more liberal and pro-Evian, whereas the Ben Bella-Boumedienne group seemed radical and antidemocratic, even totalitarian to some.45 Le Figaro newspaper, for example, juxtaposed the pronouncements of the two figureheads in early July. “Indepen-

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

235

dence is achieved. A page has turned” said Benkhedda, “Today it is up to the people of Algeria to talk. They will elect their National Constituent Assembly.” In contrast, Ben Bella declared that “independence is only a stage.” Now, it is necessary to achieve the revolution. This will be achieved with toughness and purity. The time for democracy has not yet come.46

It is perfectly understandable that the last thing de Gaulle might want would be to re-entangle France by interfering in the FLN’s internal struggles. Yet the decision not to support the pro-Evian GPRA side by refusing, for example, to impede the entry of Boumedienne’s troops from Morocco and Tunisia on July 5, also seems premised on the idea that French interests were not in fact threatened by the likely triumph of the supposed radicals.47 Paris wanted a stable government and interlocutor installed in Algiers as soon as possible, and calculated that any Algerian government, no matter its revolutionary proclamation, would be compelled to cooperate with France on the basis of the vast financial assistance stipulated at Evian. De Gaulle appointed a trusted aide, Jean-Marcel Jeanneney, as his first ambassador in the newly-independent country, and emphasized the mission’s importance by telling him to call his president directly in the event of difficulties.48 However, Jeanneney’s written instructions revealed a tendency to ignore any suggestions that the General’s Algerian solution was less than inevitable. His instructions claimed that “none of the leaders or candidates for power have came out against the Evian Accords. . . . [T]hey are viable whatever the vicissitudes of Algerian internal politics, and moreover, they have not been rejected by any of the leaders of the Front.”49 No wonder then that Paris was eager to accept Ben Bella’s dubious assurances to a French journalist in July, and to Jeanneney in August, that he too would respect the terms of the Evian Accords, since in fact his conception of socialism did not include nationalizing French commercial interests.50 The RADP was founded on September 25, 1962 with Ben Bella as its prime minister and Boumedienne, presumed by everyone to be the potentially-impatient power behind the throne, as head of the armed forces and minister of defense. Over the course of the next year, de Gaulle’s Algeria policy was under constant assault from the revolutionary agenda of the Tripoli Program. The Algerian state and government were still inchoate, but one clear outcome of the confusing game of musical chairs for positions of authority that ensued was the ascendancy of the educated young militants who had served in the ALN officer corps, the GPRA foreign ministry, and the FLN. The first foreign minister, thirty-one-year-old Mohammed Khemisti, exemplified the impression of antiestablishment, youthful vigor in Algiers. “He is the youngest foreign minister in the world. His school: prison” enthused the left-wing newspaper Jeune Afrique.51 For the most part, the twin reference points of their worldview were socialism as the expression of

236

Jeffrey James Byrne

nationalist economics and a Third Worldist antagonism toward Western influence in the Southern Hemisphere. Ben Bella acted quickly to establish himself as the champion of both of these causes. In mid-October, his first trip abroad as premier of the Algerian Republic took him to New York to attend the country’s admission to the United Nations, to Washington for a brief reception at the White House and then, shockingly, directly to Havana. There, amid a festive reception, he finally consecrated the Algero–Cuban alliance the GPRA had long avoided. “We were only in Cuba for thirty-six hours,” recalled Ben Bella, “but what a celebration it was! . . . Protocol was forgotten and we talked, talked. .Â€ .Â€ . Never had thirty-six hours seemed so short!”52 Paris was certainly concerned that Algeria not become a thorn in France’s underbelly as Cuba had for the U.S., and Ben Bella’s strident denunciations of the American base at Guantanamo had obvious undertones for the base at Mers-El-Kebir and the other facilities retained at Evian.53 Yet de Gaulle intended to practice forbearance where American umbrage had backfired. Unsurprisingly, U.S.–Algerian aid negotiations taking place in Washington the week after Ben Bella’s Cuban voyage—and coinciding with the Missile Crisis—broke down. Khemisti complained bitterly to the French ambassador in New York that the Americans burdened economic aid with political conditions and, to his interlocutor’s delight, went on to say that this disappointment lent more importance to Franco–Algerian cooperation.54 The war’s chaotic alteration of Algerian society continued in 1962, when the most notable event was the panicked mass exodus of most of the one million pieds-noirs who feared that independence and Muslim rule presented a choice between “the suitcase or the coffin.” Their property was quickly snatched up by speculators, well-positioned FLN members or destitute families abandoning the countryside or released from the regroupement camps. With the departure of the bulk of the European community, one of the key components of the Evian Accords was already obsolete by the end of 1962. Reflecting the influence of socialist theory in the latter years of the war, urban and rural laborers spontaneously set up collective “self-management” committees to run businesses abandoned by their European bosses. Responding to the fervor of the moment, in his public appearances Ben Bella re-emphasized his commitment to socialism and agrarian revolution as promised in the Tripoli Program, “the writing of which,” he reminded one audience, “I participated in personally.”55 “After having solemnly affirmed in his governmental declarations his resolution to respect the Evian Accords,” one Quai d’Orsay official complained, “Mr. Ben Bella, as much in his comments as in the acts of his government, seems to be distancing himself from the accords to which he himself was not party.”56 Disillusioned, Jeanneney submitted a very pessimistic final report on prospects for the future of cooperation when he was recalled at the end

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

237

of 1962.57 His replacement by George Gorse, who had managed France’s difficult relations with the leader of independent Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, likely reflected a downgrading of expectations. With domestic criticism mounting, French foreign ministry officials prepared to justify to the National Assembly the enormous aid budget for Algeria, fretting that “on the occasion of the discussion of the budget for Algeria, the entirety of our policies of the past six months risks being called into question.”58 As became the norm for the Elysée and Quai d’Orsay’s handling of Algeria policy under de Gaulle, the National Assembly and the public received a cheery analysis of bilateral relations that omitted the government’s very real concerns. “Do not forget that the fundamental guarantee of the Evian Accords rests on France’s financial support,” read Gorse’s instructions, “as a consequence use as often as possible this means of financial pressure.”59 When Algeria faced a financial crisis at the end of 1962, Khemisti came to Paris to negotiate the issuance of the budgetary assistance stipulated at Evian and, reflecting the Quai d’Orsay’s new hard-line stance, his interlocutors threatened to cut off aid if the attacks on French interests did not cease. For the next few months, Ben Bella’s public statements on cooperation were mollifying, leading French officials to hope that they had weathered the storm. In March 1963, an optimistic report titled “One Year After Evian” concluded that Franco– Algerian relations “have marked in recent months a clear normalization, which permits the hope that cooperation between the two countries . . . will truly enter a constructive period.”60 Such optimism was misplaced. Several weeks later, Ben Bella seized on the occasion of a French atomic test in the Sahara to stoke the fires of national and international outrage. With Paris on the defensive before a Third World audience, the Algerian prime minister shored up his domestic position by passing a set of decrees legalizing the seizure of European properties and the self-management, or autogestion, committees running them. The so-called March Decrees were drafted by French Trotskyist Michel Raptis and the like-minded Mohammed Harbi, known as Ben Bella’s “theorist-at-large.”61 With Ben Bella leading the charge to nationalize even small-scale businesses, mostly French-owned, and championing autogestion as an example for the entire developing world, 1963 became the annus horribilis for Franco–Algerian relations. The Algerian premier himself oversaw the occupation of the plantations of the richest pied-noir landowner, Henri Borgeaud. “We want no more Borgeauds in this country,” he said, “Out with him, and good riddance. . . . If that’s contrary to the Evian Accords, I don’t care two hoots.”62 With a further set of decrees in October 1963, the nationalization of European land was essentially completed.63 Ben Bella later explained his philosophy in plain language to a sympathetic biographer:

238

Jeffrey James Byrne

Political power was in the hands of the Algerians; but economic power, including the land itself, was still in the hands of the Europeans. . . . As long as Algerian soil was still in the hands of the big landowners, whether French or Algerian, the words ‘Independence’ and ‘Revolution’ made no sense, and the Tripoli programme remained a dead letter.64

Ben Bella’s zest for nationalization encompassed even small enterprises like restaurants and cinemas, which provoked discontent in some quarters and would in time be rescinded. But there was broad consensus in ruling circles that France’s dominant economic role, including massive financial assistance to the Algerian government, was at best a temporary necessary evil. A tour d’horizon of global economic relations from the Algerian foreign ministry categorized France, Britain, and the U.S.A as three imperialist powers striving to maintain their own privileged zone of influence in the Third World. Even those aspects of cooperation, such as financial and economic assistance, which France saw as magnanimous were perceived as schemes to maintain an exploitative relationship between North and South.65 The Algiers Charter of April 1964, a new national program akin to a sequel to Tripoli, also pointedly warned against the dangers of foreign aid. That the Algerians lumped France in the same “imperialist” category as the U.S.A and Britain was a blow for de Gaulle’s ambition to distance his country from the Atlantic alliance, and to advance French guidance as an alternative to the Third World’s choice between East and West. During an important May 1965 meeting of senior foreign ministry staff, Abdelaziz Bouteflika (the Boumedienne ally who replaced Khemisti as foreign minister after the latter’s apparently nonpolitical murder) told his colleagues that although France could occasionally be an “objective ally” it remained “an imperial power that has not freed itself of its old complexes.”66 In France, many observers saw the querulous Algerians as simply ungrateful for generous financial and development assistance. In public, the government continued to defend the tenets of cooperation against mounting criticism. Yet, as Edward Kolodziej writes, “De Gaulle could hardly let Algeria go. Vindication of his personal leadership and France’s global mission significantly depended on the success of postwar relations.”67 In 1964, Ben Bella and de Gaulle stepped back from the rupture their countries seemed to be headed for. The two presidents (Ben Bella having promoted himself to that title in September 1963) came to an understanding that remained in effect until Boumedienne’s coup of June 19, 1965. Their understanding was based on mutual domestic vulnerability and premised, essentially, on de Gaulle’s willingness to abandon certain aspects of the Evian settlement in return for Ben Bella’s willingness to pretend that he had not. The defining dynamic of Algerian politics was the steadily rising tensions between Ben Bella and his defense minister, which everyone expected to culminate eventually in one or the other’s downfall. The continued degradation of the

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

239

nation’s economy, as a result of autogestion’s shortcoming and France’s retaliatory reductions in financial support, provided plentiful ammunition for implied criticism on the part of Boumedienne’s proxies. With Boumedienne’s trusted lieutenant, Bouteflika, in charge of the foreign ministry (MAE), a secretive turf war over foreign policy ensued. One MAE mission statement-type document took pointed credit for mending fences with Paris: “The serious disagreements with the former colonial power had to give way to delicate negotiations. . . . It was immediately necessary to examine the aspects affecting the vital needs of the country and thus engage without delay in discussions with the French government.”68 In March 1964, Ben Bella surprised everybody—including most of the party traveling with him—by flying unannounced to Paris directly from an official visit to Yugoslavia.69 He impressed the general by reminiscing warmly about receiving a medal from him while serving as a soldier in the Free French army in Italy, and made clear that he was interested in an improved relationship.70 The essence of the understanding they brokered seems to have been Ben Bella’s promise to deliver a new deal on French exploitation of the Saharan oil and gas, and in exchange de Gaulle would override the growing discontent of his administration and uphold existing aid commitments. A multi-year agreement to buy Algerian wine may well have also been part of de Gaulle’s offer. What was not acknowledged publicly was the fact that Paris conceded on the questions of military bases and pieds-noirs property rights. Of course, none of this might have been explicit, and the documentary record is still limited on both sides of the Mediterranean. However, one useful new piece of evidence is a March 1965 letter from de Gaulle to Gorse in which he instructs his ambassador to tell Ben Bella that, while the General recognized his counterpart’s need to impress his domestic audience with a show of forceful negotiation, the talks on a new oil and gas deal had to come to a conclusion soon. That statement suggests the existence of an understanding between the two presidents. Likewise, the additional message that Ben Bella would not be welcome again in France before the conclusion of a new energy deal shows that de Gaulle was well aware of the role coopération had come to play in Algerian politics, and the importance Ben Bella attached to prestigious foreign travels.71 As a result, the real content of cooperation fell far short of the grand aims aired by its architect. Eurafrique, that worthy dream of harmonious intercommunal and transnational collaboration in the construction of a progressive post-colonial future, was trampled under the Europeans’ undignified stampede out. Yet, given the zeal with which the Algerians had seized European properties and colonized the previously forbidden quarters of the cities, it is likely that the convenient disappearance of the pieds-noirs saved post-independence relations from much graver crises. Cooperation was in fact facilitated by de Gaulle’s lack of sympathy for Algeria’s former masters.

240

Jeffrey James Byrne

Lambasting the inequities of the “illusion of Algérie française,” where “certain people were landed and the others were wretched,” he said privately in November 1962 that he had “no interest in trying to preserve an abnormal situation. . . . The land, that’s [the Algerians’] business, they cannot not take it.”72 Consequently, France’s material objectives were increasingly naked. As de Gaulle admitted to his confidant, Alain Peyrefitte, “fundamentally, now that nearly of all the pieds-noirs are gone, there is only the petrol and the [atomic] tests that count.”73 Documents from the Foreign Ministry confirm the quiet reprioritization of France’s interests in 1963, in which continued access to the Saharan oil and gas fields outweighed everything else.74 Even the military clauses of Evian were subordinated to this priority. De Broglie agreed with Ben Bella to hasten the withdrawal of French forces, and to ensure the transfer of the atomic testing program to the South Pacific by 1965 in exchange for its undisturbed continuance until then. On June 19, 1965, in the middle of the night, a swift coup d’état saw Algeria’s first president bundled off to a long incarceration, provoking only modest resistance in popular and elite circles. Ben Bella’s revolutionary zeal was tempered neither by patience nor caution, and in the end he had simply alienated too many of those whose support he needed to counterbalance the army clique. His critics accused him, with evident opportunism, of simultaneously giving in to French neocolonialism and ruining the economy by stymieing cooperation. The change of regime in Algiers destabilized bilateral relations once more, and Houari Boumedienne did not share the personal characteristics by which Ben Bella had soothed the Elysée. Ben Bella, the francophone ex-soldier, openly admired a culture and nation that politics and circumstance had made his enemy. Boumedienne, in contrast, was educated in Cairo, and seems to have been much less dazzled by the allure of the former imperial métropole. Whereas Ben Bella had patently valued de Gaulle’s audience, after the coup Boumedienne pointedly dispatched Bouteflika to Paris but took himself to Moscow. He notably declined to visit France even for the General’s funeral in 1970. The new leadership justified their coup with the premise that they were saving the Revolution from Ben Bella’s disastrous mismanagement. “From now on,” Boumedienne promised, “verbal socialism is dead; the building of a socialist economy has begun.”75 While wary of the army clique’s strident nationalism, Paris hoped at least that an emphasis on economic results might be good news for cooperation. Indeed, the new regime immediately concluded the long-running negotiations that were so vexing to de Gaulle by signing the landmark Petroleum Accords of July 29, 1965. Much broader in their implications than their name suggests, the Petroleum Accords were actually the successor to Evian. Applicable for a period of five years, the agreements stipulated that French companies would continue to enjoy privileged access to the Saharan oil and gas fields, and in return the

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

241

Algerians would receive a much-improved share of the revenues from fixed, above-market prices.76 Additionally, the French government renewed its financial assistance for Algerian economic development on a reduced but still very substantial scale. The accords were at odds with Boumedienne’s hard-line nationalist image, and the official organ El Moudjahid felt the need to defend the deal from the criticisms of “super-revolutionaries” by evoking Lenin’s dictum on dealing with capitalists: “the essential is that the property remains the state’s, that the contract is advantageous and that the situation of the workers and peasants is improved.”77 Reactions across the sea were more problematic, for to many French observers the economic logic of the deal was elusive. In the end, the senate ratified the agreements by a very narrow margin. For de Gaulle though, the economics were subordinate to the wider political objective of demonstrating the benefits of the “French alternative” to African governments.78 Yet the July 1965 accords proved to be the high-water mark for cooperation. By filling Algiers’ coffers with a reliable and growing income from oil and gas sales, they enabled the Algerian state finally to stabilize and consolidate its authority. In fact then, the accords strengthened the Algerian position enough to break openly with cooperation in several years’ time. As the decade wore on, it was increasingly obvious that bilateral relations had devolved into nakedly adversarial negotiations over concrete material interests such as oil and gas, wine exports, and immigration quotas. More and more French officials and politicians consequently favored a tough line, but the Algerians had a trump card in de Gaulle, who repeatedly overruled his subordinates and imposed concessions by fiat. Ironically, the objectively favorable terms of the 1965 accords failed to satisfy the new regime’s expectations from cooperation. In the colonial period, wine was Algeria’s primary export, and almost exclusively to France. However, the 1964 agreement to maintain Algerian wine importation levels fell victim to the domestic producers’ lobby, and the subsequent perilous decline in revenue had turned into a real crisis by 1967. Algerian documents on this subject support Nicole Grimaud’s suggestion that Boumedienne won concessions on the wine question by making menacing noises about energy exports. One report on the wine crisis for the Algerian president’s attention called oil and gas their “strongest cards,” and concluded that “the French partner will be compelled to think about the real risk it is running if it does not take up a more flexible position on the wine problem.”79 Boumedienne certainly took his case directly to his counterpart by dispatching his interior minister, and trusted personal ally, Ahmed Medeghri to meet with de Gaulle in late February 1968.80 In fact, several months earlier the General had already written a letter to the prime minister, Georges Pompidou, in support of the Algerian position on the wine question.81

242

Jeffrey James Byrne

Algerian diplomacy understood that, more than ever, cooperation was de Gaulle’s personal burden, the president’s domaine réservé par excellence. Seeking a debt relief agreement in 1966, the Algerians were piqued when French officials put the perennial question of indemnities for seized pieds-noirs properties back on the table. Bouteflika then came to Paris in search of a “une position seigneuriale,” and de Gaulle duly overrode the objections of his officials and the cabinet by agreeing to terms very favorable to Algiers—an agreement that was then withheld from the public’s attention.82 That modus operandi testifies to the increasing tenuousness of cooperation. Parisian political circles were already skeptical of the 1965 accords, and public support for the president’s policy ebbed when a deal widely considered overly generous failed to quell the disputatiousness of France’s Algerian “partners.” In 1967, polls showed that while 75 percent of the public approved of the principle of cooperation with the third world in general, only 38 percent supported cooperation with Algeria specifically—a decline from 49 percent in 1965.83 Accordingly, Algeria’s share of French aid to the developing world had shrunk from 42 percent to 13 percent between 1962 and 1968, and the majority of Algeria’s aid was now tied to specific industrial projects of interest to Paris.84 “If the means exist to hold onto the Algerians, we must not let them go” de Gaulle urged his dubious cabinet on May 1, 1968, but the tumults of French society that same month greatly undermined the ageing president’s personal authority, and his passion for the Algerian question could no longer sway opinions as it used to.85 Nor was the other side satisfied. A poor domestic French harvest meant that the terms of the 1964 wine export agreement were belatedly fulfilled in 1969, but this chance outcome did not hide the fact that cooperation contributed little to Algeria’s broader development goals. The value of wine exports were tiny in comparison to the revenues from the petroleum sector, but it was the only other significant export income in Algeria’s lopsided, sickly economy. In 1968, petrol had grown to constitute 80 percent of Algerian exports to France by value, and wine had diminished to a third of the remainder.86 The emaciation of nonhydrocarbon sectors and the diminution of the country to a situation where the former colonial power chose the product on which Algeria’s fortunes would turn—today the grape, tomorrow oil—was precisely the fate that Third Worldist economic nationalism strove to avoid. “At this juncture,” concluded a 1968 report for Bouteflika’s attention, “the deficit is so grave that only a radical reorientation of our external trade will be able to rectify it.”87 Far from encouraging the development of a balanced economy, French commercial policy was actually forcing the Algerians to take their business elsewhere lest their export sectors collapse entirely. In hindsight, because their continued presence and domination of the country’s land and resources so directly contravened the philosophy of the

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

243

Tripoli Program, the exodus of the pieds-noirs probably averted a graver, more immediate crisis in Franco–Algerian relations. The fact is that, for all the charitable phraseology, French officials understood coopération as the means to pursue specific material or strategic interests in Algeria, and negotiated accordingly. Of these, by the late 1960s only the oil and gas remained, and from that point, the Algerian government had two cards to play: oil and de Gaulle. With the decline of de Gaulle’s political stock in the last years of his presidency, Boumedienne’s government was relying ever more heavily on the ‘petrol card’ even before le général’s resignation on April 27, 1969. In fact, even though the Algerians relied on de Gaulle’s frequent personal interventions on bilateral disputes, they still took advantage of his government’s weakness in May 1968 by nationalizing French chemical and construction concerns. Evidently, the General was the only person left in Algiers or Paris still willing to make genuine efforts to preserve coopération. With him out of the picture, the logical outcome was the crisis of 1971, when renegotiation of the Franco–Algerian oil and gas arrangements collapsed in acrimony, and Algeria became the first Middle East country to nationalize its energy resources. This event is typically taken as the definitive endpoint of the “privileged” period of Franco–Algerian relations, but in reality the special relationship had long ceased to exist in all but name.

Conclusion Was Charles de Gaulle’s Algeria policy a success or a failure? The scholarly debate has understandably focused on the war itself. In his substantial recent study of de Gaulle’s foreign policy, Maurice Vaïsse credits le Général with “overcoming successive grave tests” during the conflict, before eventually ending it in a way that left France freer and stronger, able at last to recover its national grandeur. Revealingly though, Vaïsse’s litany of tests overcome— pieds-noirs rebellions, mutinous generals, the demands of the French public— does not at all concern the Muslim inhabitants of Algeria nor the revolutionaries that fought in their name.88 The truth is that de Gaulle’s victories were all essentially victories over other Frenchmen, and that in light of his failure to defeat the FLN, he endeavored to pretend that the Algerians were not terribly central to their own war of national liberation. In this spirit, one French historian has even claimed that “one can easily tell the history of the Algerian War without discussing the Algerians”—a dubious challenge that more than one of his colleagues have risen to.89 De Gaulle might well have saved France from a military coup or a civil war, but if not for the FLN’s tenacity in the first place, the Fourth Republic would not have collapsed in the circumstances it did in May 1958, the pieds-noirs would not have risen up in January 1960, and the army would not have mutinied in April 1961. In reality then, Algerians

244

Jeffrey James Byrne

made an essential contribution to the modern history of both countries, and while Irwin Wall’s judgment that 1962 represented the worst possible outcome for France might be slightly harsh, it is certainly closer to the mark than a carefully-constructed Gaullist mythology that has since occupied the strategic heights of conventional wisdom and popular memory.90 The stubborn refusal to countenance Algerian agency lies behind the breezy treatment of Franco–Algerian relations after Evian found in the memoirs of de Gaulle and his officials, and imitated by sympathetic scholars. Yet surely, according to the French president’s own claims at the time, this postscript should be a measure of his success. De Gaulle portrayed the Evian Accords as the start of a new form of political and economic engagement between North and South, France and Africa. Algeria therefore constituted a central plank of de Gaulle’s ambition to restore France’s global influence. “There is not a single nation in the world that dedicates to the progress of others a similar proportion of what it is doing for its own,” de Gaulle reminded those who criticized the costs of coopération, “the importance of cooperation relates less to figures and immediate results than to the advantages of a general nature which it can ensure in the future for ourselves and our partners.”91 Yet the obvious divergence, if not plain antagonism, between the philosophies of the two countries saw the dreams of Evian degenerate into commonplace haggling. Furthermore, Algerian support for French foreign policy in Africa and elsewhere was mixed at best. By de Gaulle’s own ambitious goals then, Algeria was a failure. In December 1965, an official journal published an article by Jean de Broglie titled ‘Forty Months of Franco–Algerian Relations.’ De Gaulle’s point man on Algeria concluded of coopération that “History will judge this policy, but it hardly seems that a different attitude would have better resolved such a complex and impassioned situation. On the contrary, we would have doubtless further compromised our interests of State without better protecting our special [particulier] interests for it.”92 “Special interests” was a suitably ambiguous expression to use, since particulier can also signify the personal or private. With foreign policy controlled directly from the presidential palace, it is hard to separate the special interests de Broglie presumably had in mind—the preservation of French prestige and influence in the Third World—from the personal interest Charles de Gaulle had in not seeing Evian fall apart. Indeed, given how attentive le Général was to his historical legacy, and in light of his tendency to conflate his own public persona with France itself, it is probable that he saw no distinction himself. Algeria brought out two contradictory sides of de Gaulle’s greatness: the dispassionate cynic who allowed that country to burn in order to save his beloved France from itself, and the nationalist romantic who presumed to bridge the widening Mediterranean in defiance of the Cold War’s realities.

