Document created: 11 August 05
Air University Review, September-October 1966

The Original United States Concept of NATO

Colonel E.P. Braucher

By early 1966 the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had become uncertain. There had for some time been differences among the NATO partners regarding the substance of military strategy and the question of control over nuclear weapons. But probably the source of greater concern to the other NATO nations as the alliance rounded out its seventeenth year was the possibility that President Charles de Gaulle would announce his intention to take France out of NATO one year after 1969, when, in accordance with member nations have the option of renouncing it.

The world of 1966 is, of course, different from the world of 1949. The present attitudes of the member nations toward NATO are almost sure to be different in certain respects from their original concepts of the alliance.  As the United States considers the present situation in NATO and the probable future of the alliance, it should be instructive to review the original concept which the United States had of the North Atlantic Treaty.

Unwanted involvement of the United States in two world wars (which it had presumably done nothing to start but also very little to prevent) had by 1943 convinced the majority of its citizens that this nation could not, in isolation, adequately provide for its own security. Bitter experience had taught them that a breach of the peace anywhere in the world, and particularly in Europe, was a threat to U.S. security. Thus, the maintenance of international peace was recognized as vital to the national security.

Despite the inability of the League of Nations to prevent World War II, most Americans did not reject the concept of a general international organization for collective security. The majority view seemed to be that the League failed because it had not been provided with adequate enforcement capability—and because of the failure of the United States to participate. By the time of the Anglo-American meeting at Quebec in August 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had come to view the creation of an international organization open to membership to all nations as an important step in preventing future conflicts among the great powers. At this conference the American delegation tabled a draft of a four-power declaration calling for the creation of such an organization. The Congress supported the President. In the Fulbright Resolution, passed on 21 September 1943, the House of Representatives expressed itself as “favoring the creation of appropriate international machinery with power adequate to establish and maintain a just and lasting peace among the nations of the world…” ¹ The Senate was more explicit with respect to the form of this machinery. In its Connally Resolution, passed on 5 November 1943, the Senate recognized “the necessity of there being established at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, and open to membership by all such states, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security.”  ² These resolutions provided the basis for United States participation in the activities which led to the establishment of the United nations in 1945. The United Nations Charter was adopted on 26 June in San Francisco.

In 1945 the hopes of most Americans and other peoples of the world for the preservation of peace reposed in the commitments which the signatory nations had made when the signed the United Nations Charter and in the peace-keeping machinery which was to be set up in accordance with its provisions. Article 43 of the charter envisaged the negotiation of agreements “as soon as possible”  by which the member nations would make available to the Security Council armed forces,  assistance, and facilities required by it to fulfill its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, assigned in Article 24. Without such an international peace force, the United Nations would be as powerless as the League of Nations before it to maintain international peace and security. As President Harry S Truman said on 27 October 1945: “We are convinced that the preservation of peace between nations requires a United Nations Organization composed of all the peace-loving nations of the world who are willing jointly to use force if necessary to insure peace.”³

But the agreements called for by Article 43 of the United Nations Charter were never negotiated. In the absence of unanimity among the great powers, manifested by the Soviet Union’s frequent recourse to the veto to block Security Council action on substantive matters, it proved to be impossible to establish an international force within the United Nations.

With the end of World War II there was a rapid deterioration in East-West relations. As President Truman later wrote in his memoirs:

Many differences among the Allies had been subordinated during the war, but now that the common enemy was defeated, the problems of peace had brought these differences to the surface. We had already discovered how difficult the Russians could be, but in the months that immediately followed the war this was revealed even further.⁴

It soon became clear that the Russians were not in earnest about peace; they were planning world conquest.

By the end of 1947 it had become obvious to the free nations of western Europe that the United Nations did not have and was not going to be given the capability to protect them against the threat posed by the Soviet Union, which by that time had consolidated its control over eastern Europe and attempted to extend its power into the Near East. They would have to look elsewhere for security. Their individual capabilities for defense being clearly inadequate, they would have to get help. Their first step was to exercise their inherent right of collective self-defense, which had been explicitly recognized in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

On 22 January 1948 Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary, called for the formation of a “Western Union.”  The Communist coup in Czechoslovakia on 24 February 1948 served to expedite action on Bevin’s proposal. Eight days after the coup, delegates of the United Kingdom, France, and the Benelux nations met in Brussels and drafted a 50-year treaty of economic and social cooperation and common defense against aggression.⁵ Known as the Brussels Pact, it was predicated on American aid, which President Truman, in an address to a joint session of the Congress on 17 March 1948 (just as the pact was being signed), made clear would be forthcoming:

This development deserves our full support. I am confident that the United States will, by appropriate means, extend to the free nations the support which the situation requires. I am sure that the determination of the free countries of Europe to protect themselves will be matched by an equal determination on our part to help them to do so.⁶

The signing of the Brussels Pact was warmly received by the United States, which was very much in favor of all steps toward European self-help, mutual aid, and integration. But it seems clear that the United States was not then contemplating formal association with the Brussels Pact nations. President Truman made no reference to such an association in his address to the Congress. General George C. Marshall, who was Secretary of State at that time, viewed the Brussels Pact as a purely European initiative. In a statement to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on 1 August 1949 he said:

