A Thousand Days

by Arthur M. Schlesinger

The Kennedy-McNamara strategy, brilliantly designed to reduce the threat of nuclear war and to cope with the worldwide nuances of communist aggression, thus caused confusion and concern. In European eyes the question of nuclear control became more crucial than ever. A multilateral force conditioned on the achievement of NATO’s non-nuclear goals had no great appeal; but the multilateral force in itself implied an entry into the nuclear club, and this did have appeal, especially for Bonn, so long excluded from membership. Early in 1962 the West Germans responded with a proposal for a rather large mixed-manned fleet of surface vessels equipped with missiles; soon afterward the Belgians expressed similar interest. The Bonn proposal said nothing about meeting NATO’s conventional force requirements.

  If the Ottawa formula had no widespread impact in Europe outside Bonn, it had dramatic impact in Washington. I doubt whether Kennedy, who supposed he was only mentioning a remote possibility to be considered if conventional needs were ever met, realized the energies he had released. For the idea of a multilateral force—MLF, as it was soon familiarly known—met a number of internal problems in our own policy. Though it served no strictly military function (some military men looked much askance on the idea of mixed-manning and the Joint Chiefs of Staff never liked the MLF), it appealed to the advocates of strategic interdependence as a means of preserving the unity of the deterrent and at the same time of giving NATO allies a nuclear role. Thus very early the MLF acquired a powerful convert in Thomas K. Finletter, our ambassador to NATO, a man of notable strength and clarity of mind and tenacity of purpose. At the same time, the MLF attracted advocates of economic partnership because it brought new and urgent pressure on the European governments to move toward federation. The reason for this was that the only body to which we would possibly yield our nuclear veto was the government of a united Western Europe. So long as the American veto remained, the MLF could never seem much more than a rather transparent public relations attempt to meet a supposed European demand for nuclear equality. But, if the MLF could help bring Monnet’s United States of Europe into existence, it would at last bring the strategic and economic strains in our Atlantic thought into harmony.

  Thus the Europeanists, whether tending toward interdependence, like Finletter, or toward partnership, like Ball, began to see in the MLF a useful vehicle—in time, the vehicle—for resolving the contradictions of our Atlantic policy. The MLF group—those who disagreed called it a cabal—became a resourceful and tireless lobby within the government, turning out a steady flow of well-reasoned documents in support of the proposal and carrying the case with ingenuity and zeal to the Europeans themselves. Though their primary concern was political, they received unexpected support in the summer of 1962 when a Navy study, in which Admiral Claude V. Ricketts was a leading figure, pronounced the MLF technically feasible. The Army and the Air Force, to which the MLF offered no role, continued negative.

  In September 1962, however, McGeorge Bundy, striking out in another direction in a speech at Copenhagen, declared that the United States was willing to accept a European nuclear force “genuinely unified and multilateral,” provided that it was integrated with the American deterrent; this, unlike MLF, meant a force without American participation. Then in October, Gerard Smith and Admiral John M. Lee headed a combined State-Defense party to brief NATO countries on the technical aspects of the MLF. The Smith-Lee mission, an exercise in salesmanship, found a good reception, as was to be expected, in Bonn and Brussels, polite interest in Rome and a mixed reaction in London—Lord Mountbatten and the Admiralty regarding the project as crazy and Lord Home and the Foreign Office prepared to give it, as Home said, “a fair wind.”

  Kennedy saw all this, including the Bundy speech and the Smith-Lee mission, as entirely exploratory. He was throwing out a variety of ideas in order to meet what he had been assured was an urgent European interest. But he was always careful not to impose American preoccupations on the Europeans; after all, they had a certain historic experience and were quite capable, in his judgment, of making their own decisions. This view accounted for the fact that the President, despite his strong ties to Europe, had no absolute doctrines about it. Both his collection of pre-1960 campaign addresses, The Strategy of Peace, and his 1960 campaign speeches were notable for the absence of particular Atlantic theories beyond general affirmations of the desirability of “a stable, creative partnership of equals.” He combined a strong sense of ultimate Atlantic solidarity with a wide tolerance of means.