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

245

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ For recent discussions of the historiography see Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. 272, and Irwin M. Wall, France, the United States, and the Algerian War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) pp. 252–62. For one of the best and most recent Gaullist interpretations, see Maurice Vaïsse, La Grandeur: Politique Etrangère du Général de Gaulle (Paris: Fayard, 1998). â•‡ 2.â•‡ Délégation générale, Plan de Constantine, quoted in Phillip Naylor, France and Algeria: A History of Decolonization and Transformation (Gainesville, FL: Florida University Press, 2000), p. 22. â•‡ 3.â•‡ Quoted in Charles-Robert Ageron, “La cooperation avec l’Algérie indépendante,” in De Gaulle et son Siècle (DGESS) (Paris: La Documentation française, 1992), vol. VI, p. 216. â•‡ 4.â•‡ Robert Malley, The Call from Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution and the Turn to Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). â•‡ 5.â•‡ Centre National des Archives d’Algérie (CNAA), archives of the Conseil National de la Révolution Algérienne (CNRA), dossier 12.2; minutes of the Tripoli Conference May 29, 1962, p. 29. â•‡ 6.â•‡ Bernard Tricot quoted in Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954– 1962 (London: Palgrave, 2002), p. 342; Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1971). â•‡ 7.â•‡ Major Addresses, Statements and Press Conferences of General Charles de Gaulle (Embassy of France, Press and Information Service: New York, 1964), p. 35. â•‡ 8.â•‡ Daho Djerbal, ‘Stratégie gaullienne et stratégie de l’Etat français Rupture et continuité: le cas de l’Algérie,’ DGESS, vol. 6, pp. 107–15. â•‡ 9.â•‡ For Algeria’s role in de Gaulle’s African strategy, see ‘Les Etats africains de la Communauté et la guerre d’Algérie (1958–1960),’ in L’Afrique Noire Française: L’Heure des Indépendances, ed, Charles-Robert Ageron and Marc Michel (Paris: CNRS, 1992); also Wall, chapter 6. 10.â•‡ Major Addresses, p. 55. 11.â•‡ French troop levels, and a great deal of other useful information, can be found in Guy Pervillé, Atlas de la Guerre d’Algérie (Paris: Autrement, 2003), p. 30. 12.â•‡ CNAA, archives of the GPRA, dossier 5.8, ‘Exposé général de la situation.’ This reports from late, possibly September, 1959 summaries the perilous situation of each Wilaya, or ALN zone inside Algeria. For casualties, see also the tables in Connelly, Diplomatic Revolution, pp. 290–92, and Pervillé, Atlas, pp. 50–55. 13.â•‡ For an example of internal criticism of French strategy, see General Lacombe’s report of March 26, 1958, ‘Role de l’armée et évolution de son action depuis novembre 1954,’ Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre (SHAT) 1H 1942 D1. 14.â•‡ Mohammed Harbi, FLN, Mirage et Réalité (Paris: Editions Jeune Afriques, 1980), p. 280. 15.â•‡ Horne, Savage War, pp. 336–39. 16.â•‡ Quoted in Connelly, Diplomatic Revolution, p. 89. 17.â•‡ See James Scott, Seeing Like a State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); and Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

246

Jeffrey James Byrne

18.â•‡ French foreign ministry archives (MAE), Secrétariat des Affaires Algériennes (SEAA), box 92, ‘La promotion sociale en Algérie,’ report by the political affairs office of the Délégation Générale in Algiers, 1961. 19.â•‡ For Challe’s reliance on regroupement, see Charles-Robert Ageron, ‘Une dimension de la guerre d’Algérie: les regroupements de populations,’ in Militaires et guérilla dans la guerre d’Algérie, ed. Jean-Charles Jauffret and Maurice Vaïsse (Paris: Editions Complexe, 2001), p. 340. 20.â•‡ Quoted in Naylor, France and Algeria, p. 52. Pierre Bourdieu, The Algerians (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962). 21.â•‡ See the introduction to Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). 22.â•‡ For generational changes in the FLN, see William B. Quandt, Revolution and Political Leadership (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969). 23.â•‡ CNAA, CNRA, dossier 4.1 ‘Rapport de politique Generale,’ material from the CNRA meeting in Tripoli, December 17, 1959–January 18, 1960. 24.â•‡ El Moudjahid, November 1, 1959 and March 31, 1960 respectively, although similar sentiments can be found in a multitude of issues. 25.â•‡ SEAA, box 92, October 10, 1961, ‘FICHE: entretien avec le sous-Préfet de . . . (Constantinois).’ 26.â•‡ Slimane Chikh, L’Algérie en Armes, ou le Temps des certitudes (Paris: Economica, 1981), pp. 346–48. 27.â•‡ SEAA, carton 92, ‘La promotion sociale en Algérie,’ report by the political affairs office of the Délégation Générale in Algiers, 1961. 28.â•‡ Revealingly, when the Algerian army was faced with a popular insurgency of its own in the 1990s, it drew on the lessons of the ALN’s success by frequently abandoning and isolating Islamist bastions until the local population could no longer bear the parasitic insurgents’ reign and had to turn on them themselves. See Luis Martinez, The Algerian Civil War (London: Hurst, 2000). 29.â•‡ Daho Djerbal, ‘Les maquis du Nord-Constantinois face aux grandes opérations de ratissage du plan Challe (1959–1960),’ in Militaires et guérilla dans la guerre d’Algérie, ed. Jean-Charles Jauffret and Maurice Vaïsse (Paris: Editions Complexe, 2001), pp. 195–218. 30.â•‡ CNAA, GPRA, dossier 5.5, ‘Rapport sur la situation militaire.’ 31.â•‡ CNNA, GPRA, dossier 2.19, ‘Réunion des dix, session du 6 septembre 1959.’ 32.â•‡ Malley, Call from Algeria, p. 125. See also The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Weidenfield, 1991) and An V de la Révolution Algérienne (Paris: Maspero, 1959). 33.â•‡ Recollections of Slimane Chikh with the author, Algiers August 24, 2007. 34.â•‡ Arslan Humbaraci, Algeria, A Revolution That Failed (London: Pall Mall, 1966), p. 66. 35.â•‡ For the best and most up-to-date study of wartime FLN diplomacy see Connelly, Diplomatic Revolution and Wall, France, the United States, and the Algerian War. 36.â•‡ CNAA, CNRA, dossier 4.1 ‘Rapport de politique Générale,’ material from the CNRA meeting in Tripoli, December 17, 1959–January 18, 1960. 37.â•‡ CNAA, GPRA-MAE, dossier 128.1.2, ‘Compte Rendu d’Entrevue,’ by Bouzida and Menouer, Tunis May 25, 1960.

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

247

38.â•‡ Saad Dahlab, general secretary of MAE, speaking. CNAA, GPRA-MAE, dossier 6.1.9, ‘Procès Verbal: Conférence des Représentants du FLN en Europe tenue au Caire du 15 au 22/06/1960.’ 39.â•‡ The penetration of the FLN by socialist and revolutionary ideology is too large a subject to be treated thoroughly here. See the author’s forthcoming doctoral dissertation from the London School of Economics and Political Science, ‘The Pilot Nation: An International History of Revolutionary Algeria, 1958–65.’ 40.â•‡ See Raymond Vallin, ‘Muslim Society in Algeria’ in Man, State, and Society in the Contemporary Maghrib, ed. I. William Zartman (London: Pall Mall, 1973), pp.Â€50–64. 41.â•‡ Wall, France, the United States, and the Algerian War, p. 252. 42.â•‡ Connelly, Diplomatic Revolution, pp. 266–68. 43.â•‡ De Gaulle quoted in Naylor, France and Algeria, p. 52. 44.â•‡ Ageron, ‘La coopération avec l’Algérie indépendante,’ DGESS. 45.â•‡ In early July, White House and State Department officials briefly considered that U.S. diplomatic recognition could improve the chances for Ben Khedda’s side, which in light of Ben Bella’s association with the Tripoli Program, senior NSC staffer Robert Komer considered “highly desirable.” Since Washington would be risking alienating the likely victors, the idea was binned. See Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961–1963, vol. XXI, editorial note to document 67; FRUS, 1961– 1963, XXI, no. 68. 46.â•‡ Figaro, July 16, 1962. 47.â•‡ Henry Jackson, The FLN in Algeria (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977), pp. 67–68, on opening the frontiers to ALN. 48.â•‡ Vaisse, Grandeur, p. 461. 49.â•‡ Documents Diplomatiques français (DDF), 1962, vol. 2, pp. 121–30. 50.â•‡ Interview in Agence France Press July 7, 1962; and telegram from Jeanneney to Couve de Murville, August 17, 1962, in DDF, 1962, vol. 2, pp. 138–42. 51.â•‡ Jeune Afrique, December 3–9, 1962. 52.â•‡ Quoted in Piero Glejeises, Conflicting Missions (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002) p. 32. 53.â•‡ Grimaud, Politique Extérieure, p. 146. 54.â•‡ SEAA, chrono 9, from François Seydoux de Clausonne in New York to Paris, October 27, 1962. 55.â•‡ Speech at Place des Martyrs, Algiers, November 1, 1962, Discours du Président Ben Bella du 28 Septembre au 12 Decembre 1962 (Algiers: Ministry of Information, 1963). 56.â•‡ SEAA, carton 125, ‘Attitude du Gouvernement algérien a l’égard des accords d’Evian,’ October 22, 1962. 57.â•‡ Hervé Bourges, L’Algérie à l’épreuve du pouvoir (Paris: Grasset, 1967), p. 164. 58.â•‡ SEAA, box 131, Cover note from Christian Delabelle, charged with compiling the dossier for the Assemblée Nationale, to embassy Rabat, November 9, 1962. 59.â•‡ SEAA, Carton 125, Draft of instructions for Georges Gorse, January 8, 1963. 60.â•‡ SEAA, Carton 125, Folder titled ‘Un an après Evian,’ Conclusion of summary, March 13, 1963. 61.â•‡ Jackson, FLN in Algeria, p. 139. 62.â•‡ Naylor, France and Algeria, p. 70.

248

Jeffrey James Byrne

63.â•‡ For a brief summary, see Charles-Robert Ageron, Modern Algeria (London: Hurst & Co., 1991), p. 133, or David and Marina Ottaway, Algeria: Politics of a Socialist Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), pp. 50–68. 64.â•‡ Robert Merle, Ben Bella (London: Michael Joseph, 1967), p. 155. 65.â•‡ CNAA, archives of the Algerian foreign ministry (MAE), 32/2000, carton 24, ‘Les relations économiques internationales,’ report by the Direction des Affaires Economiques et Culturelles. The document is stamped May 1966, but the text suggests strongly that it was written in May 1965. 66.â•‡ CNAA, MAE, 32/2000, carton 126, minutes of meeting of Monday, May 17, 1965, ‘Ordre du Jour: Relations Est-Ouest.’ 67.â•‡ Edward A. Kolodziej, French International Policy Under de Gaulle and Pompidou (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 470. 68.â•‡ CNAA, MAE, 32/2000, carton 50, ‘Rapport de présentation de textes relatifs aux attributions, à l’organisation et au fonctionnement du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères.’ 69.â•‡ Interview with Ahmed Laïdi at his home in Algiers, December 1, 2006. 70.â•‡ Archives of the French Foreign Ministry, Correspondances et Messages, carton 377, Entretiens et Messages, de Gaulle & Ben Bella, March 13, 1964. 71.â•‡ SEAA, Carton 41, letter from de Gaulle to Gorse, March 8, 1965. 72.â•‡ Handwritten notes of Roger Belin from the November 16, 1962 meeting of the Committee of Algerian Affairs, reproduced in Maurice Faivre, Les archives inédites de la politique algérienne (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000), pp. 322–23. 73.â•‡ Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle (France: Fayard, 1997), vol. 2, p. 439. 74.â•‡ SEAA, carton 125, ‘Les objectifs de la politique française a l’égard de l’Algerie. Hiérarchie des objectifs,’ May 3, 1963. 75.â•‡ Houari Boumedienne, ‘The Third Anniversary of Algerian Independence’ in Man, State, and Society in the Contemporary Maghrib, ed. I. William Zartman (London: Pall Mall, 1973), pp. 127–30. 76.â•‡ Claude Wauthier, Quatre Presidents et l’Afrique (Paris: Seuil, 1995), pp. 156–58. 77.â•‡ El Moudjahid, July 16, 1965. 78.â•‡ Naylor, France and Algeria, p. 77. 79.â•‡ Grimaud, p. 68; CNAA, MAE, 32/2000, carton 64. ‘Négociations commerciales algéro-françaises,’ report for Boumedienne, 1968. 80.â•‡ CNAA, MAE, 32/2000, carton 64, ‘Entretien entre Monsieur Ahmed MEDEGHRI, Ministre de l’Intérieur et le Général de Gaulle, Président de la République Française’; February 29, 1968. 81.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Lettres, Notes et Carnets, July 1966–April 1969 (Paris: Plon, 1987), pp. 151–52. 82.â•‡ See Ageron, DGESS, pp. 212–22; and Grimaud, Politique Extérieure, p. 61. 83.â•‡ Poll figures from Naylor, France and Algeria, p. 49, and Ageron, DGESS, p. 215. 84.â•‡ Also Jean de Broglie, ‘Quarante mois des rapports franco-algériens,’ Revue de défense nationale, vol. 21 (1965), pp. 1833–57. 85.â•‡ Quoted in Ageron, DGESS, p. 214. 86.â•‡ CNAA, MAE, 32/2000, carton 64, report for Bouteflika, ‘Physionomie des échanges commerciaux avec la France pour le 1er semestre 1968.’ 87.â•‡ Ibid. 88.â•‡ Vaïsse, Grandeur, p. 79.

“Je ne vous ai pas compris”

249

89.â•‡ Quotation from Jacques Julliard, ‘Le mépris et la modernité,’ La Guerre d’Algérie et les Français, ed. Jean-Pierre Rioux (Paris: Fayard, 1990), pp. 153–60. For an example of a heavily Franco-centric analysis of the Algerian War, see John E. Talbott, The War Without a Name: France in Algeria 1954–1962 (New York: Knopf, 1980). See also the historiographical discussion in Connelly, Diplomatic Revolution, p. 272 and Wall, France, the United States, and the Algerian War, pp. 252–62. 90.â•‡ Wall, France, the United States, and the Algerian War, p. 252. 91.â•‡ Quoted in Naylor, France and Algeria, p. 54. 92.â•‡ de Broglie, ‘Quarante mois des rapports franco-algériens,’ p. 1857.

12 De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa: From Decolonization to French Development Policy, 1958–1963 Guia Migani

Introduction This chapter analyzes French decolonization policy in Sub-Saharan Africa during de Gaulle’s presidency. When Charles de Gaulle returned to power in June 1958, French authority in the colonies was in crisis. In 1954, following its defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, France withdrew from Indochina and the Algerian War began later that year. In 1956, Tunisia and Morocco became independent, and even in these two cases, the decolonization process was not completely peaceful. Sub-Saharan Africa, for its part, was still under full French control in 1956. Even though there was a rebellion movement in Cameroon, and some African political parties were campaigning for independence, they were the minority. African leaders were integrated in the French institutions, and were often members of the Assemblée Nationale, the Senate or the government. However, Sub-Saharan Africa could not be sheltered forever from the North–African decolonization process. Furthermore, in 1957, the British Gold Coast became independent under the name of Ghana. The countries neighboring the former Gold Coast, all under French control, could thus look to Ghana as an example. Paris knew that it had to take initiatives in order to increase the power of the African leaders. The disengagement process in Sub-Saharan Africa represents a distinctive aspect of French foreign policy because, unlike what happened in other colonies, the French government was actually able to elaborate and carry out a policy of decolonization. During the Fourth Republic, the main authorities responsible for Sub-Saharan Africa were the Ministry of Overseas France and the Ministry of Economy, who were respectively in charge of 251

252

Guia Migani

administering African territories and the franc zone, a monetary area based on the French currency. Under de Gaulle the situation became more complicated: the Ministry of Economy maintained its prerogatives but the Ministry of Overseas France was replaced by a Secrétariat d’Etat aux relations avec les Etats de la Communauté, placed under the authority of the prime minister and later transformed into a Ministry of Cooperation. It was in charge of cultural, economic, and social relations with the African states, while the Foreign Ministry handled political relations. The African policy was under the supervision of the President of the Republic. Jacques Foccart, Secrétaire général à la Présidence de la République pour les Affaires africaines et malgaches, was in charge of collecting information from the different bodies, informing de Gaulle every day of the main problems concerning Africa, and passing on the instructions of the French president to the Ministries or to the ambassadors. Thanks to his personal ties with African leaders and his privileged position close to de Gaulle, Foccart had a big influence on the management of Franco–African relations.1 Yet, the main responsibility for the African policy was still de Gaulle’s. This chapter will focus on the years 1958–1963, examining the transition from the French decolonization policy to the development policy. It will first analyze the situation of the Union française—the name given to the French Empire after 1946—when de Gaulle came back to power, how the new Franco–African Community was formed, and the economic organization of the African colonies. Later, it will address the transition from Community to independence. Finally, it will examine the main elements of Franco–African relations after independence—the cooperation treaties and the Franc zone—and the consequences of the entry of the African states in the international system.2 Within the existing literature, the French decolonization policy in Sub-Saharan Africa is often analyzed from a single point of view, be it as an aspect of de Gaulle’s policy during his whole presidency, or in comparison with British decolonization, or from the point of view of Franco–African relations. The present study will try to tie together elements from all these studies. It will also emphasise the role of other French authorities, such as the Ministry of Economy, in the decolonization process. Added to that, after 1960, France had to face the actions of the superpowers in a region which had been, so far, under its exclusive control. This paper will therefore try to offer some elements to help provide a more complex analysis of the Franco–African policy.

The setting up of the Franco–African Community During the Fourth French Republic (1946–1958), the African territories belonged to the Union française. The African territories—called Territoires

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

253

d’outremer (TOM)—were grouped into two Federations: the West African Federation (Afrique occidentale française—AOF) composed of Mauritania, Senegal, Sudan (as of 1960 Republic of Mali), Guinea, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta (as of 1984 Burkina Faso), and Dahomey (as of 1975 Benin), and the Equatorial African Federation (Afrique Equatoriale française—AEF) including Congo, Gabon, Chad, and Central African Republic. Togo and Cameroon, which were under United Nations (UN) trusteeship, and Madagascar, too far from West or Central Africa, did not belong to either Federation. When de Gaulle came back to power in June 1958, he wanted not only to reform the institutions of the Fourth Republic, but also to define a new relationship between the Metropolitan power and its colonies. By the end of August, he had drafted a project for a Franco–African Community that would replace the Union française. The new body would include France and the African territories. The African states would also have complete autonomy in their internal affairs. At the same time, the French president would lead the Community, with an Executive Council of the heads of the member states, and of the ministers in charge of the common affairs.3 On September 28, 1958, African voters—like the French—were asked by referendum to either approve or reject the new constitution of the Fifth Republic. If they voted “yes,” they would become members of the Franco–African Community. If they voted “no,” they would choose full independence. In a second stage, the Parliamentary Assemblies of the African states would decide which status to have inside the Community, that of member states or of Territoires d’outremer. The new constitutional system did not represent a great evolution for the African territories, which had already gained full internal autonomy with the reforms of the Loi-Cadre Defferre in 1957.4 But it is worth mentioning that in 1958, while Paris was fighting to keep Algeria French, Sub-Saharan Africa5 was given for the first time the choice of full independence. The latter was incompatible with membership of the Community, and if the colonies chose independence, they would no longer be entitled to aid from Paris. In order to encourage the African territories to become part of the Community, de Gaulle declared that joining the latter did not preclude a future evolution of the relationship. 6 Thus, choosing the Community did not mean forever renouncing independence. At this time, the African territories were asked to decide between independence and being part of a system presided by France. In the future, some changes would be possible. For the moment de Gaulle wanted to make clear to the African people that the referendum on the new Constitution was a choice between either supporting or opposing France. To vote “non” would lead to breaking off the relationship with France. The referendum was a success for de Gaulle. Apart from Guinea, all the African territories voted for the new Constitution. For reasons of political

254

Guia Migani

prestige, Sekou Touré, the leader of Guinea, chose independence. As a member of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, an African party, he wanted to assert himself as the advocate of independence against the party chairman, Felix Houphouët-Boigny, the leader of the Ivory Coast, who supported the Community. Furthermore, Touré thought that de Gaulle’s threat to cut aid was a bluff.7 Tunisia and Morocco, two former members of the Union française, were receiving aid in spite of their support for the Front de Libération nationale in the Algerian war. Why then would it be any different for Guinea? Yet, in practice France ended its relationship with Guinea, including its financial and technical aid. De Gaulle effectively wanted to show the members of the Community that there was a great difference between membership and full independence.8 The institutions of the Community were established rather quickly. By December 1958, the Executive Council, the Senate and the Court of Justice were up and running. The first meeting of the Executive Council took place in Paris in February 1959. De Gaulle appointed four ministers for common affairs: Houphouët-Boigny, president of Ivory Coast, Léopold Senghor, leader of Senegal, Gabriel Lisette, vice-president of Chad, and Philibert Tsiranana, president of Madagascar. At the end of 1958, the French government’s success seemed nearly complete. All the African territories, except Guinea, had accepted to join the Community, refusing immediate independence. Nevertheless, the French administration realized that the African leaders still wanted independence, despite their adhesion to the Community. They wanted independence in agreement with Paris, and membership in the Community was just a way of preserving good relations. For the African leaders, the Community was not an end in itself and independence was only delayed. Of course, in 1958, the French government could not negotiate independence with the African territories and, in the same time, fight to preserve Algeria as a French department. Moreover, at this time de Gaulle still believed Algeria could eventually become a member of the Community.9 In this situation, the Community enabled Paris to reaffirm its authority, while preparing the African territories to run their own territory in the future.

The Franc zone The African members of the Union française belonged to a monetary area based on the franc CFA (Colonies françaises d’Afrique), which was pegged to the French franc. The Franc zone played a significant role as the concrete manifestation of the extra-European interests of France. It allowed Paris to face both the United Kingdom with the Sterling Area and the United States as a great power. Moreover, in the post-war period, Paris saved a part of its limited

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

255

monetary resources thanks to the Franc zone, since the goods imported from the colonies were paid for in the national currency. In 1958, although the importance of the Franc zone was declining from a purely economic point of view, the political reasons for its existence were still in place. The Franc zone was based on four principles: the freedom of convertibility between the French franc and the franc CFA, the free transfer of capital within the Franc zone, common exchange control and a common fund regrouping all the foreign currencies gained by the African territories. The convertibility of the franc CFA was fully guaranteed by the French Treasury.10 In exchange, Paris appointed the president, the general director, and the members of the Central Banks’ Administrative Council, which issued the franc CFA. Trade between the African territories and third countries was under French control which, every year, established the Franc zone’s import program. The French government financed a Fonds d’investissement pour le développement économique et social (FIDES) for the African territories. This Fund, established after the Second World War, was an essential element of the Franc zone. In 1958, the FIDES was replaced by the Fonds d’Aide et de cooperation (FAC) that centralized all aid. After de Gaulle returned to power, the Franc zone was transformed. The system remained under French control, but the African representatives were given more responsibility. The monetary institutions were reformed. The Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (BCEAO) was established in West Africa, and the Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique équatoriale et du Cameroun (BCEAEC) in Central Africa. The African governments appointed a representative to the Administrative Councils. The councils were split between French and African representatives, while the president and the general director of the Central Banks were appointed by the president of the Community on the suggestion of the ministers for common affairs. The African presence in the Administrative Council affected the way it operated. The French administrators had to cooperate with people who were not monetary experts, but who were often politically involved in their countries. As a consequence, the Banks could work in better coordination with the African territories. But, at the same time, it was becoming more difficult to find a compromise that was acceptable to all the African representatives.11

From Community to independence In 1960, all the members of the Community became independent. This evolution was in part the result of the independence of Guinea, Togo, and Cameroon, and in part caused by the division in the Community between the advocates of Federation and those who supported a Confederation model.