  He simply felt that Europe would work toward unity in its own way. As for the character of this unity, he did not think nationalism altogether a bad thing. He knew that the United States would not lightly renounce its own sovereignty; this made him a bit skeptical of rigid supranational institutions in Europe. Though he had the greatest affection and respect for Jean Monnet, he was not tied to Monnet’s formulas—or to those of anyone else. His support of the trade expansion bill did not commit him to the theology of partnership any more than his support of the unified deterrent committed him to the theology of interdependence.

  He did think that British entry into the Common Market would increase the likelihood of a strong and sensible Europe; and he was determined to stop nuclear proliferation. As he told Adzhubei, Khrushchev’s son-in-law, in November 1961, “The United States, as a matter of national policy . . . will not give nuclear weapons to any country, and I would be extremely reluctant to see West Germany acquire a nuclear capacity of its own.” Though under certain pressure from the Pentagon and from some of his ambassadors in Paris to consider helping the French nuclear program, the President came to feel that such action would only legitimatize independent deterrents around the world and, in particular, stir Valkyrian longings in German breasts; in any case, de Gaulle never requested any assistance. “It has proved, perhaps,” Kennedy said hopefully in 1963, “somewhat more difficult to split the atom politically than it has been to split it scientifically.” Apart from nuclear proliferation and from Berlin—a decisive exception in 1961 but somewhat less thereafter—he regarded much of the talk about European nuclear deterrents, multilateral forces, conventional force levels, American divisions and so on as militarily supererogatory since it was based on the expectation of a Soviet attack on Western Europe “than which nothing is less likely.” He understood that the Pentagon’s business was to plan for every contingency, but he was not much impressed by its projections—the Soviet Union, for example, embarking on aggression in the Middle East and then for diversionary purposes trying to seize Hamburg.

  His basic attitude toward Europe was to do what he could to strengthen the hand of modern-minded Europeans in their quest for unity—not to tell Europe what it ought to do but to adjust American policy to the needs and tempo of rational European self-determination. This was the spirit of his moving address at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 1962. Here he mingled the Europeanist themes, speaking both of the “Atlantic partnership” which would be made possible when Europe formed “a more perfect union” and of a “Declaration of Interdependence” based on “the indivisible liberty of all.” In Europe, where the speech made a deep impression, it was correctly read as an affirmation of the American desire for close relationship with whatever sort of united Europe the genius of its people might evolve.

  5. SKYBOLT

  The President’s Philadelphia speech came at a time of rising optimism about European unity. Macmillan had talked with de Gaulle at the Chateau de Champs in early June; and, though the General explained that British entry would change the character of the Common Market politically as well as economically, he did so in such genial terms that the Prime Minister went away with the impression that he would offer no strong resistance to the British application. The trade bill was about to pass Congress. For a moment prospects gleamed for the Grand Design.

  Then in the weeks after the missile crisis the concepts of partnership and interdependence entered into unexpected conflict. The issue was, in its first appearance, technical: the decision o
f the United States government to cancel an agreement made by President Eisenhower with Macmillan at Camp David in 1960 to provide Great Britain with Skybolt missiles. But the problem very quickly became profoundly political. It involved other things than partnership and interdependence—most notably the relationship between Washington and London. Its solution, however, compelled the President to choose between those in his own government whose main interest lay in transforming Western Europe, including Britain, into a unified political and economic entity and those whose main interest lay in guarding the Anglo-American special relationship and integrity of the deterrent.