256

Guia Migani

Guinea proclaimed its independence on October 2, 1958. In December, the country was admitted to the UN General Assembly, and in November 1959 Sekou Touré made a triumphal tour to the United States and the Soviet Union. He was received with all the honors of a head of state. With his “non” to de Gaulle, Sekou Touré and Guinea had become famous: Before, few people outside the French Union had ever heard of it. Now suddenly it was known all over the world, and Sekou Touré became a pan-African hero. Young men in Nigeria were wearing ‘Sekou Touré’ hats. His glory dimmed the brightness of the more cautious leaders who had voted ‘Yes.’12

It was becoming increasingly clear that the members of the Community were suffering in comparison to Guinea. During the session of the UN General Assembly in which Guinea was admitted as member of the international organization, Philibert Tsiranana, president of Madagascar and member of the French delegation, claimed: “Our people will not understand any longer why we remain under French control and why we do not become independent.”13 Sekou Touré’s prestige was particularly strong because, in spite of the withdrawal of French aid and troops from the country, he seemed to have the situation under full control. French aid had been replaced by Communist support from the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, and Czechoslovakia, while the United States was also ready to help Guinea in order to counterbalance the Communist influence. As a consequence, Guinea was not lacking money and resources to develop its economy. The political appeal of Sekou Touré was strengthened by his cooperation with Ghana’s first president, Kwame N’Krumah. The two leaders created the Ghana–Guinea Union, which was meant as a first stage toward the creation of the United States of Africa. The Pan-African idea had a very strong appeal. Thus, the African members of the Community not only had to explain to their populations why they were not independent, but also why they were not joining Ghana and Guinea. Moreover, it is important not to underestimate Togo and Cameroon’s role in the evolution of the Community. As UN trustee territories, they were not members of the Community, but this difference had few practical consequences. They belonged to the Franc zone and were administered by the same ministry in charge of the other African territories. In December 1958, with the agreement of Paris, the Legislative Assemblies of both Togo and Cameroon opted for independence by 1960. At the end of 1958, the UN General Assembly approved the African declarations, and the Trusteeship Council did the same a few months later. France would maintain its relations with Togo and Cameroon, and continue to provide economical, technical, financial, and military assistance. For the leaders of the Community states, the comparison with Cameroon and Togo was even more embarrassing than the one with Guinea.14

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

257

Inside the Community, the competition between advocates of a Federation and those who supported a Confederation greatly contributed to its demise. The federalists, mainly in Senegal and Mali, wanted an African federation that would negotiate its independence. On the other side, Ivory Coast called for a loose confederation of fully autonomous territories. The different stances were tied to national circumstances. If Senegal, which had been the seat of the West African Federation during the Fourth Republic, and the French Sudan, which did not have an Atlantic coast, supported a Federation, Ivory Coast, the richest country in the region, and Mauritania, located between Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa, opposed the federalist project. In early 1959, Senegal and Sudan proposed the creation of a Federation, and tried to also involve Upper Volta and Dahomey. Despite their initial enthusiasm, the two countries, under pressure from Houphouët-Boigny, the leader of Ivory Coast, turned down the offer.15 Thus, when the Federation of Mali was proclaimed, it only included Senegal and Sudan. In opposition to the Mali Federation, Houphouët-Boigny promoted an association, called the Entente Council, between the Ivory Coast, Niger, Dahomey, and Upper Volta. At their first meeting in May 1959, the Entente Council leaders agreed to coordinate their economic and financial policies, and to establish a customs union and a solidarity Fund. Caught between these two projects, Paris initially tried to remain neutral, but it was forced to abandon that position when the Mali Federation requested independence without leaving the Community. If France agreed to this, the Community would become a sort of “Commonwealth à la française,” which was strongly opposed by Houphouët-Boigny. After hesitating for two months, de Gaulle declared in December 1959, during a meeting of the Executive Council in Saint-Louis (Senegal), that Paris would negotiate independence with the representatives of the Mali Federation: It was a big and dramatic change for the French President: de Gaulle was forced to accept what he had refused Sekou Touré, namely independence and confederation.16

After de Gaulle’s declaration, Madagascar followed Mali’s example. The negotiations took place during the first months of 1960, and the agreements were signed in Paris in April. They were based on two principles: first, relations between Mali or Madagascar and France were between independent states; and second, France, the Mali Federation, Madagascar and other African countries were members of a Community, cooperating in matters of common interest. In the same period, the French government, the leaders of the Mali Federation and Madagascar signed bilateral cooperation treaties, with Paris promising to help the African countries organize their higher education

258

Guia Migani

system, their diplomatic corps, and their national army. Paris amended the Constitution to conciliate independence with membership of the Community, now called Communauté réformée. The president of the French Republic was still the head of the Community, but the Executive Council was now a Council of heads of state. In June, the Mali Federation and Madagascar officially celebrated their independence. This example was followed by the countries of Central Africa. In July 1960, Chad, Gabon, the Central African Republic and Congo signed independence and cooperation agreements. They also agreed to join the new Community. In June, Houphouët-Boigny, on behalf of the Entente Council, officially requested independence negotiations with France. However, he did not want to join the new Community, and proposed waiting for independence before starting negotiations on cooperation treaties. This was a way to express U.S. disagreement with the Community’s evolution, and Paris had to accept this despite its protests. Ivory Coast, Niger, Dahomey, and Upper Volta did not become members of the Communauté réformée, and cooperation treaties were only signed in April 1961. August 1960 witnessed a cascade of independence celebrations in Francophone Africa: August 1st in Dahomey, the 3rd in Niger, the 5th in Upper Volta, the 7th in Ivory Coast, the 11th in Chad, the 13th in Central African Republic, the 15th in Congo, the 17th in Gabon.17 Mauritania became independent on November 28, 1960. Like the Entente Council, the Mauritanian government decided not to join the new Community, composed of the Mali Federation, Madagascar, Chad, the Central African Republic, Gabon, and Congo. In August 1960, the Mali Federation imploded, and Senegal proclaimed its independence. The conflict centered on political differences between the leaders of Senegal, in general more moderate and Francophile, and the leaders of Sudan, who were more inclined toward Communism, Sekou Touré and N’Krumah. Moreover, unlike Senegal, Sudan wanted a more integrated Federation, and the two groups struggled for influence. The last crisis broke out over the election of the Federation’s president. Neither could agree on a new balance of power, and in August Senegal withdrew from the Federation. Paris tried—without success—to find a compromise, but in the end decided to recognize Senegal’s independence. The decision was not an easy one because it risked provoking Sudan’s exit from the Community. However, Paris deemed political and economic relations with Senegal to be more important than those with Sudan. On September 22, the Parliament of Sudan proclaimed the country’s independence under the name of Republic of Mali, and denounced the agreements signed under the Mali Federation. Mali refused to join the Communauté rénovée, and formed instead a Union with Guinea and Ghana. After its admission to the United Nations, Mali voted against France. In December 1960, it supported the

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

259

Afro–Asian bloc’s resolution for a referendum in Algeria under UN control. In February 1961, Mali recognized the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic. In spite of this, Mali maintained important ties with France. Until 1962, it remained in the Franc Zone and continued to receive French aid.18 Paris did not want to break definitively with Mali, so as to prevent it from completely falling under Soviet influence. After September 1960, only Senegal, Madagascar and four countries of Central Africa were still members of the Communauté reformée, which had effectively lost most of its significance. On March 16, 1961 an exchange of letters between the French Prime Minister Michel Debré, and the President of the Senate Gaston Monnerville, acknowledged officially the death of the Community. In December 1961, in a reply to Congo’s President Fulbert Youlou, de Gaulle openly admitted that the Community did not exist anymore. But he added: Between France and African and Malagasy States a special relationship remains. It is expressed by agreements and treaties which are similar for all in form and content. [. . .] I don’t think that any of us want to disavow the idea which was at the base of our Community. [. . .] But I readily agree that the moment has come for elaborating a new form of cooperation between France and African and Malagasy States that signed cooperation treaties.19

Paris needed to find a way to reorganize its relations with the African governments. After 1960, the Community was no longer a viable solution because the strategically important countries—like Ivory Coast—refused to remain members. It was replaced by a system of bilateral and multilateral agreements between France and its former colonies. Even if the Community did not last long, it was nonetheless a very important phase of the decolonization process, because it facilitated the transition from colonial domination to independence. De Gaulle and the leaders of the Fourth Republic were trying to prevent a repeat of the Algerian situation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The decolonization process, started with the Loi-Cadre Defferre in 1956–1957, was taken to its term by de Gaulle in 1960. The French president could tell public opinion, traumatized by the wars in Indochina and Algeria, that the independence of the African countries had been directed by French colonization. During his public speeches he often stated: Our country has understood that, in the case of Africa, time has come, after what our fathers have done and what we have done ourselves, to grant the fourteen African and Malagasy States independence.20

In 1960, the wind of change—as British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan called it—was already transforming Africa. Colonial powers could either try to manage the decolonization process or oppose it.21 Anyway, the new

260

Guia Migani

situation presented some important advantages for France. The newly independent francophone states could adopt a different stance in the UN General Assembly against the propaganda of Ghana and Guinea, who opposed France in the Algerian war. During the decolonization process de Gaulle aimed to maintain French influence in Sub-Saharan Africa, while preserving the full autonomy of his country. Thus, Paris did not include any clause of automatic intervention in the cooperation agreements with the African countries.22 In July 1961, during a public speech, de Gaulle declared: For many reasons, it is in our national interests to disengage ourselves from expensive and unproductive costs and to permit to our old colonies to dispose of their fate. If we can establish new relations based on friendship and cooperation, as it happened for the twelve African states and Malagasy Republic, all the better! Anyway, from every point of view, decolonization is the only possibility.23

Moreover, in 1961, de Gaulle had given up on Algeria as a French department. At this time, the priority was to put an end to the Algerian war and regain full freedom vis à vis all the African countries.

The instruments of French influence in Africa: cooperation treaties and the Franc zone After independence, France pursued a very expensive development policy based on the cooperation treaties and the Franc zone, which were the two main instruments to keep francophone Sub-Saharan Africa under French influence. For de Gaulle, it was vital to demonstrate France’s extra-European interests in order to confirm his country’s status as a great power.24 The cooperation treaties organized French assistance to its former colonies, which aimed to enable them to assume all the responsibilities of an independent state. The chaotic situation in Belgian Congo, where the withdrawal of the colonial power was followed by the collapse of central authority, was another incentive for France and the African countries to cooperate.25 In general, there were four categories of agreements: political, economical– financial, judicial, and cultural agreements. The cooperation treaties were the core of the development policy, based on grants (instead of loans) and on bilateral (rather than multilateral) assistance. A third peculiarity was the great importance given to technical and cultural cooperation.26 After independence, the institutions of the Franc zone were reshaped. The African states wanted to strengthen their participation in the monetary institutions. The new regime was established with three aims: preserving a common currency—the franc CFA; maintaining the guarantee of the French treasury to the franc CFA; and obtaining knowledge about the monetary circulation on the national territories. Under the old regime, the Central

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

261

Banks were only aware of the monetary mass circulating in the African federations. It was impossible to have information on the monetary circulation for each individual country. The reform, which took place between 1961 and 1962, had important consequences for the Franc zone. The Central Banks of West and Central Africa were transformed into international organizations within which the African states were free to participate. A national committee was created for every member-state of the Bank. Some of the powers of the Administrative Council were delegated to the national committees. The franc CFA was there to stay, even if the meaning of CFA changed from Colonies françaises d’Afrique to Communauté financière africaine. The monetary circulation was specified in each national territory. In conclusion, the Franc zone underwent important changes without altering its main characteristics. The African countries were still members of a monetary union. They kept the same currency, fully guaranteed by the French Treasury. In exchange, Paris was widely represented within the monetary institutions. It is worth noting that the African countries were in favor of this system inherited from colonial days: the myth of African unity, the lack of economic resources, the need to prevent hyperinflation, the idea that only a stable currency could attract foreign investment were all elements in favor of the Franc zone.27 During the negotiations, however, the French government considered leaving the Franc zone. In the end, though, it continued its support, because it realized that the monetary union could not survive without its involvement. The monetary union was the last Franco–African link after the end of the West and Equatorial African Federations in 1958. After 1960, the former French colonies were asked to cooperate with the English-speaking states, and they established political and economic relations with communist or capitalist countries. The Franc zone allowed them to hold on to their particular identity and guaranteed France’s influence in the region. In a letter addressed to the cooperation minister to justify the French unlimited guarantee to the franc CFA, Pierre Dehaye, member of the Cabinet of the minister of economy affirmed: The most important reason, that cannot be stressed enough, is that, in French as in African interests, we are opposed to all that can provoke the breaking of the solidarity among old-AOF members, or prevent them from reinforcing their solidarity and weakening their cohesion. Actually, the old Federation is practically balkanized except for the monetary regime. [. . .] It is in our political interest to support monetary union as the most efficient tie between African states.28

In other words, the main reasons for preserving the monetary zone were political, even if there were some economic motivations, due to the presence of French firms in the African territories.29

262

Guia Migani

The international context After 1960, the French presence in Africa competed with that of other countries and international organizations. The European Economic Community (EEC) was playing an important role in the development of the African countries associated to the Common Market. Thanks to the Association Convention, the European Commission ran the European Development Fund (EDF), a fund of 581 millions dollars for economic and social investments in Africa between 1958 and 1962. After independence, the African countries confirmed officially their will to be associated with the EEC. Acting independently in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Commission often drew protests from Paris.30 Through independence, the African states entered officially in the international system, becoming members of the United Nations and the Non Alignment Movement (NAM). Even if a new state joined the NAM, the two super-powers competed to provide aid at the best conditions. The stake for Moscow and Washington was to try and sway these countries toward either capitalism or communism, and to profit from their strategic resources.31 During the administration of John F. Kennedy, Washington increased funds for the whole of the Third World,32 and supported strong relations between the African countries and France. However, Paris was suspicious of this new American activism.33 Kennedy tried to explain to de Gaulle the reasons for the U.S. presence in Africa during a meeting in May 1961: “U.S. interests are only complementary and consist mainly in preventing a Communist ingression to that area and the ingression of the cold war itself into Africa.”34 Yet, Paris opposed Washington because it did not want the western countries to surrender to the blackmail of the neutral countries: Guinea, Ghana, or even Mali should not receive more aid and grants than the other pro-western countries.35 On the contrary, Washington considered that it was important to reach out to African countries that were willing to establish diplomatic relations, and keen on obtaining resources for their development. In the case of crises with France, the African states could still approach another western country, instead of a communist state. The case of Guinea was still fresh in the memory of the Kennedy administration, as the Soviet Union was able to implant itself in the country after Paris had blocked every western attempt to set up diplomatic ties with Guinea.36 Between 1961 and 1963, Washington strengthened its presence considerably, signing many agreements with the Francophone African states. The Congo crisis worsened French fears that Washington wanted to act autonomously in the region. When the crisis began, de Gaulle called for a meeting with Eisenhower and Macmillan to discuss the situation. However, the U.S. government preferred to call on the United Nations in spite of the French opposition. De Gaulle considered that, not only did the UN Charter not au-

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

263

thorize this kind of intervention, but also that the involvement of the international organization had made the situation even worse. A closely related question was the communist presence in Sub-Saharan Africa. After 1960, Moscow increased its presence in Africa thanks to a development policy that was showing some signs of success.37 At the beginning of the sixties, Soviet presence was particularly strong in Guinea, Mali, and Ghana, which appeared as the most pro-communist countries. In Congo, Soviet influence was not as important as the western countries had feared. Communist propaganda was more impressive in the United Nations, where Moscow supported the Afro–Asian movement. In 1960 the Soviet delegation called on the General Assembly to adopt a resolution condemning colonialism. The resolution was not accepted, but the operation was a propaganda success. After the independence of the African countries, France thus entered in competition with other nations to maintain its influence in the region. The most important instruments in the hands of Paris were the aid it provided, the Franc zone and the personal relations which de Gaulle nurtured with the African leaders. Between 1960 and 1962, the French president received in Paris all the heads of states that had once belonged to the Community.38 Paris argued that its traditional influence saved the region from the cold war, because it did not force Moscow to react to American expansion. When the African countries became full members of the international system, free to establish independent relations with other states, Paris was no longer responsible for its former colonies. However, France remained one of the most important donors within the Western world, since de Gaulle wanted to assert France’s role on the international stage. Thanks to its great power status and to its development policy in favor of the African states, France tried to assume a role of mediator between North and South. On January 31, 1964, during a press conference de Gaulle declared that the (French) development policy goes beyond the African context and constitutes a global policy. As a result, France can turn to other developing countries, which, in other continents, are seeking to follow a development model similar to the French one. These countries, who ask for support that will guide them according to our spirit and our fashion, might want to associate themselves with us for their progress and at the same time, participate in French initiatives.39

Before presenting itself as a special interlocutor for the Third World, France had to end the Algerian war and diversify its efforts from a single region of the South (such as Sub-Saharan Africa). In 1957, during the negotiations for the Treaty of Rome, Paris had imposed the association of its colonies to the European Common Market, obtaining some important privileges for them. The products coming from the associated territories

264

Guia Migani

were not subject to the External Common Tariff. This drew protests from other underdeveloped countries in competition with the associated territories for European markets. By 1962, the situation had partially changed. During the negotiations for the renewal of the Association treaty, the French government appeared less anxious to maintain these privileges for the associated countries. De Gaulle declared that the new treaty should be less discriminatory towards nonassociated countries.40 If after 1959 de Gaulle did not visit the former African members of the Community, he visited several states in Latin America and Asia between 1964 and 1966. This attitude was in line with the conclusions of the 1963 Jeanneney report on French development policy, which called for a new distribution of French resources to the Third World. Taking into consideration the aims and tools of French cooperation policy, the Jeanneney report proposed a reform of the Cooperation Ministry. Besides justifying this new cooperation policy, it suggested that the French government could devote 1.5 per cent of its GNP for foreign aid without endangering its economic growth. Moreover, France should not be limiting its action to the African countries (which had to retain a special place) but should also invest in Asia and in South America.41 From this point of view, the views of de Gaulle and the Jeanneney Commission were completely identical.

Conclusion Between 1957 and 1963 France profoundly transformed its relationship with the Sub-Saharan African states. If in 1957 these were still members of a colonial empire, by 1960 they had become independent. Three years later, France had signed cooperation treaties with its former colonies. The large majority of the French-speaking African countries were members of the Franc zone. While the situation changed radically from a political point of view, the French economic, cultural, and military assistance continued to play a fundamental role. The Community did not last long. However, it allowed a peaceful transition for the independence of the African territories and protected them from the worst aspects of superpowers competition. In 1960, (but not in 1958), de Gaulle was ready to negotiate with them despite his personal regrets.42 Moreover, Franco–African relations were particularly intense at the beginning of the 1960s because of the personal ties of the African leaders with the French political class. The African leaders, who had been members of French parties, maintained their relations with the French colleagues.43 The attention that de Gaulle gave them was another significant element, as was the fact that the first African presidents were moderate and conservative for the most part. While on the one hand de Gaulle wanted to preserve

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

265

French influence in Sub-Saharan Africa, African leaders needed French assistance to stay in power on the other hand. The Congo example urged both parts to continue their cooperation in order to avoid the collapse of the state and anarchy. All these elements explain the peculiarities of the decolonization process in Sub-Saharan Africa. Having consolidated the French position in Africa, de Gaulle was free to extend his action to the rest of the world. From this point of view, the independence of the African states contributed to a new orientation of his foreign policy. Between 1962 and 1963 the French president settled some strategic issues: France became a nuclear power, Algeria gained independence, the Fouchet Plan was replaced by bilateral cooperation with Germany. At the same time, relations with the United States deteriorated. After 1963 de Gaulle’s ambition was to impose France as the principal interlocutor of the Afro–Asian Movement. In this context, the African countries continued to occupy an important space in French foreign policy (some states, as Gabon, were under the exclusive influence of France), but they were now part of a broader strategy directed toward the whole of the Third World.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ Jacques Foccart, Tous les soirs avec de Gaulle. Journal de l’Elysée, vol. I, 1965– 1967 (Paris: Fayard, 1995); Le Général en Mai, Journal de l’Elysée, vol. II, 1968–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998); Foccart parle, entretiens avec Philippe Gaillard, 2 vols. (Paris: Fayard, 1995–1997). â•‡ 2.â•‡ For a larger examination of the questions related to the French decolonization policy see Guia Migani, La France et l’Afrique sub-saharienne, 1957–1963. Histoire d’une décolonisation entre idéaux eurafricains et politique de puissance (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008). â•‡ 3.â•‡ “It is a paradoxical system, because, even if the structure is supposed to be a Federation, every decision depends on the President, who has all the powers. Contrary to the semblance of equality created, inequality prevails as a result of the position of the President of the French Republic and to the majority given to the French in the institutions of the Community.”—”Il s’agit d’un système paradoxal, car dans une structure qui se veut fédérale, tout remonte au président, qui a tous les pouvoirs. Contrairement à l’apparence d’égalité proclamée, on maintient en réalité l’inégalité en raison de la prééminence du président de la République française et de la majorité accordée aux français dans les différentes institutions.“ Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle, 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1999), pp. 93–94. â•‡ 4.â•‡ With the Loi-Cadre, approved and put in force between June 1956 and March 1957, universal suffrage was established in the African territories. The system of double electorates for European and African people was abolished. New powers were granted to the Territorial Assemblies of the African territories. The president of the Conseil de Gouvernement was appointed by Paris, but the vice-president of the

266

Guia Migani

Council was the leader of the political party that had won the elections for the Territorial Assembly. â•‡ 5.â•‡ In this chapter, the name Sub-Saharan Africa or French-speaking Africa is used to indicate only the African territories under French rule. â•‡ 6.â•‡ Discours prononcé par le général de Gaulle à Brazzaville le 24 août 1958, Centre Historique des Archives nationales (CHAN), Fonds privé Foccart, dossier 20. â•‡ 7.â•‡ Even London believed that de Gaulle’s threat was a bluff: “During his African Tour the General said that a decision to secede would involve the cessation of all further French aid; there was probably an element of bluff in this, and there is nothing in the text of the constitution to require the severance of all ties between France and a Territory which chooses independence.” The implications of the new French Constitution, September 5, 1958, British National Archives, Kew/London (UKNA), FO 371/131408. â•‡ 8.â•‡ “It is exactly what the African leaders of the Community, were waiting for. On October 15, Houphoeut-Boigny said to the weekly magazine Carrefour: “If France gives preference to territories choosing independence, the Guinean example will spread unchecked.” In short, if the Franco–African Community was supposed to last, at least for some time, it was hard to avoid a deterioration of French–Guinean relations.”—”Du reste, c’est ce qu’attendaient plusieurs dirigeants de la Communauté. Houphouët-Boigny déclarait ainsi, le 15 octobre, à l’hebdomadaire Carrefour: ‘Si la France donnait une préférence à ceux qui ont fait sécession contre ceux qui ont choisi la Communauté, alors la sécession guinéenne fera tache d’huile.’ Bref, s’il fallait mettre la Communauté sur pied, et la faire durer, au moins quelque temps, on pouvait difficilement éviter que les rapports avec la Guinée n’en souffrent.” PaulMarie de la Gorce, De Gaulle (Paris: Perrin, 1999), p. 1021; Cf. also Joseph-Roger de Benoist “L’évolution de la pensée du Général de Gaulle sur les rapports entre la France et ses territoires d’Afrique entre le 1er juin et le 4 septembre 1958,” Espoir, no. 88 (1992), pp. 39–46. â•‡ 9.â•‡ Vaïsse, La Grandeur, p. 93. See Charles-Robert Ageron, “Les Etats africains de la Communauté et la guerre d’Algérie (1958–1960),” in L’Afrique noire française: l’heure des indépendances, ed. Charles Robert Ageron and Marc Michel (Paris: CNRS Edition, 1992), pp. 230–53. 10.â•‡ See Michel Lelart, “Le compte d’opérations: création et mise en œuvre,” in La France et l’outremer: un siècle de relations monétaires et financières (Paris: Ministère de l’Economie, des Finances et de l’Industrie, 1998); Hubert Gerardin, La Zone Franc (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989); André Neurisse, Le Franc CFA (Paris: Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1987). 11.â•‡ Robert Julienne, Vingt années d’institutions monétaires ouest-africaines, 1955– 1975: mémoires (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1988), pp. 151–52. 12.â•‡ Edward Mortimer, France and the Africans, 1944–1960: a political history (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1969), p. 331. 13.â•‡ Institut Charles de Gaulle (ed.), La politique africaine du général de Gaulle (1958–1969) (Paris: Pedone, 1980), p. 270: “Nos populations ne comprendront pas plus longtemps que nous restions au stade de l’autonomie et que nous ne devenions pas indépendants.” 14.â•‡ See Guia Migani, “La CEE ou la France, l’impossible choix de Sylvanus Olympio, président du Togo,” Matériaux pour l’Histoire du notre Temps, no. 77 (2005), pp. 25–31.

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

267

15.â•‡ “It is difficult to imagine how [Upper Volta], with 500,000 Mossis working in the Ivory Coast, the chronic budget deficit, the need to use the railway Abidjan-Niger, could have become a member of the Mali Federation (without causing more trouble). Dahomey is in the same situation. Its economic growth depends on the construction of the Cotonou harbor and maintaining good relations with Niger, whose economy is based on the exportation of groundnut.”—”On voit mal en effet comment ce dernier Etat [l’Haute Volta], avec l’hypothèque des 500.000 travailleurs Mossis en Côte d’Ivoire, le déficit budgétaire chronique, la nécessité de disposer de l’Abidjan-Niger, aurait pu sans ménagement s’incorporer au Mali. Il en est de même pour le Dahomey dont le développement économique est lié à la construction du port de Cotonou et au maintien de bonnes relations avec le Niger, exportateur d’arachides.“ Conférence de renseignements sur l’Afrique, Alger, 23–29 novembre 1959, Centre des Archives d’outremer (Aix en Provence), FM 60, dossier 2220/1. Cf. PaulMarie de la Gorce, De Gaulle entre deux mondes: une vie et une époque (Paris: Fayard, 1964), pp. 600–1. 16.â•‡ Claude Wauthier, Quatre Présidents et l’Afrique: de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard d’Estaing, Mitterrand: quarante ans de politique africaine (Paris: Seuil, 1995), p. 90: “Il faut dire que le pas ainsi franchi était de taille et la position dure à avaler: le président de la République se trouvait contraint d’accepter très précisément ce qu’il avait refusé à Sékou Touré, à savoir l’indépendance et la confédération.” 17.â•‡ In 1960 three other African countries became independent: Belgian Congo, Nigeria, and Somalia. 18.â•‡ Cf. Guia Migani, “L’indépendance par la monnaie: La France, le Mali et la zone franc, 1960–1963,” Relations internationales, no. 133 (2008), pp. 21–39. 19.â•‡ Lettre du Général de Gaulle au Président Youlou, 9 décembre 1961, CHAN, Fonds privé Foccart, dossier 166: “[Il reste] qu’entre la France et les Etats africains et malgache subsistent des relations spécifiques qui trouvent leur expression dans des accords dont la nature et la portée sont sensiblement les mêmes pour tous.Â€[. . .] Je ne crois donc pas que nul d’entre nous ait intérêt à renier l’idéal auquel répond la Communauté. [. . .] Mais je reconnais volontiers que le moment est venu d’envisager une nouvelle expression politique des liens spécifiques existant entre la France et les Etats africains et malgache, qui ont passé avec elle des accords de coopération.” 20.â•‡ Allocution prononcée à Nice, 22 octobre 1960, CHAN, Fonds privé Foccart, dossier 785: “Notre pays a compris, en ce qui concerne l’Afrique, il a compris qu’en notre temps et après ce que nos pères avaient fait et que nous avons fait nous-mêmes, le moment était venu d’accorder l’émancipation aux quatorze Républiques Africaines et Malgache, dont nous avons reconnu l’indépendance après leur avoir permis d’y accéder.” 21.â•‡ Cf. Marc Michel, Décolonisations et émergence du Tiers Monde (Paris: Hachette, 1993); John Springhall, Decolonisation since 1945: the collapse of European Overseas Empires (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001); John Desmond Hargreaves, Decolonisation in Africa (London: Longman, 1990). 22.â•‡ Jean Foyer, in charge of negotiations with the African states, has said: “De Gaulle urged me not to make any automatic military commitments in favor of these governments. He said: ‘I have had enough of colonial wars. We’re having all the trouble in the world to get out of the one in Algeria, I don’t want to start another one in Black Africa.’”—”Le général m’avait particulièrement recommandé de ne faire

268

Guia Migani

prendre à la France aucun engagement automatique d’intervention militaire avec ces gouvernements, en disant: ‘les guerres coloniales ça suffit, nous avons toutes les peines du monde à sortir de celle d’Algérie, je ne veux pas en commencer une autre en Afrique noire.’” Interview with Jean Foyer, November 24, 1993, Oral Archives of the Fondation Charles de Gaulle. 23.â•‡ Allocution radiotélévisée prononcée à l’Elysée, 12 juillet 1961. Charles de Gaulle, Discours et Messages, vol. III (Paris: Plon, 1970), pp. 329–30: “Pour des multiples raisons, notre intérêt national direct est donc de nous dégager de charges coûteuses et sans issue et de laisser nos anciens sujets disposer de leur destin. Tant mieux si les rapports nouveaux s’établissent dans l’amitié et la coopération comme c’est le cas pour douze Etats de l’Afrique Noire et pour la République malgache! Mais, de toutes les manières, le bon sens, le but, le succès, s’appellent la décolonisation.” 24.â•‡ Cf. Vaïsse, La grandeur. Institut Charles de Gaulle, De Gaulle en son siècle, vol.Â€ 6: Liberté et dignité des peuples (Paris: Plon, 1991); Institut Charles de Gaulle, LaÂ€politique africaine du général de Gaulle. 25.â•‡ Cf. Madelaine Kalb, The Congo Cables: The Cold war in Africa from Eisenhower to Kennedy (New York: Macmillan, 1982); Jean Kestergat, Du Congo de Lumumba au Zaïre de Mobutu (Bruxelles: Paul Legrain, 1986); Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Lalin Forest, and Herbert Weiss (eds.), Rébellions-Révolutions au Zaïre, 1963–1965 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1987). 26.â•‡ Jean-Claude Gautron, “La politique d’aide et de coopération de la France en Afrique francophone,” in De Gaulle en son siècle, p. 261. Cf. also Gérard Bossuat, “French Development Aid and Co-operation under de Gaulle,” Contemporary European History, no. 4 (2003), pp. 431–56; Maurice Ligot, “Les rapports de coopération économique entre la France et l’Afrique sous la Présidence du Général de Gaulle,” in La politique africaine du Général de Gaulle, pp. 181–99; Brigitte Nouaille-Degorce, “Les structures et les moyens de la politique de coopération avec les Etats africains et malgache au sud du Sahara de 1958 à 1969,” in La politique africaine du Général de Gaulle, pp. 75–99. 27.â•‡ Procès-verbal de la conférence monétaire du 13 mars 1961, Centre des Archives Economiques et Financières (CAEF), Fonds Trésor, dossier B 18.899; La réforme monétaire ouest-africaine et le régime de l’émission dans les Etats d’Afrique équatoriale et du Cameroun, juin 1962, CAEF, Répertoire 1018, dossier B 0062/197; Julienne, Vingt ans d’institutions monétaires ouest-africaines, p. 184. 28.â•‡ Note confidentielle de Pierre Dehaye pour le Ministre Jean Foyer, 15 janvier 1962, CAEF, Répertoire 1018/1, dossier B 62197: “La raison majeure, à laquelle il ne faut cesser de revenir, c’est le sentiment que, du point de vue de l’intérêt français, comme sans doute de l’intérêt le mieux compris des Etats ouest-africains francophones, tout ce qui tend à la rupture de la solidarité de l’ancienne AOF ou prive les Etats en cause des chances de resserrer cette solidarité et affaiblit l’ensemble qu’ils constituent encore, est à exclure dans toute la mesure où cela dépend de nous. Or, de l’ancienne Fédération, tout s’est quasiment balkanisé sauf le régime monétaire. [. . .] C’est donc un intérêt politique qui conduit à défendre l’union monétaire comme le ciment le plus certain de ces Etats.“ 29.â•‡ Cf. Jacques Marseille, Empire colonial et capitalisme français: histoire d’un divorce (Paris: Albin Michel, 1984).

De Gaulle and Sub-Saharan Africa

269

30.â•‡ Cf. Véronique Dimier, “L’institutionnalisation de la Commission européenne (DG Développement). Du rôle des leaders dans la construction d’une administration multinationale, 1956–1975,” Etudes Internationales, no. 3 (2003), pp. 401–27. 31.â•‡ Cf. Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 32.â•‡ For the American development policy cf. George M. Guess, The politics of United States foreign aid (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987); Robert F. Zimmerman, Dollars, diplomacy, and dependency: dilemmas of U.S. economic aid (Boulder, CO: Rienner, 1993); Yvonne Baumann, John Fitzgerald Kennedy und “foreign aid”: Die Auslandshilfepolitik der Administration Kennedy unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des entwicklungspolitischen Anspruchs (Stoccarda: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990). 33.â•‡ Pierre-Michel Durand, Alliance objective, méfiances réciproques: les Etats-Unis, la France et l’Afrique noire francophone dans les années soixante Thèse de doctorat, sous la direction de Pierre Mélandri, Paris III, 2003. 34.â•‡ FRUS 1961–1963, vol. XXI, p. 292. 35.â•‡ Entretien du Premier Ministre Michel Debré avec le Vice-Président Lyndon B. Johnson, 7 avril 1961, Archives of the French Foreign Affairs Ministry, Fonds Secrétariat Général 1945–1971 (Entretiens et Messages), dossier 13. 36.â•‡ FRUS 1961–1963, XXI, pp. 320–22. See also Durand, Alliance objective, méfiances réciproques: les Etats Unis, la France et l’Afrique noire francophone, pp. 222–27. 37.â•‡ “Soviet aid, which is growing in the Third World, is approched from a psychological perspective. Every agreement is presented as a success of the underdeveloped countries and often also as a defeat of the Western World. For the beneficiaries, under the intellectual charm of Marxism, Soviet aid represents the end of American monopoly in assistance to underdeveloped countries. Moreover, as Soviet aid is something new, it is source of curiosity.” “L’aide soviétique, en pleine progression, est conçue en termes psychologiques tels que chaque accord signé est ressenti comme une victoire nouvelle des pays sous-développés, et bien souvent une défaite de l’Occident. Aux yeux des bénéficiaires, naturellement séduits par les attraits du marxisme sur le plan intellectuel, l’aide soviétique se présente comme la fin du monopole américain de l’assistance, avec l’effet de curiosité qui s’attache toujours à ce qui est nouveau.“ Note sur la contribution des U.S.A et du bloc soviétique à l’aide économique aux pays sous-développés, 24 février 1960, European Community Historical Archives, BAC 25/1980, dossier 209. For the Soviet action in the Third World cf. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokin, The world was going our way: the KGB and the battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005); GERSS, L’URSS et le Tiers Monde: une stratégie oblique (Paris: Fondation pour les études de défense nationale, 1986); R. Craig Nation and Mark Kauppi (eds.), The Soviet impact in Africa (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1984). 38.â•‡ P. Tsiranana, president of Madagascar was received in 1960. L. M’Ba, president of Gabon, L. Senghor, president of Senegal, F. Houphouët-Boigny, president of Ivory Coast, D. Hamani, president of Niger, H. Maga, president of Dahomey, and F. Youlou, president of Congo, were received in 1961. F. Tombalbaye, president of Chad, M. Yaméogo, president of Upper Volta, M. Ould Daddah, president of Mauritania, and D. Dacko, president of Central African Republic in 1962. 39.â•‡ Conférence de presse tenue au Palais de l’Elysée, 31 janvier 1964. Charles de Gaulle. Discours et Messages, vol. IV (Paris: Plon, 1970), p. 173: “dépasse le cadre

270

Guia Migani

africain et constitue, en vérité, une politique mondiale. Par cette voie, la France peut se porter vers d’autres pays qui, dans d’autres continents, sont plus ou moins largement en cours de développement, qui nous attirent d’instinct et de nature et qui, souhaitant pour leur évolution un appui qui leur soit prêté suivant notre esprit et àÂ€ notre manière, peuvent vouloir nous associer directement à leur progrès et, réciproquement, prendre part à tout ce qui est de la France.“ 40.â•‡ Note à l’attention du Président de la République, 9 août 1961, CHAN, Fonds privé Foccart, dossier 786. 41.â•‡ Ministère des reformes administratives, La Politique de coopération avec les pays en voie de développement: Rapport Jeanneney (Paris: La Documentation française, 1963); Jacques Basso, “Les accords de coopération entre la France et les Etats africains francophones: leurs relations et leurs conséquences au regard des indépendances africaines (1960–70),” in L’Afrique noire française, eds. Ageron, Michel, p. 261. 42.â•‡ Interview with Jean Charbonnel, 8 novembre 1993, Oral Archives of the Fondation Charles de Gaulle. 43.â•‡ Cf. Mortimer, France and the Africans, pp. 161–97.

13 The Hero on the Latin American Scene Joaquín Fermandois

Introduction: Why Latin America? Why de Gaulle? In September and October 1964, Charles de Gaulle undertook a long tour through ten Latin American countries. It was a very visible trip to a region in which France had previously shown scarce political interest, in spite of a long tradition of promoting its economic interests on the continent.1 We will discuss the visit of de Gaulle to ten South American countries as an example of his rationale in the context of global politics. Special attention will be given to the case of Chile, because of the political and ideological significance of later Chilean history for the European and French understanding of Latin American politics and the international position of the continent. The tour of Charles de Gaulle occurred when this process was just in its birthing pains. As the mainstream of international history research is focused on U.S.–Latin American relations, relations between South American countries and Europe after 1945 have been far less studied. The visit of the French president offers an excellent window for a new approach that would not only explain other dimensions of the nexus between America and Europe, but also clarify aspects of inter-American relations, which should not be seen in isolation. In this context, it is important to avoid an assumption commonly made in studies on the international situation of small states and their behavior in world politics: They are frequently misunderstood as simple responses to the actions of great powers or of global processes. We will approach them from a different point of view, not merely regarding the small states as puppets nor as independent or isolated actors, taking into account the interaction in their foreign policies and in the interrelated evolution of domestic politics. Marginal countries do have a history and a place in the international system.2 271

272

Joaquín Fermandois

Since 1945, studies on Latin America international history have stressed the inter-American and Cold War dimensions of this matter, mostly adopting the narrow perspective of the U.S.–Soviet rivalry. But the Cold War had other dimensions, too, and the policies advanced by Charles de Gaulle tended toward facilitating autonomy for developing countries. This approach was not simply intended for the benefit of those countries, but also served de Gaulle’s aims of finding a stage for France’s grandeur. This chapter, based on Chilean and French sources, is an effort to research the history of Latin America’s international relations with Europe after the Second World War, a field that has so far been underresearched. Some month before de Gaulle’s tour, West German President Heinrich Lübke had visited South America, but this event would scarcely merit an essay. It was just pure public relations. As a French observer later affirmed, the special position of the French president as outlined in the constitution of the Fifth Republic allowed him to openly express opinions that would have been impossible for ordinary politicians to deliver in public.3 Among the most important prerequisites for de Gaulle’s policies were the end of the Algerian war and the subsequent French acceptance of the decolonization process. Due to political and cultural “Europeanism” in the history of Latin America, the continent was particularly suited for the approach that de Gaulle had in mind.4

France and Latin America: The birth of the Third World The president considered this voyage necessary for domestic and for external reasons. First of all, de Gaulle needed to bolster his image in French politics with a view to the presidential elections of December 1965. This required a demonstration of his significance on the global stage, in the context of waning interest in his message of grandeur, and growing demands for prosperity after the traumatic years of the Algerian war. De Gaulle also harbored a personal desire to secure a great role for France in the world. Otherwise, he believed, France would fall into irrelevance in the long run. If this meant challenging the U.S. preponderance, so be it, even though he had never doubted that France needed U.S. support in the political alliance of NATO (though not necessarily in the military realm). Besides, France was the one power that could remind the world that Latin America had a protector with Latin blood amongst the “Big Five.” The Latin American governments, in turn, hoped to obtain a brush with fame from the French president’s tour. In the 1960s, the memory of the Second World War was still alive, and military commanders were held in high esteem as leaders. When Dwight Eisenhower toured the region in 1960, this

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

273

aura had been partly responsible for his popular welcome in Chile, as in other Latin American countries, on March 1, 1960. De Gaulle was already a living legend, and was assured of popular sympathies not just in Chile, but in the whole continent. Eisenhower’s trip in 1960, as a (moderate) cold warrior, had had to overcome the memories of the ill-fated tour of Vice President Richard Nixon in 1958 and to answer the challenge of the recent Cuban Revolution. De Gaulle, for his part, could count on the sympathies of the progressive forces in Latin America, which was not the case in French politics.5 The political tours of the 1960s were well-rehearsed activities that caught the public eye and popular attention. They featured inaugurations of schools, visits to cultural institutes, parades sometimes attended by hundreds of thousands of flag-waving people along the streets, military parades, speeches before both Chambers of Congress or before parliaments, and many medals on chests. In some cases, and in some Latin American countries, the whole nation seemed to interrupt normal life to attend to ceremonies, or just to speak about it, or to enjoy the opportunity of personally seeing one of the important actors of contemporary history. The post-heroic epoch had not yet arrived when the French president toured the region.6 De Gaulle’s visit was a clear departure from earlier French policy in Latin America, both as perceived on the continent and in practice. In comparison with the British Latin American policy of the nineteenth century, or with the U.S. policy of the twentieth century, the French policy, like the German one, had been mainly oriented towards trade and investment. While France had always been a cultural paradigm, and the main outside influence on the political culture of Latin America, French influence in the foreign policy realm was minimal in the interwar period, at least compared to that of the two Anglo–Saxon powers.7 After the Second World War, the Quai d’Orsay felt that Latin America had been neglected. Even career diplomats avoided being posted to Latin American countries, considering representation there as low-level posts. The French Foreign Ministry therefore sought to send its best people to these countries. If needed, prestigious intellectuals should be sent as ambassadors to ensure better “human relations.” While political goals would be less emphasized, the “two essential tasks to be prosecuted are cultural influence and economic penetration.”8 The latter task was, of course, not new, but it underlined the awareness of the comparative advantages to be pursued. The strength of France was her cultural heritage and prestige, and that could help prevent the dissipation of French influence under “the massive Anglo Saxon pressure.” What was perhaps new, in comparison with pre-war years, was the instruction that French diplomats should always convey their democratic convictions. Even in trade relations, a Chargé d’Affaires reminded Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in 1952, one could exploit “the psychological shock of a French [new product].”9

274

Joaquín Fermandois

The only political pattern that could be traced during the 1950s was the defense of French political goals in her colonies. Be it Indochina, Algeria, or elsewhere, the Quai d’Orsay found it irksome that certain Latin American countries supported “decolonization” in the United Nations. French policy portrayed these conflicts, in the context of the Cold War, as a fight between the West and Communism, and the Quai d’Orsay believed that Latin American countries were playing with fire and potentially harming their “natural allies.” As far as the French diplomats were concerned, Latin American countries were forgetting that in their own struggles for independence, they had fought as ‘whites’ against Spaniard; the descendants of African slaves and the indigenous people had not fought for independence, the French claimed.10 Paris strongly denied that its American possessions were “colonies.”11 Furthermore, the French had asked for Chilean support during the Suez crisis of 1956, but Santiago did not dare alienate Washington. Besides, no Latin American state could ignore its own public opinion in that matter.12 Finally, since the end of the Second World War, there had always been Latin American voices that stressed the necessity of stronger relations with Western Europe, as a way of counterbalancing U.S. hegemony.13 De Gaulle’s tour was an occasion to enact such an approach, even if, for Latin Americans, the visit of the French president could be only the beginning of a long still unfinished process of diversifying relations in the international system. From the French point of view, it was an occasion to cast the limelight on de Gaulle’s achievements.

de Gaulle’s vision of the continent De Gaulle’s strategic vision envisaged a global policy contrasting the U.S. approach. At the same time, the French president did not simply want to play in the hands of the Soviet Union, even if some U.S. critics accused him of inadvertently doing so. He wanted to show a French, presumably ‘human,’ face of world politics that was sympathetic to the decolonization process and to other nationalist trends, such as Nasser and Arab nationalism or the interpretation of the Vietnam War as a nationalist enterprise. This approach was essential for a “Gaullist” vision of world order and a stateoriented view of the international system, which was far removed from an old-fashioned “Eurocentric” perspective. Another factor was de Gaulle’s determination to prop up “Latinity” and to help spread the “Latin” character throughout the world, a cause for which the Fifth Republic felt special responsibility. At least, this was the stated position of the French president. Of course, the “Latin” reference was a side effect of the General’s disaffection with the U.S. and Britain.14 It is through this prism that we must evaluate de Gaulle’s tour of Latin America.

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

275

The fact that de Gaulle had been ambivalent in handling the Algerian war was not something Latin Americans worried about, or even knew about. For them, Charles de Gaulle was not only a hero of the Second World War, but a political hero who had been brave enough to accept Algerian independence and to confront the terror of the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète. This was not entirely correct, but such was the potent image which preceded de Gaulle’s trip to Latin America. In any case, after the end of the Algerian war, de Gaulle was fully prepared to take international action in order to advance “French views” in international affairs. The trip to Latin America was a part of this wider purpose. With regard to this region, de Gaulle displayed a point of view that was seemingly original for a West European leader in that period. He spoke about the rivalry between the totalitarian and the free groups, and denounced national ambitions “displayed under the guise of ideologies.” A new basis was required for the international order, he said, that would take into account the new peoples and states. Now, in early 1964, “two billion people aspire to progress, and to greater welfare and dignity. Since the world is such, this is a fact whose importance and extent has never been reached before.”15 De Gaulle added that France had no distrust regarding Latin America’s ambitions and intentions. The independence of both Latin America and France was essential for global equilibrium. They shared a common idea about man and on the main issues of global importance, in particular concerning the right of people to decide their own destiny and to develop under the auspices of liberty.16 Here we find a cornerstone of de Gaulle’s foreign policy. It was not in itself a policy of dissent or hostility toward the superpowers, but rather one that tried to go beyond bipolarity and, to a certain degree, to make use of it in order to show a different dimension of the international system, a dimension where the meaning and strategy of France’s role would become clearer. This was not pure nationalism, but rather a sort of patriotism that could interact with a world community. De Gaulle did indeed understand the role of ideologies, but wanted to stress other phenomena of global politics in order to enhance France’s role. Of course, this was also a way of finding an original approach that would enhance de Gaulle’s image.17

Latin America and its relations with the U.S. and Europe The Latin America that de Gaulle visited took part in the Cold War, more or less willingly, alongside the West. After 1945, the majority of the Latin American governments considered themselves allies of the U.S., or were viewed as such by Washington. In the mid-1960s, this picture began to fade

276

Joaquín Fermandois

somewhat. Even though there were genuine worries among conservative and middle-of-the-road political sentiments about Soviet expansion and Communist takeovers in Latin American politics and societies, not all countries shared the sense of imminent danger. Some politicians stressed that the “national interest” of the various nation-states did not blindly coincide with Washington’s policies. Moreover, there had always existed a streak of nationalism plus “anti-imperialism” throughout the region. After the Second World War, this position was sometimes close to radical Marxism.18 In Latin America, there were two types of opposition to the U.S. The first one was that of Argentina’s Peronism (1945–1955). Argentinean President Juan Perón may have been the inventor of the phrase “Third Position,” characterizing the due policy that Latin American states should adopt, which was seen as a challenge in Washington.19 But Peronism paled beside Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, which heavily affected inter-American relations and Latin American politics. The upheaval in Cuba had initially given rise to a strong anti-Communist attitude among many military regimes and conservative politicians in South American countries. The Kennedy administration’s policy of promoting modernization and reform in the region was a temporary side effect of Castro’s takeover in 1959.20 The confrontation lead to the expulsion of Cuba from the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1962, and to the mandatory decision of the OAS to break off relations and cut off trade with the Castro regime in 1964. The neutralist trends in Latin America were put aside in this typical Cold War confrontation, even if there was a fragile balance in many countries between sympathizers and critics of the Cuban Revolution. Nonetheless, there was hardly any Latin American government that perceived de Gaulle’s visit as a challenge to Washington. On the contrary, there was a new surge of militant anti-Marxist governments, the Brazilian leaders being the first and the most vocal of them. Aside from right-wing dictatorships or semi-dictatorships in Central America, the new democracy of Venezuela, led by a bipartisan political system of former left-leaning leaders, had barely survived a wave of urban guerrilla supported by Castro. The mood in Caracas was strongly anti-Castro, and in fact, in August 1964, the OAS had ordered the breaking of diplomatic relations with Cuba following a petition by the Venezuelan government. In April of the same year, a decidedly anti-Marxist regime had emerged in Brazil under the leadership of the armed forces. This regime, which accepted limited political freedom, would last a long time and would exert a strong influence in the region. Although the military regime took power with Washington’s consent, it was not a U.S. puppet. The Brazilian leaders were homegrown and took the lead in pursuing the goal of fighting the Marxists and developing the industrial capacity of the country. Nonetheless, like many Latin American leaders, they were only too happy to welcome the French president, who was at times an anti-Communist him-

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

277

self. In Argentina, President Arturo Illia had been elected in 1963 by a narrow margin, without an absolute majority. A classical moderate, his foreign policy was two-pronged. While it was pro-Western, it also made overtures to nonaligned states in world affairs. The armed forces were, for all practical matters, a political actor with a strong anti-Marxist and anti-Peronist rationale. The army’s leader, General Juan Carlos Onganía, was more attracted to the Brazilian model, even though he “consented” to the elected president. In this environment, de Gaulle reinforced the European attachments, without antagonizing the different establishments.21 In other countries, including Mexico, Peru, and Chile, the reception of de Gaulle created ipso facto a fairly good atmosphere in all political sectors. Mexico’s political culture demanded gestures of autonomy with respect to the U.S. Welcoming de Gaulle was seen as a step in the right direction. Mexico’s size and importance prompted a special trip by de Gaulle in March 1964. The moderate government of Fernando Belaúnde in Peru could be identified with a pro-European worldview, even if he had good relations with Washington. In Chile, as we shall see, de Gaulle’s visit evoked almost unanimous admiration.22

Chile as a replay of French ideological history There are different layers of context that should be understood to appreciate the arrival of de Gaulle. First, the visit of de Gaulle to Chile must be seen in the context of state visits, which generally provoked enthusiasm and admiration among the Chilean public. This was the case with the visits of Brazilian President Joao Goulart in 1963; of Queen Elizabeth II in 1968; of Fidel Castro in 1971; and with, lastly, the emotionally charged visit of Pope John Paul II in 1987. Charles de Gaulle arrived in Chile in the midst of an epoch when state visits were celebrated as a popular festivity. Second, even though the tour was planned as an occasion for rapprochement with all Latin American countries, Chile held a special position despite its modest size. Alongside with Uruguay, it was generally regarded as one of the few functional democracies in the region. Mexico, essentially a semi-democracy with a one-party system, was seen as a special case; Colombia and Venezuela had only just become democracies; and Fernando Belaúnde Terry, elected as president of Peru after a brief anti-Marxist military dictatorship, was to be deposed by another left-leaning military dictatorship in 1968. In such an environment, Chile was viewed as “the only functioning democracy” in the region, even though most European observers considered its deep social differences to be a political time bomb. The perception of Chile as a democracy partially explains the strong European reaction to the coup of 1973.