  Skybolt, a two-stage ballistic missile launched from a bomber, originated as the Air Force’s answer to Polaris in our permanent inter-service competition over the strategic deterrent. Though Britain could probably have had Polaris in 1960, it preferred Skybolt, which would prolong the life of the Royal Air Force’s V-bombers, while Polaris would force the Royal Navy to divert its resources from aircraft carriers to submarines. Moreover, Skybolt seemed more likely to maintain the ‘independence’ of the British deterrent; Polaris was already being mentioned in a NATO context. The agreement bound the United States to pay all the costs of Skybolt’s research and development. Britain had only to pay for the operational missiles she would eventually acquire. At the same time, Britain opened the Holy Loch naval base to American Polaris submarines. Though provisions were made for terminating the Skybolt agreement and though Skybolt and Holy Loch were nominally separate undertakings, the British left Camp David with the conviction that their loan of Holy Loch obligated the Americans to assist the British deterrent by providing one form of missile or another.

  Skybolt was an extraordinarily intricate device, which from the start some in the Pentagon regarded with dubiety. But the British, the Air Force and Douglas Aircraft, to whom manufacture was confided, kept up a steady flow of optimism. In the fall of 1961 McNamara, after a careful review and despite cautions from the scientists as well as from David Bell and Carl Kaysen, decided to let the program go ahead; presumably evidence was incomplete, and he had enough fights on his hands with the Air Force already. One day in January 1962 Kennedy wondered aloud at luncheon with Julian Amery, the British Minister of Aviation, whether Skybolt would ever work. Amery, much upset, responded that it was the basis of British nuclear defense; if anything happened, it could have far-reaching effects on Anglo-American relations. The President assured him that the United States was doing everything possible to make the project succeed. After the Air Force took Amery out to Douglas Aircraft on a tour of inspection, he returned to London well satisfied that Skybolt had a future.

  Work on Skybolt in the early months of 1962 involved more money and less progress than anyone had supposed, and by August McNamara’s cost-effectiveness studies convinced him that further investment would be a mistake. But he had the usual problems with the Air generals, whom he had just affronted by his fight against the RS-72 manned bomber; and he was also aware of the difficulties cancellation would create for Britain—both for its military future as a nuclear power and for the political future of the Conservative government. Brooding over the matter, he decided to postpone the decision until Congress adjourned and next year’s budget came up for review in November. When Peter Thorneycroft, the British Minister of Defense, visited Washington in mid-September overflowing with soulful reminders about the moral commitment to Skybolt, he elicited only guarded responses from McNamara.

  By the time of the missile crisis McNamara had substantially concluded to end American support for Skybolt. Rumors began to circulate, some reaching the British. On November 6, election night, an old friend, William R. Hawthorne, professor of engineering at Cambridge University and a close associate of Sir Solly Zuckerman, the Defense Ministry’s top scientist, came to our house to listen to the returns. Hawthorne’s expression was troubled as he drew me aside for a confidential conversation. He wasted little sympathy on Skybolt—like Zuckerman, he had long questioned the project on technical grounds—but he communicated deep concern about possible difficulties between our two countries and emphasized the importance of our taking the initiative in devising a substitute.

  The next day McNamara formally recommended cancellation to the President. Secretary Rusk, who was present, agreed with the decision. There was brief talk about other weapons systems which might be offered in place of Skybolt—possibly Polaris. Then the President, knowing that cancellation would be a heavy blow for the Tories, said that the British should be informed in ample time for them to prepare the ground before the decision was publicly announced. McNamara said he would call Ormsby Gore and also Thorneycroft. Rusk, apparently regarding Skybolt as a military rather than a political problem, made no objection.

  When McNamara gave Ormsby Gore the bad news the next day, the Ambassador, startled and appalled, said, as he would continue to say in the next weeks, that it would be “political dynamite” in London. On the following, day McNamara called Thorneycroft. The Minister of Defense, alerted by Ormsby Gore’s report, was relatively calm and expressed interest in alternatives, especially in Polaris. McNamara offered to go to London at the end of the month to discuss the matter further.

  The President told me later (in January) that he was totally unable to understand London’s reaction in the days and weeks after November 8. He had expected that the British might propose, for example, a combined committee charged with looking into the situation, rendering a final recommendation and coming up with an alternative. Instead, he said in perplexity, they did nothing, even though the political life of their own government was at stake.* The irony was that, while Washington was waiting for London to make its proposals, London was waiting for Washington to recommend its substitutes.