278

Joaquín Fermandois

However, this development seemed very improbable or distant in 1964. Chile had undergone a polarized presidential election in 1964. On September 4, Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei, who represented a reformist program, was elected president with the support of the conservative forces, who feared the Marxist candidate Salvador Allende. Chile had a long tradition of ideological contest, which was more accentuated than in the rest of the region. Since the 1930s, Chile had had the strongest Marxist left in Latin America, and the Cuban Revolution triggered a radicalization of many sectors of the Chilean left. Castro’s Cuba served as a paradigm for the Chilean Frente de Acción Popular (FRAP), the coalition that supported Allende in 1964. Even though Allende affirmed that the road to Socialism would be different from Cuba, the final goal was similar. Already in 1958, Allende had almost won the presidential election, with 28 per cent of the votes, against the rightist candidate Jorge Alessandri, the constitutional president at the moment of de Gaulle’s arrival.23 The 1964 election attracted attention throughout the continent. Since the Cuban Revolution, politics had been dominated by the likelihood that the Socialist model might be extended. Even if Allende did not attract as much international attention in 1964 as he would in 1970, the governments of the continent were wary of possible Marxist victories. There was also a debate on whether the Chilean left was evolutionary or revolutionary. The left itself underlined that Allende’s candidacy was not a reformist one. Therein lay the real choice in the Chilean elections. The candidate of the center and of the conservative forces, Eduardo Nicanor Frei Montalva (the father of a later president, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle), had made a career of his reformist zeal, and he accepted the support of the right, but insisted that he would not change anything of his program in order to get that support. His political slogan was “Revolution in Liberty.” It was clearly intended as an alternative path to the Cuban Revolution.24 The Frei campaign received strong economic and political support from the U.S. in 1963–1964, with the White House favoring Frei’s program as a modern reformist formula for political change in Chile and in Latin America as a whole. The Allende campaign was supported by the USSR and Cuba.25 Nonetheless, Frei and Allende were no mere puppets of Washington and Moscow. They represented a political culture with strong roots in Chilean history. In the context of the mid-1960s and de Gaulle’s challenge to U.S. policies, it was ironic that Frei, who was not anti-American at all, was more oriented to Western Europe, and especially to France, West Germany, and Italy. French policy toward Latin America, like most European foreign policies, was not seen by the local population as motivated by egoistic or “imperialist” goals, even if there had been debates on older imperialist trends of European countries, including France. Also, some European observers of the Chilean scene were stunned to see that the ideological de-

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

279

bates sometimes resembled those of the interwar years in France, in particular those of the Third Republic of the 1930s. Up to November 3, 1964, Jorge Alessandri was the president of Chile; Frei was merely the president-elect. Under different circumstances, the public authority would have been with the latter, yet Alessandri was an exception. His political coalition was almost destroyed, but his personal authority and popularity had increased since his election. Alessandri, like many presidents between 1932 and 1973, had many difficulties with the political parties that supported him (a fragile center-right coalition), not to mention his disagreements with the parties that were in opposition. Alessandri, inspired by the French, toyed with drastic constitutional changes similar to the ones that de Gaulle had introduced in the constitution of the Fifth Republic. He liked to be compared with de Gaulle. Indeed, Alessandri was no lame-duck politician, and it is probable that he was already dreaming in 1964 of his candidacy in the 1970 campaign, in which he was to lose to Salvador Allende. Alessandri, who spoke French, was delighted to receive de Gaulle

de Gaulle in Chile On September 29, 1964, de Gaulle, coming from Bolivia, arrived in his Caravelle aircraft at Chacalluta Airport, Arica, at the northern end of Chile. At the airport, he was ceremoniously received by the foreign minister, Julio Philippi, and by the mayor of Arica. His cortege then moved to the port in order to embark on the Colbert, a French navy cruiser. The French ambassador to Chile, Christian Auboyneau, reported that half of the city’s population stood on the street in order to enthusiastically greet de Gaulle.26 The French president’s entourage wanted him to have the opportunity to rest for a couple of days aboard a warship, where he could fulfill his presidential duties such as signing laws and decrees. On October 1, the Colbert arrived in Valparaiso, Chile’s main port. De Gaulle was received by Jorge Alessandri, and the masses in the main square cheered both of them incessantly. The French president was dressed in the austere uniform of a brigadier general. The presidential convoy moved very slowly at the beginning, jammed by fans who wanted to pay tribute to their hero. French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville was in a bad mood because of the danger involved, but Charles de Gaulle was delighted by this encounter with the admiring crowd.27 After a trip of one-and-a-half hours, the convoy arrived in Santiago. De Gaulle was hosted in Palacio Cousiño, the mansion of a nineteenth-century Chilean magnate, now an official guest house. Thereafter began a tiresome and endless schedule including a visit to the mayor’s office, where de Gaulle was declared “Hijo Ilustre,” an honorary title; a visit to the main state uni-

280

Joaquín Fermandois

versity, the Universidad de Chile; a reception by president-elect Frei; a visit to Alessandri in La Moneda; and a gala dinner, at the end of which de Gaulle appeared on the balcony to greet the masses that waited until late in the night. On October 2, de Gaulle visited the president of the Supreme Court; the Congress; and the school sponsored by the Alliance Française. All of these events were accompanied by speeches by de Gaulle. In the afternoon, together with President Alessandri, he attended the celebrations of a battle of the Chilean Independence War in Rancagua, a medium-sized city south of Santiago. In the evening, they returned to Santiago, and de Gaulle gave a gala dinner for the Chilean authorities. On October 3, de Gaulle flew to Buenos Aires. All of these events were an incredible demonstration of will and endurance. At the age of 74, and not in good health, he showed all the ideal heroic traits of a soldier and public servant.28 Two of de Gaulle’s numerous speeches in Chile were particularly important. At the state gala hosted by Alessandri on October 1, the Chilean president made the statement: With true emotion, in the name of the Chilean people, I salute the hero of unforgettable memory, who in bitter hours for his nation knew how to embody the hope and surviving will, the great statesman, who with his vision has inspired the restoration in his fatherland of the concept of authority and has shaped a daring and youthful transition in the thrust of politics [. . .] How could one not admire this intent of yours to empower democracy with a transformational impulse according to the current difficult times? We understand that the political issues of the present time are very different from those of the last century, which was determined more by philosophical and doctrinarian issues; your great country has given itself, by means of a categorical direct expression of the national will, a constitution fit to meet the challenges of the moment with efficiency.29

President Alessandri intended to outline the political program of the second part of his administration under the protective shadow of Charles de Gaulle. The Chilean professed his admiration for the French. The “Gaullist model” and the constitution of the Fifth Republic with its strong presidential powers squared with the project of Alessandri, even if there had always been a presidential system in Chile. During 1963 and 1964, a campaign for stronger presidential powers had been a leitmotif of the Chilean president. Alessandri, like many politicians of the right, and unlike Eduardo Frei and Salvador Allende, lacked a specific grasp of world politics, but he consistently pushed for a stronger executive, including the possibility of calling plebiscites.30 Charles de Gaulle conveyed his political message when he replied to the speech of the president of the senate. He spoke about “renewal” in Chile, yet also alluded to the view that France and Chile were part of the same “Latin

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

281

and Christian community.” This deserves a little comment. When de Gaulle began his tour in Mexico, this reference to “Latinity,” a topic in Gaullist language, was not well-received. The modern Mexican state breathed the air of nationalism, characterized by a basic self-perception as being an Indian nation. To a lesser degree, this was true for other Latin American countries as well. In Chile, whose population had more or less the opposite idea of beingÂ€“more European,” de Gaulle did not need to worry that his references toÂ€ “Latinity” might cause offense. The new French policy appeared in the following phrase: We French now know that, on its part, Chile is in the middle of a renewal effort. We know that you are trying to employ your best mineral, agricultural, industrial, and maritime resources, and that you have decided that everyone will enjoy all the material, intellectual, and moral general advances. We know that Chile’s goals in foreign affairs are similar to ours, extending beyond exhausted ideologies and discouraged hegemonies: the people’s right to entirely dispose of themselves and the support that the more advanced countries should provide to the less developed ones; it is about equilibrium and progress. Taking all of these factors into account, our countries should not only understand each other, but they should also cooperate.31

In the first two sentences, de Gaulle summed up the administrations of Alessandri and Frei. Thereafter, he explained his view about world affairs, which stresses the international system as a game of power politics. It was his way of signaling the basic common interests of Chile and the other Latin American states with his vision of a new role for France beyond bipolarism and Cold War policies. There was, at the same time, an element of muted, but eloquent criticism of the U.S. In symbolic-political terms, de Gaulle’s visit was the most important event in the entire history of Chilean–French relations. It was the occasion for a meeting between a historic figure—as de Gaulle was then perceived in Latin America—and the representatives of a small country in finis terrae with its own particular characteristics. This perception was also partly linked to the idea of a European Union, then, the Common Market, and the failed attempts of the Latin American nations to imitate it. This policy had two features. Paris could espouse a moderate version of “third worldism,” linking France with progressive “anti-oligarchical” policies, in pursuit of social and economic reform. At the same time, de Gaulle avoided a direct collision course with Washington, while developing a fundamentally “French view” of world politics.32 The economic importance of the visit was modest. France was the tenthlargest importer of Chilean products, and the sixth most important provider of Chilean imports. France exported mainly industrial equipment, and these exports had grown in the past few years for two reasons: First, because

282

Joaquín Fermandois

of the currency crisis of 1961 that finally favored France; second, because France granted many financial loans to Chile after the gigantic earthquake of 1960. There were many interesting joint projects, especially in gas and construction.33 In 1967, French diplomats observed that in spite of their economic weight and special historical ties to Chile, the Germans did not know how to use this influence. It was in this situation that the French opportunity had arisen.34 This was an interesting observation, and it was characteristic of de Gaulle’s legacy. The Chile to which de Gaulle traveled, being a relatively stable democracy, was undergoing a certain transition. Retrospectively, many scholars and old politicians agree that these years gave birth to the polarization that culminated with the coup of 1973. Nevertheless, de Gaulle arrived in times of hope. The idea of reform was in the air, the main slogans of the presidentelect’s party were “Everything must change” and “Revolution in liberty.” This was intended to refer to change within the system. Not many years later, the young forces of Frei’s party would change their minds in order to pursue a change of the system itself. But by the end of 1964, the future seemed rosy and full of optimism. French Ambassador to Chile Christian Auboyneau said, on the eve of de Gaulle’s arrival, that the French president was conscious of Latin America’s efforts to get a just price for its natural resources, and the need for support in order for the country to become industrialized.35 The Chilean left could spare de Gaulle its attacks because of his (presumed) anti-Fascist past. If the powerful Chilean Communist Party expressed its solidarity with the French party, de Gaulle must have also been well esteemed by Moscow, whose line the Chilean Communist Party followed very closely. The only dark point in the visit was the tight security control following de Gaulle’s convoy and entourage. Their rough methods of pushing back people and looking threatening were generally commented on in a hostile tone. The Chilean public was used to the style of President Alessandri, who usually walked from his downtown apartment to the presidential palace of La Moneda accompanied just by a friend or an aide. Not many years later, Chileans became used to tight personal protection for their president or strongman. What did the French administration think of Chile? In the dossier prepared by the Quay d’Orsay for the visit, we find the following lines, which were repeated almost ritually in many European and U.S. observations of Chile from the nineteenth century on: “a third of the Chileans are of European descent, with a preponderance of Spanish extraction. The other twothirds are light-skinned ‘mestizos.’ The homogeneity of the country is such that there is no linguistic trouble; everyone speaks Spanish.” It also includes the judgement of Jean Borde, a geographer who had for some time worked at the Universidad de Chile: “[Chile,] deprived of all exoticism, is a distant

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

283

replica of Europe.”36 These words seem to vacillate between praise and disenchantment with Chile, which was neither the country of ‘bons sauvages’ nor a fully developed state. In any case, according to the account of the Chilean civil attaché to the French president, while they sat at their car greeting enthusiastic people, de Gaulle told the Chilean, “Chile is a true nation [. . .] Yes, look at the people, they all have similar faces. There is no difference of race or color. It is identical to the human conglomerate that I am used to seeing in France. This is not the case in the Latin American countries that I just recently visited.”37 Many Chileans would have been happy to hear these words by de Gaulle. The conversation with President Alessandri had to be formal, as the Chilean was on the verge of leaving his office. Nonetheless, de Gaulle left with a good impression of Alessandri. But his most substantial talk was held with the president-elect, Eduardo Frei, who was both experienced with handling foreign leaders and in many ways the “ideal” Third World leader from the perspective of Western leaders. Frei asked for de Gaulle’s support for a “Third Force” between West and East. Could anything have pleased the French president more? De Gaulle spoke favorably of the referendum procedure (Alessandri had expressed interest in the idea; Frei opposed it). Of course, as was natural for Chilean politicians for many decades, Frei asked for economic aid, especially for the mining sector and in the training of technical teams.38 Chileans of almost all persuasions believed that development could only be achieved with foreign assistance.39 From the French point of view, the visit was a complete success. In his report, the French ambassador wrote that the people who heard de Gaulle and who had previously perceived the French president as being haughty, distant, and authoritarian, now encountered a man who was natural and simply persuasive.40 The “humanization” of de Gaulle’s personality was not in contradiction with the politics of grandeur.

Second Stage of the visit: Eduardo Frei in Paris The economic strategy of Frei was at least partially oriented toward Europe. He wanted to diversify external (financial) aid. Economic aid should not come exclusively from the U.S. or from international organizations where the U.S. vote was decisive. A main goal of his trip to Europe was to obtain direct or indirect funds for development (which would today be labeled “cooperation” instead of “help” or “support”). Frei had unrealistic hopes regarding European support, especially from West Germany. Besides, Frei’s true goal was to represent a political project that was suitable not only for Chilean internal affairs and society, but one that could earn adherents in the Third World in general. But the fact that Frei was well-received in France

284

Joaquín Fermandois

was a consequence of de Gaulle’s tour in South America and Chile, and a logical step for the French president in his attempts to be identified with new, presumably nonaligned forces. The visit of President Frei to France, which took place from July 7–10, 1965, was not a mere projection of Chilean dynamics. The French president wanted Frei to visit France soon. Apparently, this was not just a concession to Chile’s sense of self-importance, but a real political necessity of the Elysée. De Gaulle faced presidential elections in 1965, and it was necessary to show a progressive view of the French president’s standing in world politics. There were enough petty dictators that could be invited to Paris, but they would not confer legitimacy on the French government’s actions. Paris was under time pressure. Already in March 1965, Chilean Ambassador Enrique Bernstein had reported the French government’s wish that Frei visit France at the earliest possible date.41 The ambassador insisted on the priority of visiting Paris, even before London. In Santiago, the foreign ministry believed that the Queen of England deserved the honor of hosting him first.42 De Gaulle’s staff summoned the Chilean ambassador for an audience with none less than the president himself. De Gaulle stressed the importance of setting a date for Frei’s visit immediately, for there were so many compromises to attend to. He added that if Frei came earlier, he would be very well received.43 In his conversation with the Chilean ambassador, de Gaulle said that Mexico and Chile were the two Latin American countries that would influence the continent’s destiny. In the interim, France collaborated in renegotiating the Chilean foreign debt, thanks to the assistance of de Gaulle’s team and the Quai d’Orsay, but not from the French bureaucracy. The administration in Santiago always stressed the supposedly unique trait of the government’s program. French Ambassador Auboyneau concurred by saying that the Chilean government was more decisive than those of Argentina or Brazil in the purpose of civic, social, and economic restoration. He said there was no doubt that the “revolución en libertad” had an exemplary value all over South America, and that it was “in the interest, if not in the duty, of the creditors to assist [Chile’s success].”44 In his speech at the gala dinner, Frei showed the positive face of Chile: I am proud to be the first president to visit France officially in representation of Chile, whose parliament is one of the oldest of the world, with an uninterrupted existence during 150 years of free elections, which contradicts a simplistic image of Latin America, which [the press] always refers to with random information on superficial upheavals, without always understanding the deep and sometimes dramatic life of its peoples.45

Of course, this was also an exaggerated vision of Chilean history. Nevertheless, on the whole, it portrayed a society that throughout its history had

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

285

striven to follow the European path, but had had difficulties in reaching maturity in social and economic development. Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to suspect that Frei was also alluding to two military mutinies in France (1958 and 1961), while at the same time referring to de Gaulle’s positive role in keeping the situation under control. Frei required economic support for his program. In a meeting with French businessmen and investors in Latin America, in the Chilean–French Chamber of Commerce, held in the morning of July 9, the Chilean president told them that he had inherited a foreign debt much higher than imagined, as well as a very high inflation rate. There could be no development if they did not put a stop to inflation. Frei favored structural reforms, as he did not see any more scope for tax reform. Frei’s political message was that of a moderate liberal and a moderate reformer of the year of the ‘classic’ Chilean democracy, from the early 1930s up to the early 1970s, when state-led planning and import-substitutive industry were trusted as the main road to development.46 The idea was paradigmatic of the culture of political economy of many Latin American countries. Interestingly, Frei understood the limits of this strategy, even if he could not develop a different alternative. Many governmental officials hoped that the “Chilenización del cobre” (more participation in the U.S.-owned copper mines, Chile’s main export), could be a solution. That was not the case. The main talks between the presidents and their aides were held on JulyÂ€9, lasting 45 minutes. On the French side, two future presidents took part—Georges Pompidou, then prime minister, and Valery Giscard d’Estaing, then minister of finance. Representing Chile, the participants were Foreign Minister Gabriel Valdés, Raúl Sáez (a top state manager), and Ambassador Bernstein. De Gaulle opened the meeting, saying that a policy was beginning to be designed, one of which Chile represented an innovation in world politics. Raúl Sáez, a prestigious technocrat, put forward the Chilean position, explaining Chile’s difficult financial situation, and asked that France extend credit lines for the next years and that it support Chile at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), so that French enterprises could increase their investments in Chile. Giscard explained that France had already done so. Foreign Minister Valdés asked for support for the Engineering Faculty of the Universidad de Chile, and other similar institutions. Pompidou promised to investigate this matter, and Frei proposed a sum of 100 million French francs. Giscard answered that he preferred not to be tied to a certain figure. Frei retorted that all this was also part of the way some hoped to benefit from European assistance. De Gaulle finished the session with an interesting remark: In reference to the preparations of the Communiqué, and in a general way, I think it is necessary to underscore the exceptional interest of Monsieur Frei’s visit

286

Joaquín Fermandois

to Paris in relation to us and to Europe. We deeply appreciate the effort shown by the Chilean government in social and economic developmental matters, in political stability, and in international relations. [. . .] We concede a special interest in your enterprise, because you want to take your destiny in your own hands, and achieve it in a human and modern way. Thus you may be able to escape from the oppression of Marxism–Leninism and from that of capitalism and the military. The success of this effort is essential for world balance. Its failure would be disastrous. It would achieve nothing else but to perpetuate a permanent confusion in Latin America and it would be a danger for peace.47

Rarely had a Chilean leader been flattered in this manner, in apparently sincere words coming from the voice of “Grande Histoire.” Understandably, Frei could only add that sadly, the Chilean people could not hear the words of the French president. De Gaulle intended to identify Frei’s project with his own goals and his perception of world politics. The Chilean, in his way, had the same intentions for the Latin American scene. In Chilean politics, to be a “Gaullist” was a way of being a moderate, even Western-oriented actor, without being seen as too pro-American. The public communiqué reflected this vision of the global state of affairs, which contrasted with the perception of the Cold War as a rivalry of the superpowers. It stressed “non-intervention,” “self-determination,” and promised economic assistance.48 The Chileans had an even more exalted view of the meeting. Ambassador Bernstein reported that in the Council of Ministers of the French government, de Gaulle had praised Frei’s visit, saying, “Chile is one of the pilot countries of Latin America.” Furthermore, de Gaulle had added that “the success of the experience initiated by President Frei is destined to influence not only the future of Latin America, but [also] the entente of Latin America with Europe.”49

A different sort of Cold War The term “pilot country” defines well what many observers saw in Chile. The Chile of Salvador Allende and the Unidad Popular was seen in many places as a modern utopia, attracting the sympathy of many French enthusiasts, including François Mitterrand. Later on, the Pinochet regime would be interpreted conversely as a dystopian system. The roots of this view were already to be found in de Gaulle’s language, even if the French president was not deceived by superficial appearances. His encounters with Alessandri and Frei, as with most Latin American heads of state, were part and parcel of the Cold War. It is important not to see the chapter of the history of the international system that we call the Cold War as merely a game between the superpowers. To be neutral was also a response to the Cold War. De Gaulle’s presence supported the persuasions of a continent that did not

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

287

want to be identified entirely with U.S. policies or with Marxist views of the world order. In the last stage of his period, from 1967 to 1970, Frei supported constitutional reforms similar to the ones introduced by de Gaulle. On the eve of the fateful events in Paris in May 1968, de Gaulle reminded Frei that he, the French president, was convinced in his old age that the world increasingly required that authoritative voices from Latin America be heard.50 When de Gaulle resigned on April 28, 1969, Frei sent him a message thanking him for the friendly signals that he had sent to him and to Chile. French Ambassador to Chile René de Saint Legier added a memorandum to this message stating that, unanimously, the Chilean public was sorry to learn about the developments in France and de Gaulle’s resignation.51 These sentiments were indicative of the image and worldview that de Gaulle had projected. The French president represented a possibility of reconciling the nation-state with global trends in a different way than the old nationalist ideology had suggested.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ Jacques Vernant, “El mundo, Europa y Francia,” Estudios Internacionales 1, no. 92 (1967), pp. 123–36. This research was supported by Fondecyt, Project 1000570. Carla Soto, Rafael Gaune and Valentina Orellana helped us in the recollection of material. â•‡ 2.â•‡ Joaquín Fermandois, “La política mundial o las formas de identificación en la era planetaria,” in Conferencias presidenciales de humanidades, ed. Fernando Savater et al. (Santiago: Presidencia de la República, 2005). â•‡ 3.â•‡ Vernant, “El mundo”. â•‡ 4.â•‡ Rosario Güenaga, “Europa y el europeísmo en el cono sur americano,” in La Argentina y el mundo del siglo XX, ed. Nilsa M. Alzota, Dinko Cvitanovic (Bahía Blanca: Universidad nacional del Sur, 1998), pp. 302–10. â•‡ 5.â•‡ Edward A. Kolodziej, “Revolt and revisionism in the Gaullist Global Vision: An Analysis of French Strategic Policy,” The Journal of Politics 33, no. 2 (1971), pp. 448-477. â•‡ 6.â•‡ This chapter is an extended version of Joaquín Fermandois, “La época de las visitas: Charles de Gaulle en Chile y Eduardo Frei en Francia, 1964 y 1965,” Mapocho 52, no. 2 (2002), pp. 19–37. â•‡ 7.â•‡ It is impossible to evaluate de Gaulle’s policies without thinking of his views about the U.S. and the UK. Julius W. Pratt, “De Gaulle and the United States: How the Rift Began,” The History Teacher 1, no. 4 (1968), pp. 5–15. More recently, David G. Haglund, “Roosevelt as a ‘Friend of France’—but, which one?,” Diplomatic History 31, no. 2 (2007), pp. 883–908. â•‡ 8.â•‡ “Plan d’action pour l’Amerique Latine,” second half of 1945, by a special Commission. Archive Diplomatique Quai d’Orsay, Paris (ADQO), Serie protocole 1964. Chili, vol. 574, a sort of dossier with everything regarding the trip. Henceforth referred to as “Dossier.” ADQO, 1944–1952, Generalité, vol. 77.

288

Joaquín Fermandois

â•‡ 9.â•‡ From the Chargé d’Affaires, Charvet, to Robert Schuman, March 29, 1952. ADQO, B. Amerique 1952–1963, Chili, vol. 36. 10.â•‡ From a conversation of a French offical, Dennery, with the Chargé d’Affaires at the foreign ministry of Chile, January 7, 1950. Archivo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Chile, Santiago (ARREE), vol. 2822, oficio confidencial. 11.â•‡ Embassy to MRE, May 12, 1948. ARREE, vol. 2705, oficio confidencial. 12.â•‡ Ambassador Juan Bautista Rossetti to MRE, November 29, 1956. ARREE, vol. 4513, cablegrama. Volumen “Canal de Suez 1956–1957.” 13.â•‡ Gustavo Lagos (ed.), Las relaciones entre América Latina, Estados Unidos y Europa Occidental (Santiago: Universitaria, Instituto de Estudios Internacionales, 1979). 14.â•‡ This began earlier on. In a radio address of 1943, de Gaulle spoke of the “great Latin continent,” in reference to Latin America. Charles de Gaulle, Discursos, declaraciones, documentos (México: Centro de Información y Prensa, 1943), p. 34. In this vein, Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle, vol. III: Le souverain 1959–1970 (Paris: Seuil, 1986), pp. 444–50. 15.â•‡ Press Conference, January 31, 1964. Principales alocuciones, declaraciones y conferencias de prensa del General Charles de Gaulle (Santiago: Embajada de Francia, 1964), pp. 263f. 16.â•‡ Ibid., p. 119. 17.â•‡ For a general view of this question, P. G. Cerny, “De Gaulle, the Nation-State and Foreign Policy,” The Review of Politics 33, no. 2 (1971). 18.â•‡ Cole Blasier, The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976); and Stephen C. Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). 19.â•‡ Claudio Panellla, “Naturaleza de la Tercera Posición,” in La Argentina y el mundo del siglo XX, ed. Alzota/Cvitanovic, pp. 519–25; and Cristián Buchrucker, Nacionalismo y Peronismo: La Argentina en la crisis ideológica mundial (1927–1955) (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1987), pp. 330–34. 20.â•‡ For the situation around 1960, of the same Stephen G. Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticomunism (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988). 21.â•‡ Guillermo Miguel Figari, Pasado, presente y futuro de la política exterior argentina (Buenos aires: Biblos, 1993), pp. 174–209. Mario Rapaport, “La Argentina y la Guerra Fría: Opciones económicas y estratégicas de apertura hacia el Este (1955– 1973),” Ciclos 8, no. 1 (1995); For Brazil, see António Carlos Lessa, “Os vértices marginais de vocaçóes universais: as relacóes entre França e o Brasil de 1945 a nossos dias,” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 43, no. 2 (2000), pp. 28–58. 22.â•‡ Nelson de Sousa Sampaio, “Latin America and Neutralism,” Annals of the American Academy of Political And Social Science no. 362 (November 1995), pp. 66–67; and Simon Collier, From Cortés to Castro: An Introduction to the History of Latin America 1942–1973 (Madrid: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 403. 23.â•‡ For a general view on political development, see Simon Collier and William Sater, A History of Chile, 1808–1894 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 24.â•‡ For the 1964 elections and its international setting, Joaquín Fermandois, Chile y el mundo 1970–1973: La política exterior del gobierno de la Unidad Popular y el

The Hero on the Latin American Scene

289

sistema internacional (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 1973), pp. 278–80; and Paul E. Sigmund, The United States and Democracy in Chile (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, 1992). 25.â•‡ For the Soviet funding of the Chilean Communist Party in the sixties, see Olga Uliánova and Eugenia Fediakova, “Algunos aspectos de la ayuda financiera del PC de la URSS al comunismo chileno durante la Guerra Fría,” Estudios Públicos 72 (Spring 1998), pp. 125–36. In the same issue of the Journal, there is a statement of former Ambassador Edgard M. Korry about the U.S. involvement in 1964. 26.â•‡ What we refer here, is meticulously documented in ADQO, Serie protocole 1964. Chili, vol. 574. 27.â•‡ According to the oral testimony of Ambassador José Miguel Barros to the author (2003). 28.â•‡ Lacouture, de Gaulle III, p. 446. 29.â•‡ El Mercurio, October 2, 1964. 30.â•‡ For the international aspecto of the 1964 presidential election, Joaquín Fermandois, Mundo y fin de mundo. Chile en la política mundial 1900–2004 (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 2005), pp. 297–301. 31.â•‡ El Mercurio, October 3, 1964. 32.â•‡ See in general Guy de Carmoy, The Foreign Policies of France 1944–1968 (Chicago, Londres: The University of Chicago Press, 1970; original, Paris, 1967). 33.â•‡ Dossier, ADQO. See note 8. 34.â•‡ From Ambassador Raoul Duval to Maurice Couve de Murville, Santiago, August 18, 1967. ADQO, Serie Amérique Latine, 1964–1970. vol. 65. 35.â•‡ Interview with Eduardo Sanhueza, El Mercurio, October 2, 1964. 36.â•‡ Dossier. See note 8. 37.â•‡ Enrique Bernstein Carabantes, Recuerdos de un diplomático, vol. II: El honor de representar a Chile 1957–1965 (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1986), p. 171. 38.â•‡ From Ambassador Christian Auboyneau to Maurice Couve de Murville, October 19, 1964, in: Dossier. 39.â•‡ Joaquín Fermandois, Mundo y fin de mundo: Chile en la política mundial 1900– 2004 (Santiago: Edciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 2005), pp. 173–97. 40.â•‡ From Ambassador Christian Auboyneau to Maurice Couve de Murville, October 19, 1964. En Dossier. 41.â•‡ From Ambassador Bernstein to Foreign Minister, March 12, 1965, ARREE, Cable. For more details about this subject, see Enrique Bernstein, Recuerdos de un diplomático, vol. III: Embajador ante De Gaulle 1965-1970 (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1987). 42.â•‡ From Ambassador Enrique Bernstein to Foreign Minister, March 19, 1965, ARREE, Cable. 43.â•‡ From Ambassador Enrique Bernstein to Foreign Minister, April 12, 1965, ARREE, Cable. 44.â•‡ From Ambassador Christian Auboyneau to Couve de Murville, February 12, 1965, ADQO, Serie Amérique Latine, 1964–1970, Chili, vol. 73. 45.â•‡ Cristián Gazmuri, Patricia Arancibia, Alvaro Góngora, Eduardo Frei Montalva (1911–1982) (Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996), p. 248. For details of the trip to Europe, see Patricia Arancibia, Cristián Gazmuri and Alvaro Góngora, Eduardo Frei Montalva y su época (Santiago: Aguilar, 2000), pp. 602–8.

290

Joaquín Fermandois

46.â•‡ CORFO, acronym to Corporación de Fomento de la Producción, founded in 1939, with American support. 47.â•‡ “Compte rendu de l’entretien a L’ Elysee entre le général De Gaulle et le Presidente Frei,” ADQO, Serie Amérique Latine, 1964–1970, vol. 61. 48.â•‡ From Foreign Minister to Foreign Ministry, July 10, 1965, ARREE, Cable. 49.â•‡ From Ambassador to Foreign Minister, July 17, 1965, ARREE, Aerograme. 50.â•‡ Letter from de Gaulle to Frei, April 3, 1968, ADQO, Serie Amérique Latine, 1964–1970, vol. 59. 51.â•‡ From Ambassador René de Saint Legier to Michel Debré, Foreign Minister, May 2, 1969, ADQO, serie Amérique Latine, 1964–1970, vol. 59.

14 Conclusion: A Gaullist GrandÂ€Strategy? Garret Martin

Introduction General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the resistance during World War Two, was the President of France between 1958 and 1969. His decade in power would prove to be a period of turmoil and dramatic change. Domestically, he established a new constitution to replace the ailing Fourth Republic, ended the divisive Algerian War—which was also adversely affecting France’s international standing—and modernized the economy. Despite the May 1968 protests, the General left power with France in a far more stable position than when he took office. On the world stage, his spectacular style of headline-grabbing initiatives contributed to making sure France’s voice was heard, even if this often meant irritating and angering allies. The latter were particularly frustrated because they were often at a loss when trying to decipher the French president’s intentions. What was he trying to achieve exactly with his often maverick foreign policy? Did he have a grand design, that is to say an overarching and ambitious vision to reshape international affairs, or was it mere posturing to further, and only further, France’s prestige? This question divided commentators at the time, and still does today. This chapter will address this precise question. It will argue that de Gaulle did have a grand design, one that centered on recapturing France’s Great Power status and overcoming the Cold War order in Europe. Instead of the blocs, he envisioned a new continental security system. As for the Third World, the General believed that equilibrium would be guaranteed by a blend of competition and cooperation between the Great Powers.1 291

292

Garret Martin

Ideology In the spring of 1964, during a visit to Washington, American Ambassador to Paris Charles Bohlen prepared a paper that reflected on the foreign policy of the United States’ [U.S.] frustrating ally, General Charles de Gaulle. According to him, “[the] fundamental and basic element in de Gaulle’s foreign policy is his strongly held and unchangeable conviction that the nation (the state and not the people) represents the permanent unit in international affairs.”2 Indeed, the French president never departed from the view that nations, rather than ideologies, really mattered on the international stage. This cornerstone of his political philosophy profoundly informed his vision of the international order, which rested on three main elements: balance, leadership and struggle.3 De Gaulle was convinced that the Cold War was an abnormal state of affairs resulting from the particular circumstances of World War Two. He perceived the bipolar division of the world as an anomaly and one that was inherently unstable, as opposed to past multipolar systems that could more easily create equilibrium.4 Within that general principle of balance, de Gaulle believed that success on the international stage required a visionary leadership exercised by a strong state. The latter condition mattered because the idea of struggle was intrinsic to his vision of history as a sort of Bergsonian competition, where diverse nations strove to flourish and realize their potential.5 It is not altogether surprising then that the French president, as pointed out by his once Minister of Agriculture Edgar Pisani, regarded diplomacy as a cruel and subtle art. One could show no pity during negotiations, and each side needed to defend its interests without concessions. Diplomacy, for de Gaulle, could not be regarded as a game; it was fought with a sword, and not a foil. Romantic considerations of generosity and friendship could play no role in this context.6 The General understood the necessity of practicing realpolitik. He dismissed the idea according to which alliances were permanent or had absolute virtues, meaning that he only saw them as valid as long as they suited France’s interests.7 His fluid conception of friend and foe allowed him at times to place nations simultaneously in both categories.8 For de Gaulle, foreign affairs appeared as a realm of intense competition and deception, and few displayed the same exceptional abilities in that domain as he did. Even bitter enemies like the Belgian statesman PaulHenri Spaak, who had previously considered himself a Gaullist, recognized this fact: He [de Gaulle] is, however, in daily politics a tactician with an exceptional and undeniable talent. He is a great diplomat, but more by the variety of the means that he used than by the grandeur of the aim he had. He hides his intentions,

A Gaullist Grand Strategy?

293

suddenly reveals them, generally with panache. He creates uncertainty in the mind of those he negotiates with. . . . There is no one better when it comes to giving importance to what he does, and to hide, behind his assurance, the fluctuations of his thought.9

The French president was shrewd, but with an inclination toward the dramatic. Thanks to his special brand of personal diplomacy, de Gaulle believed he could rely on symbols to highlight the role of the charismatic leader in asserting the national interest.10 In many ways, he seemed like an actor who saw the Cold War as a stage on which to perform, or what John L. Gaddis referred to as “a kind of theater in which distinctions between illusions and reality were not always obvious.”11 The General cultivated secrecy and surprise with great skill. In part, this reflected his natural separateness and remoteness, as even his closest advisers declared that it was impossible to achieve familiarity or intimacy with him.12 It also stemmed from his conception of authority and leadership. For de Gaulle, the chief could only be distant, because authority depended on status, and status required distance. Without mystery there could be no prestige, since one could not worship what one knew too well.13 Thus, the French President never hesitated to resort to deliberate ambiguity because vagueness and a certain blurring of categories generally suited his purposes; he frequently conflated tactics and aims.14 What he meant by a ‘European Europe,’ a ‘Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals,’ or the neutralization of Vietnam, was never clearly spelt out. He constantly kept his allies second guessing about his ultimate intentions, much to their frustration.

Historiography However, if this elusiveness helped the French president when he was in power, it certainly has not facilitated the task of historians. The vast number of memoirs, biographies, and scholarly works focusing on the General—in excess of three thousand items—are a testimony to the enduring fascination with Gaullism. Yet, while they tend to agree on the nature of de Gaulle’s ideology, they are profoundly divided when it comes to analyzing the overall objective of his foreign policy. Considering the size of the literature, it would be impossible to provide an exhaustive presentation of the historiographical debates. Instead, it makes sense to limit this review to the interpretations that are particularly relevant for this chapter. Can we talk of a Gaullist grand design? And if so, what was it actually trying to achieve? A certain number of former statesmen who dealt with de Gaulle, along with scholars, have rejected, or tried to downplay, the idea that the French President possessed any sort of plan, or broader vision for

294

Garret Martin

his diplomacy. Spaak claimed, for example, that “I see in his action neither doctrine nor grand design that he pursued with continuity.” Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, for his part, understood de Gaulle’s objective as essentially pedagogical, that is to say he wanted to teach his people to adopt a more independent attitude.15 More recently, in regards to European integration, Andrew Moravcsik questioned the assumption that the French president was trying to accomplish grand political and ideological goals, and instead argued that he was driven by the desire to secure commercial interests for his country’s agriculture and industry.16 Alternatively, other observers were prepared to accept that de Gaulle possessed some kind of grand design, but tended to qualify it as essentially negative and centered on narrow, selfish, or even irresponsible objectives. John Newhouse, for example, deplored the fact that the General ended up deploying his strength only to advance some largely irrelevant claims to greatness. This included a very dangerous attack against the principle of integration in both the European Economic Community [EEC] and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO].17 Éric Roussel followed a not so dissimilar line in his recent very detailed biography of the French president. In his view, the General’s grand design from 1963 onward relied on three main pillars: restoring French grandeur, building Europe around France, and countering as much as possible America’s hegemonic power.18 A final group has defended the General’s foreign policy as a genuine attempt to overcome the Cold War order and dramatically change the international status quo. De Gaulle rejected the prevailing system as dangerous, because all states were permanently threatened by two contradictory, but equally dangerous scenarios: a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, or a superpower joint hegemony.19 He was driven, according to Stanley Hoffman, by a sort of “global revisionism.” Not only did he want to recapture France’s lost grandeur, but he also sought to undo superpower dominance, and fashion a world order based on the multiplicity of nationstates that would be responsive to their individual needs.20 Amidst this polarized literature, this chapter will attempt to provide a more balanced view of de Gaulle’s foreign policy and its overarching objectives, which emphasizes both his radical attempts to challenge the Cold War order and his more traditional quest for Great Power status for France.

Independence and a New Equilibrium in Transatlantic Relations France was at the heart of the General’s grand design, a nation he believed to be imbued with almost mystical quality.21 He was determined, ever since his return to power in 1958, to recapture what he perceived as his country’s

A Gaullist Grand Strategy?

295

natural Great Power status and recover completely from the traumatic defeat of June 1940. Undoubtedly, a strong and stable executive, along with a modernizing economy, were important to help France vigorously pursue its objectives on the international scene. Yet, for de Gaulle, the fundamental principle for success remained preserving France’s independence.22 Throughout his speeches and press conferences, he consistently argued that France needed to play a role on the world stage, and for that it needed to avoid any form of subordination, be it to another state or within an international organization.23 A Great Power had the right to act according to its interests, even if this meant irritating allies. Thus, when France’s unilateral recognition of the People’s Republic of China in January 1964 caused dismay, its leaders pointed out that they were not acting any differently than the U.S. when it sent an ultimatum to the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis, or when it became involved in Vietnam.24 Military affairs, though, appeared as the domain where independence was particularly essential. De Gaulle pursued a relatively consistent policy toward the Atlantic organization from the September 1958 memorandum to U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, where he called for a reform of the Atlantic Alliance through the establishment of a tripartite directorate, to the eventual withdrawal of French troops from NATO’s integrated military structure in March 1966.25 Both initiatives aimed to provide national and international responsibilities to France, and to allow it to be in charge of its own defense. Failure to do, according to the General, could lead France to dissolve or dislocate in the long run.26 Similarly, the French president regarded the development of an independent nuclear arsenal as a crucial objective for his overall foreign policy. Not only did it symbolize Great Power standing, by becoming part of the select club of states with atomic weapons, but it also allowed France an important say in its own security.27 However, despite all his emphasis on independence, de Gaulle did not seek splendid isolation. In parallel to his efforts to promote France’s status, he was determined to build a European entity. By Europe, the French president was thinking primarily of the Western part of the continent, which had still not recovered from the scars of its recent history. His desire to create such a body thus stemmed, in part, from his conviction that it represented a geopolitical imperative: “Europe stands for a heritage of culture, of civilization, of historical wisdom, of a capacity to arbitrate, of moderation. A world deprived of Europe, a world where Europe would not use all its weight, would lack equilibrium.”28 The General genuinely wanted Europe once again to play a leading role in world affairs, but his motivations were not completely disinterested either. He expected France to take a leading role in any continental organization, thereby furthering its Great Power credentials.

296

Garret Martin

That said, de Gaulle possessed a very specific vision of the Europe he wanted to build. The Fouchet Plan, proposed in late 1961 and revised in early 1962, amounted to an intergovernmental union between the six founding states of the EEC—France, Italy, West Germany, and the Benelux states. The Six would coordinate their policies in the economic, political and military spheres, but close Franco–German cooperation was the key ingredient for success. Not only would a partnership, where France played the leading role, help to contain German power, but de Gaulle also understood that if both states agreed, the others would have no choice but to follow.29 Moreover, the French president wanted to limit membership. It cannot be said categorically whether he ever intended to lift his opposition to Britain in the long run, but in the short-term his objections included a blend of fear and contempt.30 Not only might Britain become a burden for the EEC, but with its nuclear deterrent and ties with the other member states it could pose a threat to France’s leadership within the Community. The General’s inflexible attitude pushed him to vigorously oppose any alternative schemes of European integration, going as far as boycotting the EEC for six months during the ‘empty chair’ crisis. Convinced that Europe needed to be built on realities, that is to say the states, he could only denounce the federal model as a dream, and a dangerous one because it would undermine France’s sovereignty.31 He did not change his mind even when his partners rejected the Fouchet plan in the spring of 1962, because he remained convinced that it was better to have no Europe at all than a bad Europe. France’s participation depended on the other members following in its footsteps, and if it had to decide between misguided European unity and preserving its freedom, it would always choose the latter.32 Building Europe seemed even more of a necessity in order to deal with the superpowers, especially the U.S. De Gaulle regarded America with mistrust and animosity ever since his difficult relationship with Franklin Roosevelt during World War Two. He remained uncertain about what role the powerful ally wanted to play in the future on the continent. On the one hand, the General realized that the U.S. presence in Europe would not last forever, but he could not forecast when this withdrawal would happen. On the other hand, he feared that America, because of its might, could be tempted to try and dominate its European allies.33 Both scenarios, disengagement and hegemony, justified creating a European entity that could stand up for itself against either the Soviet menace or America’s hegemony. Similar uncertainty surfaced in the crucial field of security. Once the Soviet Union developed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in 1957, the American territory was no longer invulnerable to Soviet nuclear attacks. Was the U.S. government thus ready to sacrifice New York in order to defend Hamburg? The French president realized that only America offered, in the immediate future, a credible defense for Western Europe against the Soviet

A Gaullist Grand Strategy?

297

Union, but he hoped that in case of an attack by the latter, the French force de frappe could push the U.S. to act before it was too late.34 The General wanted to modify transatlantic relations along the principles of independence and alliance.35 He understood the desirability for close European cooperation with the United States. Thus, he expressed his unconditional solidarity to Washington during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and accepted the need to preserve the Atlantic Alliance as long as there was a threat of war in Europe.36 Equally, he did not object to lowering custom barriers as part of the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade—dubbed the Kennedy Round—as long as Western Europe and the U.S. negotiated on an equal footing. America and Western Europe would remain allies, but their relationship would change in the long-run because the latter would take on more responsibilities in the political, economic and military domains.37 This more assertive Western Europe—what de Gaulle referred to as a “European Europe” —could only come into being if it maintained its distinctiveness, that is to say it did not become “American.”38 It needed to preserve its independence and be able to pursue its particular interests even if this irritated its powerful ally. Only by being prepared to stand up to the U.S. could Europe develop a separate identity. As de Gaulle confided to his then Minister of Information Alain Peyrefitte: “The national feeling has always been expressed against other nations. [. . .] The European idea, since the end of the war, progressed thanks to the existing threat in Europe. Now that the Russians are less threatening, and this is good, we have an opportunity to harden our attitude toward the U.S., and it is our duty; if not, integrated Europe will be dissolved in an Atlantic, that is to say American, whole like sugar in coffee!”39 The French president resorted to three main tactics in order to develop a new partnership on both sides of the Atlantic. Firstly, he adopted measures that attempted to foster closer unity and cooperation between the six states of the EEC, and to show more independence vis-à-vis the U.S. The Franco– German Treaty of January 1963 became the most significant example, but it included as well the efforts to give the six more say in the negotiations on the international monetary system.40 Secondly, even if the process was stalling, de Gaulle sought to block any moves that could jeopardize the establishment of a European entity in the future. By twice vetoing Britain’s application to join the EEC, or attacking the Multilateral Force, he wanted to show that France did not accept “the indefinite postponement of a political Europe in line with its views, and the supremacy of the U.S. in Western Europe.”41 Finally, the General used all opportunities to denounce the excesses of American hegemony, be it by withdrawing troops from NATO or criticizing the privileges of the dollar in the international monetary system. By standing up to America, he could both further France’s claims to Great Power status and act as a role model for his European partners.

298

Garret Martin

A New European Security System This new equilibrium sought by de Gaulle in transatlantic relations was intrinsically tied to his goals for the European continent as a whole, which were particularly informed by his philosophy of history. He had a Frenchman’s instinctive fear of Germany, and was always obsessed by the future of his powerful neighbor.42 As early as 1936, writing to his mother at a time when the German threat was reemerging, de Gaulle claimed that regardless what one thought of Soviet Russia, it still appeared as the best fallback alliance for France. He ‘believed’ in Russia and sought dialogue, even if he remained wary of the Soviets.43 Moreover, the French president never departed from his belief that the Cold War was an abnormal system, and one resulting from the despised Yalta agreements which had decided the fate of Europe without the Europeans.44 Peace and harmony on the continent required a new version of the concert of Europe, which is why the General consistently strove to overcome the division of Europe into two antagonistic blocs. Some authors have questioned this view of de Gaulle as an eternal seeker of détente, seeing him instead as more of a pragmatist.45 However, this is a misleading point. The General returned to power in 1958 with a long-term blueprint for relations with the Soviet Union and for European security. During his first four years in office, he sent a number of signals to the leaders in Moscow. In 1959, for example, he recognized the Oder–Neisse line and referred to a ‘Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.’ In 1962, he publicly claimed that close Franco–German cooperation would make possible the establishment of a new European equilibrium between East and West.46 What prevented the establishment of a dialogue was Khrushchev’s menacing behavior during the 1958–1962 Berlin Crisis, which pushed the French president to vigorously oppose any negotiations. On the one hand, he genuinely believed that talks with Moscow could not occur as long as it maintained its threatening attitude.47 On the other hand, since West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer was firmly opposed to any form of Ostpolitik, de Gaulle realized that he could maintain leverage over him by taking a tough line toward negotiations with the Soviet Union.48 In this process, he could also, of course, sharply differentiate from the unreliable Anglo-Saxons who did seem ready to talk to Moscow. Furthermore, the General opposed the limited détente that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis. After being on the brink of nuclear war, the superpowers realized that they needed to make their relations more predictable, and to guarantee a minimum of cooperation. This culminated in the Partial Test Ban Treaty—signed on August 5, 1963 by the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain, and which banned all above ground nuclear tests. For the French leaders, though, the superpower talks were a false détente, an illusion because they gave the impression that East–West relations could

A Gaullist Grand Strategy?