  A number of things contributed to passivity. The British may still have hoped that the Air Force or the Joint Chiefs would somehow persuade McNamara to reverse his decision. They counted on the moral obligation, presumably inherited from Camp David, to compensate for Skybolt. The Prime Minister was puzzled by the presidential silence but doubted whether he should be the first to open the matter at the top level; moreover, he faced pressing troubles inside his own party and in Parliament. Our exceptionally able ambassador in London, David Bruce, had been informed of the Skybolt decision only by McNamara and through military channels. Hearing nothing from State, he felt immobilized. When he finally sent warnings to the Department toward the end of the month, he received no instructions. The special relationship was in a strange impasse as each partner lingered by the telephone. At the end of the month London and Washington jointly announced a meeting between the Prime Minister and the President for Nassau on December 18, three days after Macmillan was to meet with de Gaulle in France; but this was for other matters. Skybolt was not even on the original agenda.

  McNamara, supposing wrongly that the British were hard at work on contingency planning, had directed his own people to appraise possible substitutes for Skybolt. They fixed quickly on Polaris; for, in the view of those who cared about a unified deterrent, the addition of Polaris to a British nuclear force which, as McNamara had pointed out after Ann Arbor, was for all practical purposes integrated with our own, raised no serious problem. The Europeanists in State, however, were now organizing to defend the conception of transatlantic partnership. They had regretted the cancellation of Skybolt, fearing that it would overthrow the government in London committed to bring Britain into Europe. But, if Skybolt had to go, at least let it carry the special relationship down with it; this would place the British and the Germans on a level of equality in the missile age, make Bonn more manageable and facilitate British entry into Europe. What worried the Europeanists was the thought that the United States by offering a replacement for Skybolt—Polaris, for example—would prolong the British deterrent, intensify Bonn’s demand for a nuclear role and prove to de Gaulle that Britain preferred the United States to Europe. Some Europeanists, like Schaetzel, were chiefly concerned wtih the Common Market, others, like W
alt Rostow and Henry Owen of the Policy Planning Council, with the MLF. But both British entry into the Market and the MLF were now, in their view, at stake, and Skybolt offered the grand opportunity to terminate the special relationship and force Britain into Europe.

  But these were still mostly flurries behind the scenes. With no evidence of special concern from London, Washington concluded that the British were not too unhappy, and the Skybolt problem receded from official minds. When a so-called defense policy conference was convened at the end of November, Skybolt received only cursory attention. Rusk said he wished that Hound Dog, one of the alternative missiles under consideration, had been named Skybolt B. McNamara replied that the Secretary of State would have been great in the automobile business. The talk then turned to the problem of persuading NATO to increase its conventional forces.

  McNamara’s trip to London, postponed because of the annual tussle with the defense budget, was finally set for December 11. It was preceded by five successive failures of Skybolt tests—a fact to which McNamara imprudently drew the attention of the British press when he landed at London Airport. The talks with Thorneycroft were a Pinero drama of misunderstanding: Thorneycroft expecting McNamara to propose Polaris, McNamara expecting Thorneycroft to request it. When McNamara’s careful explanation of Skybolt’s technical shortcomings failed to conclude in any substitute offer which Thorneycroft thought the British with dignity could accept, the Minister of Defense took the offensive. Waving aside the technical arguments—one could find experts, he said, on either side—he, concentrated on the political consequences of cancellation: for the Tory government, for Anglo-American understanding. Those who had always been saying that it was impossible to rely on the United States would be confirmed; those who had argued for that reliance would be betrayed. In the context of the Ann Arbor speech, cancellation would be taken as a deliberate American effort to drive Britain out of the nuclear game. It would tear the heart out of the special relationship. Finally Thorneycroft asked the hard question: if the United States were cancelling Skybolt for technical reasons, would it be prepared to state publicly that it would do everything possible to help Britain preserve its independent nuclear role?