299

improve without a real change of atmosphere, and a threat because they risked consolidating the Cold War bloc logic.49 They were dangerous because Moscow and Washington might acquire the habit of deciding the fate of the world without consulting other states.50 As he explained during his press conference on February 4, 1965, twenty years exactly after the start of the Yalta Conference, de Gaulle had a very different conception of détente. The speech outlined very clearly his vision of how to overcome the Cold War and the division of Germany within a European framework.51 He argued that the German problem could not “be solved by the confrontation of the ideologies and the forces of the two camps opposed to each other”; it needed to be considered from a different perspective, that is to say “the entente and conjugated action of the peoples that are and will remain most interested in the fate of Germany, the European nations.”52 Yet, he was careful to point out that such a solution could only occur in the long-term and depended on many conditions. The Eastern Bloc would have to evolve so as to allow Russia to move away from totalitarianism and let the satellite states play a more significant role in Europe. The states of Western Europe would have to extend their organization to cover political and defense matters. West Germany would have to accept that any reunification would involve a settlement on its borders and weapons that was accepted by all its neighbors. Finally, a solution to the German question was only conceivable once a general “détente, entente and cooperation” had developed between all the European states.53 The General had offered a compelling long-term vision for a European solution to the German problem, even though he had remained quite vague about how and why it would happen. His utter conviction stemmed first from his belief in the inevitability of détente, since the Cuban Missile Crisis had clearly shown that neither superpower wanted war—‘Khrushchev would never dare’ had become his motto.54 More importantly, de Gaulle relied on his analysis of developments within the Communist world. In a personal note written in July 1964, he argued that communism had ultimately failed because it could not fulfill three key conditions: the dying away of nations under a common ideology, the growth and victory of communism in other industrialized states besides Russia, and the establishment of obedient communist regimes in the Third World.55 Faced by a hostile Communist China on its borders, and with the satellite states showing growing signs of independence, the Soviet Union had lost its conquering ambitions in the West and appeared more interested in a modus vivendi.56 Europe, as the French president triumphantly confided to Peyrefitte, was undergoing a fundamental transformation: “There is a change lately. We can feel it everywhere. The Cold War is out of date. [. . .] The Soviet bloc is crumbling. [. . .] As to the Western bloc, it is also crumbling. France has recovered its freedom.”57

300

Garret Martin

Overcoming the blocs was central to France’s policy of détente. If the dialogue with Eastern Europe began in late 1964, it went up a gear after de Gaulle’s decision to withdraw troops from NATO in March 1966 and his trip to the Soviet Union three months later. The two events were closely related, since leaving the NATO organization acted both as a motor for his détente policy and a precondition for an East–West rapprochement in Europe.58 It also sent a powerful signal. By leaving NATO but remaining a member of the Atlantic Alliance, and by going to the Soviet Union, the French president wanted to show Europe that his country kept one hand in the West and extended the other to the East. Moreover, if the General wanted a dialogue with the whole of the Eastern bloc, as shown by his trips to Poland in 1967 and Romania in 1968, he gave priority to the talks with the Soviet Union. By going to Moscow first, he aimed to reassure his hosts that his détente policy was not trying to create a breach within the Warsaw Pact. As he told the Polish Prime Minister Josef Cyrankiewicz, he did not mind Poland’s alliance with the Soviets as long as the country preserved its national personality.59 The French leaders believed that reassuring the Soviets was crucial, because they felt that both countries could act as role models, and encourage their respective allies to follow their détente path.60 They especially needed West Germany to take part in this process, because the General knew that the success of his design depended on the Paris-Bonn-Moscow triangle: “It is essential to push [West] Germany toward a rapprochement with Russia. We have to disarm their reciprocated aggression. It is our game, it is the only one”; changing the reciprocal perceptions of the German and Soviet threat would effectively begin the process of dissolving the military blocs. If the Soviet and German threats were relative illusions to each other, what justification was there to keep both NATO and the Warsaw Pact?61 The challenge was convincing both states that such a course was in their interests. To the West Germans, the French president argued that reunification could only occur through détente with the Russians.62 To the Soviet leaders, he claimed that the division of Germany was not normal, and could not last forever. At the same time, however, he added that he was not in a hurry to see reunification happen, and when it did, it would have to be a controlled process.63 Moreover, the French president also tried to entice the Soviets by pointing out that America’s troubles in Vietnam created an opportunity for Paris and Moscow to organize a more European policy, that is to say create a new continental system where the U.S. influence would be reduced.64 As Georges-Henri Soutou explains, the General’s détente policy aimed to establish a sort of pan-European security order. Once the process of dialogue had created enough trust between East and West, American troops would eventually leave the continent, and in return the Soviet Union would abandon East Germany, allowing German reunification and a real détente in Europe. Similarly, Moscow would allow the satellite states to be more

A Gaullist Grand Strategy?

301

independent, although de Gaulle recognized that Eastern Europe would remain a Soviet sphere of influence. The two main pillars of the system would of course be France and the Soviet Union, as nuclear powers, but security would be guaranteed by an interlocking set of checks and balances. Paris and Moscow would contain Bonn, while a closer union between the states of Western Europe would contain Soviet power. The U.S. would play its traditional role of underwriter and ultimate arbiter of the European order. This was, in other words, a modernized version of the Concert of Nations of the Nineteenth Century.65 The Soviet Union would need to maintain a state of détente with this European security order, guaranteed by the U.S., in order to be able to simultaneously confront Communist China—a power de Gaulle viewed as having enormous means and ambitions.66

Great Power Competition in the Third World The General’s grand design was undoubtedly Eurocentric, and his vision of a new European security system played a central role in his blueprint for global equilibrium. Yet, he still attached significant importance to the Third World, especially once the process of decolonization had been completed. Fundamentally, the French president emphasized the maintenance of world peace as one of his central foreign policy goals, and he consistently denounced the Cold War bipolar order because he felt that “a simplistic division of the world into two blocs invariably led to opposition and conflict.”67 Paris essentially viewed the Cold War as an unstable system and believed that global equilibrium could not solely depend on agreements between Moscow and Washington. It needed the involvement of the rest of the world.68 De Gaulle perceived the emergence of a multitude of new independent states as a profound change in modern civilization, but one that was threatened by the Cold War.69 The spread of ideological competition throughout the globe presented the clear danger of turning Third World states into pawns in the superpower rivalry. Moreover, not only was the emergence of an independent Third World important for world equilibrium, but according to the General this emerged as the true global challenge as “two billion people are aspiring for progress, well-being and dignity”; another way for the General to challenge the legitimacy of the Cold War.70 Since he viewed the unity of the universe and the need for fraternal relations between states as a dominating fact in the world, he saw it as the duty of richer states to help those requiring aid to progress.71 What about France’s contribution to this mission? On the one hand, the French president believed that his country should have an active role in the Third World because of its colonial past and its traditional links of friendship with many states throughout the world.72 He was convinced that France’s history provided it with an authoritative standing on extra-European affairs, as

302

Garret Martin

Couve de Murville reminded American officials when discussing the thorny issue of Vietnam.73 On the other hand, de Gaulle also believed that his country could play a special role in the world because of its values: France’s authority is moral [. . .] our country is different than others because of its disinterested and universal vocation. [. . .] France has an eternal role. That is why it benefits from an immense credit, because France was a pioneer of American independence, of the abolition of slavery, of the rights of people to dispose of their own fate. It is the champion of nations’ independence against all hegemonies. Everyone realizes that: France is the light of the world; its genius is to enlighten the universe.74

As he explained during his January 31, 1964 press conference, this meant France had to lead the way in terms of cooperation with developing states, regardless of their ideology. Beyond financial aid, it needed to “educate and train” the men of the Third World so to enable them one day to follow their own path toward progress.75 However, for all the humane and disinterested Gaullist rhetoric, France also pursued more pragmatic and self-interested goals through its Third World policy. There were clearly limits to the collusion between France and the developing states, which stemmed from Paris’ ambition to share the role of world policeman with the other nuclear powers.76 Indeed, if de Gaulle tried to present France as sympathetic to the cause of newly independent states, his conception of the world remained very aristocratic, and he was far from being a partisan of the principle of equality between states.77 As an advanced industrial power, France’s interests in maintaining supplies of raw materials, including oil, spreading its political influence and gaining access to new markets, did not really fit with the more extreme demands of poor states.78 Paris expected concrete benefits—especially in the domain of trade—from its cooperation policy. In the case of Algeria, French officials made it clear that the aid was not a gift and depended on significant counterparts, including a military base, a location for nuclear tests, a significant amount of oil for domestic consumption, a decent market for French exports, and an opportunity to maintain influence.79 Equally, the military agreements signed with the former African colonies included clauses that gave France priority in the purchase of strategic raw materials and equipment, while the new African states also offered great markets for the French weapons industry.80 The fact is that France’s Third World policy was not as humane as the Gaullist rhetoric suggested. France sent many advisers and teachers to developing states, but it equally made a decent profit by selling weapons to them.81 Moral considerations rarely stood in the way of good business. Paris did not hesitate to supply arms to both Israel and Arab states, such as Lebanon or Jordan. It also engaged in military trade with pariah states like Por-

A Gaullist Grand Strategy?

303

tugal and South Africa, despite UN resolutions advocating otherwise. France tried to justify its attitude by claiming its attachment to the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs, and by repeating the guarantees that South Africa had made to not use these weapons for internal repression. Yet, the concrete benefits it received in exchange for the weapons sales, be it gold and uranium from South Africa, or a satellite station in the Azores from Portugal, were surely more persuasive.82 Furthermore, France’s strategy toward the Third World was profoundly informed by Great Power considerations, because de Gaulle believed global equilibrium depended on a balance between struggle and cooperation. On the one hand, he expected the main powers to compete to spread their influence amongst the newly independent states. Thus, France tried to have its voice heard in Latin America and Asia, through the General’s high-profile trips, and to defend its privileged position in former French Africa. Even though French leaders no longer regarded Africa as a top priority after decolonization, they were desperate to prevent other Great Powers from intruding in their sphere of influence. The unilateral French intervention in Gabon in February 1964 was a particularly revealing example of this attitude.83 The nature of France’s aid program followed the same logic. Undoubtedly, it involved a conceptual shift from direct aid for friendly allies to a more ‘infra-structural’ form of assistance based on the sending of teachers, technical advisers and so on.84 At the same time, though, this assistance to underdeveloped states was also neocolonial and simply the historical continuation of the assistance to colonies. By sending teachers and advisers to Third World states, de Gaulle certainly hoped to channel the latter’s development along a path favorable to French interests. For example, he expected that the promise of cultural, technical, commercial and linguistic aid could entice the former African colonies to develop according to a French model.85 On the other hand, for the sake of global stability, this Great Power competition in the Third World needed to be regulated. The General believed that the five nuclear powers—France, the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China—had a special responsibility as world policemen to guarantee peace and order. This attitude was very much in evidence during times of crisis. Thus, in the run up to the Six Day War, the French president claimed “those problems [in the Middle East] cannot be solved internally. They must be solved internationally, which implies an agreement between the four [Great Powers].”86 Similarly, before the situation in Vietnam escalated dramatically, following the large deployment of American troops in 1965, de Gaulle suggested that peace in Indochina would be possible if the Great Powers agreed not to intervene, and to provide a massive technical and economic aid to the states of the region.87 It is therefore not surprising that the French president was so virulently critical of U.S. actions in Southeast Asia, since these carried the risk of causing a worldwide conflict.

304

Garret Martin

Conclusion Despite his exertions, de Gaulle’s hopes for France and the international system were not realized. Domestically, the events of May 1968 revealed for the first time a General out of touch and not in control of the situation. French people wanted more freedom, and less grandeur. This was a significant blow to his authority and aura from which he never really recovered. Furthermore, there is no doubt that his foreign policy conceptions were beset by a number of contradictions and flaws, such as underestimating the role of ideology and his overestimating France’s ability to influence others. Finally, by repressing the Prague Spring in the summer of 1968, the Soviet Union showed that it was not ready to take part in a new European continental system as imagined by the General. Notwithstanding all these valid points, this chapter argued that there was far more to Gaullist foreign policy than simply mere posturing. His ambitious grand design to overcome the Cold War bipolar order had a significant worldwide impact at the time, and still does today, as this chapter and the other contributions in the book will emphasize. First, the French president offered a vision of a post-Cold War world. While the conflict did not end quite as he had forecast, he contributed to the growing acceptance of the principle of détente. Second, de Gaulle’s legacy is vital to understanding France’s contemporary foreign policy, how it views its unique role (or so it believes) in the world and its emphasis on independence. Finally, the General has had a vital influence as well on some of the key debates that shape our world, including the nature of transatlantic relations. His conception of a “European Europe,” one more independent from the United States, continues to have an audience today.

Notes â•‡ 1.â•‡ This chapter is based on my doctoral research, see Garret Martin, Untying the Gaullian Knot: France and the Struggle to Overcome the Cold War Order, 1963–1968 (unpublished PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2006). â•‡ 2.â•‡ Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], 1964–1968, vol. XII, document 27. â•‡ 3.â•‡ David Calleo, “De Gaulle and the Monetary System: The Golden Rule,” in De Gaulle and the United States, 1930–1970: a centennial reappraisal, ed. Nicholas Wahl and Robert Paxton (Oxford: Berg, 1994), p. 239. â•‡ 4.â•‡ See for example Charles de Gaulle-Nelson Rockefeller meeting, October 3, 1963, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères Français [MAEF], Cabinet du Ministre [CM], Couve de Murville [CD], vol. 376; FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIII, document 270. â•‡ 5.â•‡ Calleo, “The Golden Rule,” p. 239.

A Gaullist Grand Strategy?

305

â•‡ 6.â•‡ Edgar Pisani, Le Général Indivis (Paris: Albin Michel, 1974), p. 50. â•‡ 7.â•‡ See for example Charles de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV (Paris: Plon, 1970), Press conference, January 14, 1963, p. 71. â•‡ 8.â•‡ Erin Mahan, Kennedy, De Gaulle, and Western Europe (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 23. â•‡ 9.â•‡ Paul-Henri Spaak, Combats Inachevés: vol. 2 De l’espoir aux déceptions (Paris: Fayard, 1969), p. 170. 10.â•‡ Philip Cerny, The politics of grandeur: ideological aspects of de Gaulle’s foreign policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 176. 11.â•‡ John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), p. 195. 12.â•‡ Julian Jackson, Charles de Gaulle (London: Haus, 2003), pp. 55–57. 13.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Le Fil de l’Épée (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1944), p. 44, 66. 14.â•‡ Fredrik Logevall, Choosing war: the lost chance for peace and the escalation of war in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 104; Mahan, Kennedy, De Gaulle, p. 27. 15.â•‡ Spaak, Combats Inachevés: vol. 2, p. 170; Kissinger is quoted in Catherine Durandin, La France contre l’Amérique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1994), p. 113; John Lewis Gaddis makes a similar argument than Kissinger about de Gaulle’s overarching aims in The Cold War, p. 142: ‘Both [Mao and de Gaulle] saw in the defiance of external authority a way to enhance their own internal legitimacy. Both sought to rebuild national self-esteem.’ 16.â•‡ Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 177. Anthony Hartley, Gaullism: The Rise and Fall of a Political Movement (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), and Cerny, Politics of Grandeur, make similar arguments about France’s Third World policy. They emphasize the imperatives of Great Power status, and how that pushed France to mostly focus on self-interested goals like economic and industrial benefits, rather than the more ambitious goal of liberating the Third World from superpower competition. 17.â•‡ John Newhouse, De Gaulle and the Anglo-Saxons (New York: Viking Press, 1970), p. 248. 18.â•‡ Éric Roussel, Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), p. 738. 19.â•‡ Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: politique étrangère du Général de Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998), p. 51. 20.â•‡ Stanley Hoffman, Éssais sur la France: Déclin ou Renouveau? (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1974), p. 321; Edward Kolodziej, French international policy under De Gaulle and Pompidou: the politics of grandeur (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 56. 21.â•‡ FRUS, 1964–1968, vol. XII, document 27. 22.â•‡ See for example Étienne Burin des Roziers, Retour aux Sources: 1962, l’année décisive (Paris: Plon, 1986), p. 60. 23.â•‡ See for example de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Press Conference, September 9, 1965, p.Â€383. 24.â•‡ Maurice Couve de Murville-Gerhard Schroeder meeting, February 14, 1964, MAEF, Secrétariat Général [SG], Entretiens et Messages [EM], vol. 20. 25.â•‡ See Memorandum to Eisenhower and Macmillan, September 17, 1958, MAEF, SG, EM, vol. 5.

306

Garret Martin

26.â•‡ For example, Charles de Gaulle-Konrad Adenauer meeting, July 4, 1963, MAEF, CM, CD, vol. 375; Charles de Gaulle-Konrad Adenauer meeting, March 10, 1966, MAEF, CM, CD, vol. 382. 27.â•‡ Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle: vol. 2 (Paris: Éditions de Fallois; Fayard, 1997), Council of Ministers, August 21, 1963, p. 32; de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Speech at the Élysée, April 16, 1964, p. 207. 28.â•‡ Pisani, Général Indivis, p. 86. 29.â•‡ Mahan, Kennedy, De Gaulle, p. 25, 145; Charles de Gaulle-Ludwig Erhard first meeting, July 4, 1964, MAEF, SG, EM, vol. 22. 30.â•‡ See Helen Parr, “Saving the Community: The French Response to Britain’s Second EEC Application in 1967,” Cold War History 6, no. 4 (2006), pp. 425–54. 31.â•‡ de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Second Interview with Michel Droit, December 14, 1965, p.Â€428. 32.â•‡ Pisani, Général Indivis, p. 88; Burin des Roziers, Retour aux Sources, p. 54; Michel Debré to Charles de Gaulle, March 18, 1968, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques [FNSP], Fonds Michel Debré Ministre des Finances 4 DE, Carton 7. 33.â•‡ Maurice Couve de Murville-John F. Kennedy meeting, October 7, 1963, MAEF, CM, CD, vol. 376; Charles de Gaulle-Emmanuel Pelaez meeting, February 8, 1963, MAEF, CM, CD, vol. 375; Hervé Alphand, L’étonnement d’être: journal, 1939– 1973 (Paris: Fayard, 1977), Diary entry August 26, 1963, p. 407. 34.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle to Maurice Couve de Murville, May 1, 1963, FNSP, Fonds Maurice Couve de Murville [CM], Carton 8; for more on the debates about nuclear strategy, see Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility, 1966–1967 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). 35.â•‡ See de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Press Conference, January 14, 1963, p.Â€72. 36.â•‡ See for example Charles de Gaulle-Frank Church meeting, May 4, 1966, MAEF, SG, EM, vol. 27. 37.â•‡ Maurice Couve de Murville, speech to l’Assemblée Nationale, June 12, 1963, FNSP, CM Carton 1. 38.â•‡ See Charles de Gaulle-George Brown meeting, December 16, 1966, MAEF, CM, CD, vol. 385. 39.â•‡ Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle: vol. 1 (Paris: Éditions de Fallois: Fayard, 1994), January 23, 1963, p. 367. 40.â•‡ See Jean Dromer to Charles de Gaulle, January 7, 1967, Archives Nationales Françaises, 5ème République Archives de la Présidence De Gaulle, Carton 29, Affaires Économiques Conseils Restreints. 41.â•‡ Georges-Henri Soutou, L’Alliance Incertaine: Les rapports politico-stratégiques franco-allemands 1954–1996 (Paris: Fayard, 1996), p. 278. 42.â•‡ Charles Bohlen, Witness to History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), p. 515; Vaïsse, La grandeur, p. 566. 43.â•‡ Quoted by Maurice Vaïsse, “Avant-propos,” in De Gaulle et la Russie, ed. by Maurice Vaïsse (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2006), p. 8; Marie-Pierre Rey, La tentation du rapprochement: France et URSS à l’heure de la détente (1964–1974) (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1991), p. 18.

A Gaullist Grand Strategy?

307

44.â•‡ Étienne Burin des Roziers, “Le non-alignement,” in La politique étrangère du Général de Gaulle, ed. by Élie Barnavi and Saül Friedländer (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1985), pp. 67–68. 45.â•‡ For example, Léo Hamon, in De Gaulle en son siècle: vol. 5, ed. by l’Institut Charles de Gaulle (Paris: La Documentation française, 1992), p. 508. 46.â•‡ For more on de Gaulle’s long-term blueprint for relations with the Soviet Union and for European security, see Georges-Henri Soutou, “De Gaulle’s France and the Soviet Union from Conflict to Détente,” in Europe, Cold War and Coexistence, 1963–1965, ed. by Wilfried Loth (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 173–75. 47.â•‡ See for example footnote 21 of Marie-Pierre Rey, “De Gaulle, l’URSS et la sécurité européenne, 1958–1969,” in Vaïsse, De Gaulle et la Russie, p. 220. 48.â•‡ Mahan, Kennedy, De Gaulle, p. 145. 49.â•‡ Mahan, Kennedy, De Gaulle, p. 147; Couve de Murville, Politique étrangère, p.Â€193. 50.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle-Shen Chang-Huan meeting, September 2, 1963, MAEF, CM, CD, vol. 376 51.â•‡ Soutou, “De Gaulle’s France,” p. 180. 52.â•‡ See de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Press Conference, February 4, 1965, p. 341. 53.â•‡ Ibid. 54.â•‡ Maurice Couve de Murville-Gerhard Schroeder meeting, November 12, 1965, MAEF, CM, CD, vol. 381; Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: vol. 3 (Paris: Le Seuil, 1986), p.Â€387. 55.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Lettres, Notes et Carnets: Tome X (Paris: Plon, 1987), undated personal note, p. 75. 56.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle-Frank Church meeting, May 4, 1966, MAEF, SG, EM, vol. 27. 57.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle: vol. 2, Meeting January 4, 1965, p. 313. 58.â•‡ See Frédéric Bozo, Deux Stratégies pour l’Europe: De Gaulle, les États-Unis et l’Alliance Atlantique, 1958–1969 (Paris: Plon, 1996), p. 163; Draft Circular written by François Puaux, undated, MAEF, Services des Pactes 1961–1970, vol. 261. 59.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle-Josef Cyrankiewicz meeting, September 10, 1965, FNSP, CM Carton 9. 60.â•‡ Charles Bohlen to Dean Rusk, Airgram number 2425, June 24, 1966, National Archives Record Administration [NARA], Record Group 59 [RG 59], Central Foreign Policy Files 1964–1966, Box 2180. 61.â•‡ Quoted by Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle: vol. 3 (Paris: Éditions de Fallois; Fayard, 2000), Meeting December 5, 1966, p. 206; Kolodziej, French international policy, pp. 350–51. 62.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle-Georg Kiesinger meeting, January 14, 1967, MAEF, SG, EM, vol. 29. 63.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle-Leonid Brezhnev-Aleksey Kosygin meeting, June 21, 1966, MAEF, SG, EM, vol. 27. 64.â•‡ See Charles de Gaulle-Aleksey Kosygin meeting, December 1, 1966, MAEF, SG, EM, vol. 29. 65.â•‡ Georges-Henri Soutou, “La décision française de quitter le commandement intégré de l’OTAN (1966),” in Von Truman bis Harmel: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Spannungsfeld von NATO und europäischer Integration, ed. by Hans-Joachim Harder

308

Garret Martin

(München: R. Oldenbourg, 2000), pp. 194–96; the reference to the U.S. as the underwriter of Europe featured in the briefing for de Gaulle’s trip to Moscow, according to a Quai source, see Jean de la Grandville-Richard Funkhouse meeting, July 9, 1966, NARA, RG 59, Records of the Ambassador Charles Bohlen, Box 33; As Burin des Roziers argues, de Gaulle was opposed to blocs, but not to spheres of influence or spheres of security, see “Le non-alignement,” p. 68. 66.â•‡ See Alphand, L’étonnement d’être, Diary entry January 3, 1965, p. 445. 67.â•‡ Couve de Murville, Politique étrangère, p. 446. 68.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle-Arturo Illia meeting, October 4, 1964, Documents Diplomatiques Français [DDF], 1964, Tome II. 69.â•‡ de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Reply to a toast given by Luis Giannattasio, October 8, 1964, p. 297. 70.â•‡ de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Press Conference, January 31, 1964, p. 170. 71.â•‡ de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Speech at the University of Mexico, March 18, 1964, p. 198. 72.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle-King Hussein of Jordan meeting, September 10, 1963, MAEF, SG, EM, vol. 19. 73.â•‡ Maurice Couve de Murville-John F Kennedy meeting, October 7, 1963, MAEF, CM, CD, vol. 376. 74.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle: vol. 1, Meeting February 13, 1963, p. 283. 75.â•‡ de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, p. 173; See also Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle: vol. 2, September 16, 1964, p. 517. 76.â•‡ Charles Zorgbibe, “De Gaulle et le Tiers Monde: Orientations Générales,” in De Gaulle et le Tiers Monde, ed. by Institut Charles de Gaulle (Paris: A. Pedone, 1984), p. 165; Cerny, Politics of grandeur, p. 204. 77.â•‡ Vaïsse, La grandeur, p. 454. 78.â•‡ Zorgbibe, “Orientations Générales,” p. 165; Cerny, Politics of grandeur, p. 204. 79.â•‡ Note on French financial aid to Algeria, November 13, 1963, DDF, 1963, Tome II. 80.â•‡ Semi-Bi Zan, in De Gaulle en son siècle: vol. 6, p. 295. 81.â•‡ Hartley, Gaullism, p. 238. 82.â•‡ Claude Wauthier, Quatre Présidents et l’Afrique, De Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard d’Estaing, Mitterrand: Quarante ans de politique africaine (Paris: Seuil, 1995), pp. 139–43, 144–45. 83.â•‡ For more on Gabon, see Pierre-Michel Durand, “Les relations Franco-Américaines au Gabon dans les Années 60 ou la ‘Petite Guerre Froide,’” in Les Relations FrancoAméricaines au XXème siècle, ed. by Pierre Melandri and Serge Ricard, Serge (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003), especially pp. 120–24. 84.â•‡ Cerny, Politics of grandeur, p. 203. 85.â•‡ Charles de Gaulle, Lettres, Notes et Carnets: Tome IX (Paris: Plon, 1986), Draft before a Council of Ministers, undated, p. 318. 86.â•‡ Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle: vol. 3, Council of Ministers, June 2, 1967, pp.Â€277–78. The French president only refers to 4 Great Powers since Communist China was in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. 87.â•‡ de Gaulle, Discours et Messages: Tome IV, Press Conference, July 23, 1964, p.Â€237.

Index

“Détente, Entente, and Cooperation,” 6, 35, 47, 49, 54, 299 “Europe from the Atlantic to the Ural,” 30, 36, 49, 100, 293 Acheson, Dean, 119 Adenauer, Konrad, 1, 5, 46, 87, 210, 298; partnership with de Gaulle, 29, 31, 43, 77, 87, 93, 116; and Tripartism, 87, 89-91 Adzhubei, Aleksei, 50 Alessandri, Jorge, 278-83, 286 Alessandrini, Adolfo, 89 Algeria, 1, 13, 18, 19, 74, 225-44; and China, 11, 160, 183, 185-89; Soviet View of, 29-30; and Vietnam, 157 Allende, Salvador, 278-80, 286 ALN. See National Liberation Army Alphand, Hervé, 119, 120, 160, 168, Argoud Affair, 45 Ball, George, 96-98, 113, 120, 125, 172 Bator, Francis, 125, 142 Belgium, 37, 65, 66, 89, 127, 193 Ben Bella, Ahmed, 226, 233-40 Ben-Gurion, David, 213-15 Berlin Crisis, 29, 31, 93, 95, 157-58, 218,Â€298

Blankenhorn, Herbert, 89, 102 Bohlen, Charles, 95, 98, 121, 167, 292 Boumedienne, Houari, 14, 229-31, 233-35, 238-41, 243 Bouteflika, Abdelaziz, 238-40, 242 Bowie, Robert, 118 Brandt, Willy, 5, 38, 51-55, 98 Brentano, Heinrich von, 90, 210 Brezhnev, Leonid, 32 Brosio, Manlio, 94, 96-97, 99-100, 103, 144, 146 Burgess, W. Randolph, 90, 102 Cambodia, 162-65, 168, 170-71, 182, 193, 195 Cameroon, 251, 253, 255, 256 Canada, 4, 91, 96, 166, 167, 190 Carstens, Karl, 46, 48 Castro, Fidel, 231, 276-78 Central African Republic, 253, 258 Chad, 253, 254, 258 Challe, Maurice, 227-31 Chen Yi, 161, 185, 195 Chian Kai-shek, 183-97 Chile, 14, 15, 271-87 China, People’s Republic of, 11, 46, 181-97; and France, 10, 11, 167-68; French diplomatic recognition of 309

310

Index

(1964), 11, 45, 125, 183, 191-94, 295; “two China” policy, 183, 185,Â€191-92; and Vietnam War, 15966, 170 Cleveland, Harlan, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103 Cold War, 25-26, 55, 111, 115, 231, 286; and Africa, 262, 263; China and, 11, 181, 185, 194, 197; de Gaulle’s view of, 15-16, 35-36, 77, 125, 291-94, 298, 301, 304; and decolonization, 226, 229, 244; France’s role in, 1, 2, 18, 125; and Latin America, 272, 274-76, 281, 286; Middle East and, 204, 205, 211, 218, 219; NATO’s role in, 147-48; U.S. strategy in, 113, 117, 118, 125,Â€126 Colombo, Emilio, 70 Courcel, Geoffroy de, 91, 92 Cuba, 236, 276, 278 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 122, 190, 295, 299; Impact on U.S.-French relations, 31, 112, 118, 131n30, 297 Czechoslovakia, 6, 36, 38, 54, 190, 231, 256; Soviet Invasion of (1968), 5, 36, 39, 55 Dahomey (now Benin), 253, 257, 258 de Gaulle, Charles: and Algeria, 13, 225-44; and Chile, 14, 271-87; and China, 11, 181-97; and Eastern Europe, 5, 36; early life, 1, 26; and European integration, 6, 63-79, 136, 139, 295-97; and foreign policy, 2, 15, 16-17, 19, 292, 304; and French nuclear deterrent, 113, 117, 121, 197; and Middle East, 12, 203-19; and NATO, 7-9, 85-104, 135, 139-49, 295, 300; Phnom Penh speech (1966), 10; relations with Ludwig Erhard, 45; trip to the Soviet Union (1966), 5, 7, 34; and tripartism, 2, 7, 86, 90-91; and United Kingdom, 9, 143; and United States, 8, 9, 112-29, 296; and the Vietnam War, 10, 33, 155-74,

303; and West Germany, 5, 31, 43-56; on Yalta Conference, 298. See also France de Leusse, Pierre, 99, 100, 142 Dean, Patrick, 140 Debré, Michel, 64, 259 Decolonization, 17, 18, 74, 158, 172, 301, 303; in Latin America, 272, 274; in Sub-Saharan Africa, 14, 25152, 259, 260, 265 Dejean, Maurice, 28, 29 Denmark, 37, 89, 91 Dien Bien Phu (1954), 18, 182, 251 Directorate proposal (1958). See Tripartism Dixon, Pierson, 72, 136 Douglas-Home, Alec, 138 Dubinin, Yuri, 33 Dulles, John Foster, 114, 115, 117, 128, 207, 213-14; and Tripartism, 87-93 EDC. See European Defense Community EEC. See European Economic Community Egypt, 12, 183-84, 204-6, 211-12, 216 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 119, 157, 209, 262, 272, 273; and de Gaulle, 30, 113-18; and Israel, 213, 214; and nuclear weapons, 116; and Tripartism, 87-88, 90, 295; and Vietnam, 157 Eisenhower Doctrine, 205 Elysée Treaty (1963), 5, 44, 77, 137, 297; de Gaulle’s disappointment with, 18, 46, 56; NATO’s reaction to, 94; Soviet reaction to, 30; U.S. reaction to, 123 Empty Chair Crisis (1965), 6, 65, 70, 72; and de Gaulle’s intentions, 79; European reaction to, 66, 96, 13940; impact on French-German relations, 47-48. See also European Ecocnomic Community (EEC) Erhard, Ludwig, 5, 44, 72, 77, 97 European Defense Community (EDC), 25, 26, 66, 71, 117, 131n29

Index

European Economic Community (EEC), 6, 47, 51, 63-79, 262; British application to join, 2, 7, 9, 52; Commission, 67, 68, 71, 72, 74; Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), 65, 69, 72, 73, 74; Soviet Union and, 25, 27, 32 Evian Accords (1962), 158, 189, 225, 232-38, 244; military clauses of, 240; significance of, 13, 226 Fanfani, Amintore, 90, 97, 115, 210, 218, 219 Faure, Edgar, 160, 189, 191 FCP. See French Communist Party Finletter, Thomas, 94, 96, 98 Flexible Response, 120, 127, 158 FLN. See Front de Libération Nationale Foccart, Jacques, 252 Force de Frappe, 8, 16, 45 Fouchet Plan, 65, 66, 115, 121, 265, 296; European reaction to, 46, 77 Fourth Republic, 1, 16, 25, 64, 74, 75, 291; foreign policy of, 2, 18, 19, 114 Franc zone, 252, 254-56, 259-61, 26364 France: and China 11, 16; European Security Conference, 36-38; and NATO, 7-9; nuclear cooperation with United States, 2, 113; presidential elections (1965), 95; and Soviet Union, 4-5, 16, 162; and United Kingdom, 9; and United States, 8; and Vietnam War, 16; and West Germany, 5-6, 18 Franco-African Community, 14, 25259, 263-64 Franco-German differences, 46 Franco-Soviet rapprochement, 28, 30, 35 Frei, Eduardo, 278-87 French Atlantic Fleet, 94, 100 French Communist Party (FCP), 27, 28, 30, 185, 197, 232 French Forces in Germany, 48-49 French Withdrawal from NATO (1966), 7-8, 169, 295, 300; and Britain, 135,

311

138, 140-42; and Germany, 48; Relocation of NATO facilities, 99; Soviet Reaction to, 34; U.S. reaction, 101, 125-29 Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), 13, 186, 225-44 Gabon, 253, 258, 265, 303 Gaillard, Félix, 2 GDR. See German Democratic Republic Geneva Conference (1954), 162, 164, 165, 168, 182, 195 Geneva Conference (1959), 31 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 29, 33, 35, 37, 256 German Reunification, 49 Germany. See West Germany Ghana, 251, 256, 258, 260, 262-63 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry, 77, 285 Gomulka, Wladislaw, 36 Gorse, Georges, 237, 239 GPRA. See Provisional Government of the Republic of Algeria Grazzi, Umberto, 88 Great Britain. See United Kingdom Greece, 89 Gromyko, Andrei, 32, 164, 165, 168 Guinea, 14, 138, 188, 253-66 Hallstein, Walter, 47-48, 52, 67, 68, 69,Â€70 Hallstein Doctrine, 50 Harmel, Pierre, 146 Harmel Report (1967), 8, 9, 102, 127, 146-47 Healey, Denis, 139 Herter, Christian, 117, 128 Ho Chi Minh, 182, 231 Houphouët-Boigny, Félix, 254, 257-58 India, 189, 192, 208, 210, 281 Indonesia, 165, 184 Iraq, 12, 187, 188, 205-8, 211-14 Israel, 12-13, 36, 203-4, 206, 210-19, 302 Italy, 193, 239, 278; and European integration, 70-72, 75, 78, 296; and

312

Index

the Middle East, 210, 215; and NATO, 88-91; and Soviet proposal for European Security conference, 37 Ivory Coast, 253, 254, 257-59 Jeanneney, Jean-Marcel, 235-36, 264 Jebb, Gledwyn, 90-91 Johnson, Lyndon B., 111, 135, 148; and de Gaulle, 8, 100, 101, 103, 124-28, 142; and NATO, 8-9, 119, 135, 14246; and Vietnam War, 160, 162, 163, 165-74 Jordan, 12, 184, 204-8, 211-16, 219, 302 Kennedy, John F., 8, 45, 158, 262, 276; and Europe, 118-24, 128, 136-38; and Macmillan, 121; and Multilateral Force (MLF), 120, 123; and Vietnam, 157 Khemisti, Mohammed, 235-37 Khrushchev, Nikita, 32, 50, 298-99; and Algeria, 29, 30; dispute with Mao, 185, 189; and Franco-German rapprochement, 30; invitation to Bonn, 50; and the Middle East, 209, 214, 217; view of de Gaulle, 27-28; visit to Paris, 29, 31 Kiesinger, Kurt Georg, 5-6, 44, 50-53, 55 Kissinger, Henry, 128, 191, 294 Komer, Robert, 125-26 Kosygin, Alexei, 32, 35 Kozyrev, Nikolai, 38 Kuznetsov, Vladimir, 29 Lahr, Rolf, 47, 53 Lalouette, Roger, 157 Laos, 156-57, 160-65 Latin America, 14-15, 188, 190, 271-87, 303; de Gaulle visit to, 14, 264, 27983 Lebanon, 12, 184, 185, 204-8, 212, 302 Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT, 1963), 31, 159, 190-91, 193, 298 Lisette, Gabriel, 254 LTBT. See Limited Test Ban Treaty Lucet, Charles, 171-73

Luns, Joseph, 97, 100 Luxembourg Compromise (1966), 48, 65, 69, 73 Macmillan, Harold, 121, 122, 148; and Africa, 259, 262; and European Integration, 136-38; and the Middle East, 209, 213; and Tripartism, 8788, 91, 114-15, 148, 295 Madagascar, 253, 254, 256-59 Mali, 253, 257-59, 262, 263 Malraux, André, 28, 168, 195 Manac’h, Etienne, 161, 166-68, 170, 196 Mansholt, Sicco, 70 Mao Zedong, 11-12, 168-69, 181-97, 231 Mauritania, 253, 257, 258 May Crisis (1968), 174, 196, 242, 287, 291, 304; and China, 12, 196; and Germany, 55; Soviet reaction to, 36 McGhee, George, 72 McNamara, Robert, 96, 100, 121, 125 Meir, Golda, 215-19 Messmer, Pierre, 139 Middle East, 12, 184, 203-19; and Embargo plans, 206-15. See also Mideast War (1967) Mideast War (1967), 12, 36 Mitterrand, François, 2, 3, 77, 189, 286 MLF. See Multilateral Force Mollet, Guy, 27 Molotov, Vyacheslav, 32 Morocco, 74, 228-29, 231, 235, 251, 254 Multilateral Force (MLF), 50, 118, 122,Â€124, 126, 144, 159; French opposition to, 8, 45, 48, 113, 136-38; Soviet opposition to, 32-33, 137, 161, 169 Murphy, Robert, 92 Murville, Maurice Couve de, 90, 100, 124, 279, 302; and European integration, 67, 71, 73; and the German question, 31, 33; and Germany, 47, 51; and the Middle East, 210, 214-16, 218-19; and USSR, 34, 168; and Vietnam, 156, 162-63, 169, 170, 172

Index

Nasser, Gamal abdel, 204-6, 211-13, 216-18, 274; and the 1956 Suez Crisis, 18, 183-84; de Gaulle’s antipathy toward, 12 National Liberation Army, 228-31, 23435 National Liberation Front (NLF), 163171 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization Netherlands, 89, 97, 100; and European integration, 65, 66, 69, 72, 74-75, 78; Ngo Dinh Diem, 157 Nixon, Richard, 52, 128, 174, 191, 197, 273 Nolting, Fritz, 88 Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 113, 124, 159 North Atlantic Council (NAC), 86, 92, 95, 103, 127, 144 North Atlantic Treaty, 95 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 7-9, 85-104, 135-49; French Withdrawal from (1966) See French Withdrawal from NATO (1966); North Vietnam, 10, 11, 15574, 181; Reform of, 18, 112-13, 116, 145, 159; Soviet view of, 27, 28; U.S. policy toward, 119, 120, 158 Norway, 68, 89, 91, 101 NPT. See Non Proliferation Treaty Oder-Neisse line, 27, 34, 50, 303 Ostpolitik, 5-6, 38, 50, 54, 129; Gaullist version of, 54, 156, 169 Pan-Arabism, 12, 204-5, 216 Patolichev, Nicolas, 32 Peres, Shimon, 212, 213 Peripheral Alliance, 213, 215, 221n30 Peyrefitte, Alain, 63, 157, 162, 240, 297 Pham Van Donh, 166 Pieds-noirs, 13, 227, 230, 236, 239-43 Pisani, Edgard, 68 Pius XII (Pope), 90 Podgorny, Nikolai, 32 Poland, 36, 183, 300

313

Policy of Movement, 50 Pompidou, Georges, 39, 168, 241, 285; and European integration, 2, 53, 76, 78, 79 Prague Spring (1968), 6, 38, 54, 304 Provisional Government of the Republic of Algeria (GPRA), 186-88, 229, 231-36 Reilly, Patrick, 143 Reykjavik Signal (1968), 37 Roberts, Frank, 96 Romania, 36, 54, 300 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 113 Roosevelt, Theodore, 73 Rostow, Walt W., 121 Rusk, Dean, 128, 160-63, 169-73; and NATO, 95, 118, 125, 140, 145, 147 Schröder, Gerhard, 45, 46, 47, 50, 77 Senegal, 253, 254, 257-59 Senghor, Léopold, 254 Seydoux, François, 56 Seydoux, Roger, 38 Shuckburgh, Evelyn, 94-95, 100, 103 Sihanouk, Norodom, 163-65, 193 Sino-Soviet split, 164, 181, 189-90, 196 Soames Affair, 55 South Vietnam, 155-74 Soviet Union: Criticism of de Gaulle, 30; European Security Conference, 30, 32, 33, 36-38; and Vietnam War, 159, 165, 167 Spaak, Paul-Henri, 103, 292, 294; and 1958 NATO Crisis, 86-93; and 1966 NATO Crisis, 97, 99, 102, 103 Stewart, Michael, 95, 139, 140 Stikker, Dirk Uipko, 94, 98 Sub-Saharan Africa, 4, 14, 16, 18, 251-65 Sudreau, Pierre, 29 Suez Crisis (1956), 18, 25, 183-84, 204, 210, 274 Syria, 205, 207, 212 Taiwan, 11, 183-87, 191-92 Thailand, 165, 195

314

Index

Third World, 29, 262-65, 272, 281, 301-3; Algeria and, 226, 231, 236-38, 242, 244; China and, 184-85, 193, 196; de Gaulle’s policy toward, 155, 158-59, 172, 291 Thorez, Maurice, 28 Togo, 253, 255, 256 Touré, Ahmed Sekou, 254, 256-58 Treaty of Rome (1957), 25, 64, 68, 71, 263 Tripartism, 86-93, 102, 114-15, 136, 208, 295 Tripoli Program, 226, 233-36, 238, 243 Tsiranana, Philibert, 254, 256 Tunisia, 228-29, 231, 235, 237, 251, 254 Turkey, 89, 206, 214 U-2 Affair (1960), 29 Union Française, 14, 252-54 United Kingdom, 9, 55, 94, 115, 13549, 254; French veto to British EEC membership, 65, 77, 78, 123; and Vietnam, 167. See also Tripartism United Nations, 231, 236, 253, 256, 258, 262-64, 274; and 1958 Middle East Crisis, 208-10; Chinese membership, 161, 184, 190; Secretary General, 166, 168, 208

United States, 8, 10, 111-29, 192, 234, 256, 262; and the Middle East, 207, 211, 213; and NATO, 87, 90-92, 96, 102. See also Tripartism Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), 253, 257, 258 Vichy regime, 1 Viet Minh, 157 Vietcong, 156 Vietnam War, 155-74, 274, 295, 300,Â€303; China and, 181, 182, 191, 195, 197; de Gaulle’s criticism, 33, 35, 139; de Gaulle’s peace initiatives, 10, 11, 15-16, 157-61, 172, 195 Vinogradov, Sergei, 27-30, 33, 34, 162 Voroshilov, Klement, 26 West Germany, 88, 158, 193 Wilson, Harold, 139, 140, 145 Yalta Conference, 298, 299 Youlou, Fulbert, 259 Zhou Enlai, 163-65, 168-69, 182-97 Zorin, Valerian, 33, 36, 162

About the Contributors

Christian Nuenlist is a lecturer in contemporary history at the University of Zurich and a foreign desk editor at the Swiss daily Aargauer Zeitung. His research focuses on NATO history, the Helsinki Process, and the role of Switzerland in the Cold War. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 2005. He is the author of Kennedys rechte Hand (CSS, 1999), a political biography of McGeorge Bundy in the Kennedy years, and the coeditor of Transforming NATO in the Cold War (Routledge, 2007) and Origins of the European Security System (Routledge, 2008). His articles appeared in Cold War History, International Journal, and Journal of Transatlantic Studies. Currently, he is finalizing a monograph titled Eisenhower, Kennedy and Political Cooperation in NATO, 1955–1963. Anna Locher is a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich. She specializes in transatlantic relations, NATO history, and the history of Finland. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 2006. She is the author of Crisis? What Crisis? NATO, de Gaulle, and the Future of the Alliance, 1963-1966 (Nomos, 2010), a monograph on NATO’s management of intra-bloc dissent in the 1960s. Her publications include articles in International Journal and Journal of Transatlantic Studies as well as reviews in Cold War History and Journal of Cold War Studies. She coedited Transforming NATO in the Cold War (Routledge, 2007) and Aspects of NATO History, 1957–1975 (CSS, 2006), as well as contributed to edited volumes. Garret Martin is an editor-at-large at the European Institute based in Washington, D.C. He has taught at the George Washington University in Washington and the University of Warwick. He obtained his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2006. His research 315

316

About the Contributors

focuses on France, the Cold War and the 1960s. He has published several articles in edited volumes, and more recently in the Journal of Cold War Studies. He is currently working on a monograph titled De Gaulle’s Cold War: Challenging American Hegemony, 1963-68. ***** Jeffrey James Byrne is a doctoral candidate in the International History Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he submitted his thesis, “The Pilot Nation: An International History of Revolutionary Algeria, 1958–1965,” in summer 2009. Beginning that fall, he became assistant professor in the History Department at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Carolyne Davidson is a graduate student in History at Yale University. Her dissertation focuses on U.S. policy towards France, particularly in the context of NATO. She was the Mellon Fellow in Contemporary History at George Washington University (2008–2009) and a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. (2007–2008). James Ellison is Reader in International History at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Threatening Europe: Britain and the Creation of the European Community, 1955-1958 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000) and The United States, Britain and the Transatlantic Crisis: Rising to the Gaullist Challenge, 1963-68 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He is a coconvenor of the International History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, London. Joaquín Fermandois is a Professor of Contemporary History in the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. He studied history at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, graduating in 1970. Graduate studies followed in West Germany and Spain. He received his Ph.D. in Seville in 1973. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1989. His two last books are Mundo y fin de mundo: Chile en la política mundial 1900–2004 [World and the End of the World: Chile in World Politics 1900–2004] (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 2005); and (with Jimena Bustos and María José Schneuer), Historia política del cobre 1945-2008 [Political History of Copper 1945-2008] (Santiago: Ediciones Centro de Estudios Bicentenario, 2009). Carine Germond is a lecturer inÂ€ theÂ€ history of European Integration at MaastrichtÂ€University and an associateÂ€researcher at the German Historical Institute in Paris.Â€SheÂ€holds aÂ€Ph.D.Â€in contemporary history from the UniversityÂ€ of Strasbourg. Her Ph.D.,Â€ titled “A Partnership of Necessity? The Franco–German Couple and the Unification of Europe, 1963–1969,” reevaluates the interactions and dynamics of Franco-German relations in

About the Contributors

317

Europe. Previously, she held the Clifford Hackett Lectureship in the History of European Integration at Yale UniversityÂ€andÂ€received a doctoral fellowship fromÂ€the German Research Society at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She has coedited A History of Franco–German Relations in Europe: From ‘Hereditary Enemies’ to Partners (New York, 2008) andÂ€published several articles on Franco-German relations and European integration. Gadi Heimann is a postdoctoral fellow at Haifa University. His dissertation focused on the relations between France and Israel in the de Gaulle years. Mark Kramer is director of the Cold War Studies Program at Harvard University and a senior fellow of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, and Brown Universities and was formerly an Academy Scholar in Harvard’s Academy of International and Area Studies and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He is the author of Crisis in Czechoslovakia, 1968: The Prague Spring and the Soviet Invasion: Soldier and State in Poland: Civil-Military Relations and Institutional Change After Communism. He has worked extensively in newly opened archives in Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and several Western countries. Piers Ludlow is a Reader in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research interests focus on the history of European integration and the cold war in Western Europe. He has published The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s: Negotiating the Gaullist Challenge (2006), edited European Integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik/Westpolitik, 1965–1973 (2007) and jointly edited Europe and the End of the Cold War: A Reappraisal (2008). Guia Migani is a researcher at the University of Padua (Dipartimento di Studi Internazionali) and Maitre de Conférences at Sciences Po-Paris. In 2004, she obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Florence and Sciences Po-Paris. She is the author of La France et l’Afrique sub-saharienne, 1957–1963: Histoire d’une décolonisation entre idéaux eurafricains et politique de puissance (2008). She has published articles about French decolonization, the association of the African countries to EEC and the European development policy. Marie-Pierre Rey is professor in Russian contemporary history and director of the Centre de Recherches sur l’Histoire des Slaves at the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne. She graduated from the University of Paris with a Ph.D. thesis on French–Soviet relations from 1964–1974. In 1997, she finished her habilitation titled The Soviet Union and Western Europe, 1953–1975. She was NATO fellow in 1995–1996 and a fellow of the Norwegian Nobel Institute in 2001–2002. Her publications include Alexandre Ier (Paris, Flammarion, 2009), which recently obtained a prize from the Académie des

318

About the Contributors

Sciences Morales et Politiques, Le dilemme russe: la Russie et l’Europe occidentale d’Ivan le Terrible à Boris Eltsine (Paris, Flammarion, 2002), De la Russie à l’Union soviétique: la construction de l’empire, 1462–1953 (Paris, Hachette, 1994), and La tentation du rapprochement, France et U.R.S.S. à l’heure de la détente, 1964–1974 (Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1991). She also edited Les Russes de Gorbatchev à Poutine (Paris, Armand Colin, 2005). Yuko Torikata is assistant professor at Osaka University. She studied as a visiting fellow at Cornell University in 2004–2005 and Université Pantheon- Sorbonne in 2005–2006, after having received her Ph.D. from Osaka University in 2003. She has written several papers on the Vietnam War and de Gaulle and Pompidou’s foreign policy; one of those papers was published in Diplomatic History. Her research interests lie in the diplomatic dimension of the Vietnam War, French foreign policy toward the U.S., and the transatlantic relationship. Qiang Zhai is a professor of history at Auburn University Montgomery specializing in studies of Chinese foreign relations. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Ohio University in 1991. He is the author of The Dragon, the Lion, and the Eagle: Chinese–British–American Relations, 1949–1958 (1994) and China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (2000). He is a coeditor of The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and his articles have appeared in Pacific Historical Review, Journal of American–East Asian Relations, Journal of Military History, Journal of Cold War Studies, and China Quarterly.