In the late fall of 1947, Mr. Bevin spoke to me about an idea he had for the formation of some union in Europe, and he had in mind a statement by this Government at the same time he made his proposal. I declined the idea of such a statement, first because the proposal was then in too indefinite a form, but more importantly because I felt that the initiation of the action should be purely European to demonstrate their determination to organize for mutual cooperative defense against aggression. The Western Union soon followed, with the Brussels Pact or Treaty. ⁷

President Truman, having in mind the lesson of President Wilson’s inability to bring the United States into the League of Nations in 1920 because of Senate opposition, saw the necessity for Congressional confirmation of his declaration of support for the Brussels Pact nations. Even as the State Department was working out the details for this support (which were incorporated into the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949), Under Secretary of State Robert A. Lovett and Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, Republican foreign policy spokesman, were collaborating on a Congressional statement of policy. This became Senate Resolution 239, which received overwhelming approval of the Senate on 11 June 1948. Known as the Vandenberg Resolution, it put the Congress on record as favoring “association of the United States, by constitutional process, with such regional and other collective arrangements as are based on continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, and as affect its national security.” ⁸ This resolution provided the basis for United States participation in NATO.

On 2 July 1948 President Truman approved a policy statement that the Vandenberg Resolution should be implemented to the fullest extent possible. Talks with the Brussels Pact powers and Canada got under way on 6 July. By 9 September the conferees had reached agreement on the necessity for a North Atlantic security pact. By late October there was agreement in principle on the negotiation of such a pact. By the time of President Truman’s inauguration on 20 January 1949, the work on the treaty text was nearly completed, so that he was able to make the first public allusion to the North Atlantic Treaty in his inaugural address:

We are now working out with a number of countries a joint agreement designed to strengthen the security of the North Atlantic area. Such an agreement would take the form of a collective defense arrangement within the terms of the United Nations Charter.⁹

The President’s announcement was followed over the next six months by a series of addresses and statements by Administration officials intended to convince the American people that it was in the best interests of the United States to depart from precedent and participate in peacetime in a military alliance with nations outside the Western Hemisphere.¹⁰ From these addresses and statements and from the statements of Congressional leaders and the published conclusions of Congressional committees, it is clear that the United States conceived of the North Atlantic Treaty as a commitment which would be very much in its interest.

The treaty was expected to

-enhance the national security of the United States
-deter aggression in the North Atlantic area
-contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security
-strengthen the United Nations
-promote the economic recovery and political stability of the free nations of Western Europe
-contribute to the solution of the German problem
-encourage European integration
-reduce the long-term cost to the United States of its economic and military aid to European nations.

The continued intransigence and aggressive activities of the Soviet Union persuaded many, probably most, Americans in 1949 that the accession of the United States to the North Atlantic Treaty was consistent with its long-term national security interests. President Truman expressed this point of view in a message of 12 April 1949 transmitting the treaty to the Senate: “This treaty is an expression of the desire of the people of the United States for peace and security, for the continuing opportunity to live and work in freedom.”¹¹

The importance of European security to American security had been highlighted by Secretary of State Dean Acheson on 18 March in an address to the nation shortly after the text of the treaty had been released:

We have learned our history lesson from two world wars in less than half a century. That experience has taught us that the control of Europe by a single aggressive, unfriendly power would constitute an intolerable threat to the national security of the United States. We participated in those two great wars to preserve the integrity and independence of the European half of the Atlantic community in order to preserve the integrity and independence of the American half. It is a simple fact, proved by experience, that an outside attack on one member of this community is an attack upon all members.¹²

The United States needed allies, as Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson was to testify to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 29 July 1949: “Our security depends, in my opinion and in the opinion of the National Military Establishment, depends first on our own strength, and second on the strength of our allies. We can no longer isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, nor rely on our own arms alone.”¹³ On 5 July Senator Tom Connally had expressed his strong support for the North Atlantic Treaty in a speech in the Senate:

There is one final benefit which, in all candor, should not be overlooked. If our efforts for peace fail and war is thrust upon us we shall not stand alone. Our strategic positions will be greatly improved and we shall have a much better opportunity to make effective use of our armed strength. Eleven friendly nations, with a vigorous population and vast industrial production, pledge to stand with us and to resist the attack from whatever quarter it may come.¹⁴

The United States anticipated that its security and that of the other signatories of the treaty would be steadily enhanced as each nation gave effect to its commitment by doing its utmost to help itself and its partners develop their collective capacity to resist armed attack. Senator Connally also stressed this point:

This leads me to mention yet another great advantage to this country: I refer to the pledge of self-help and mutual aid to maintain and develop the individual and collective capacities of the member states to resist armed attack. We must never forget that in this collective enterprise their strength is our strength. Their weakness is our weakness. It would be inimical to our own national interest and to the cause of world peace if the free countries of Europe were to become so weak and defenseless as to invite disaster, one by one. That would indeed be the road to war.¹⁵

Finally, the United States viewed the treaty as providing the basis for greater security for the North Atlantic nations by enabling them to formalize their natural association before it became necessary for them to improvise once again, as in two world wars, under the pressure of threatened catastrophe.¹⁶

In Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty the signatory nations established the principle that an armed attack against one or more of them was to be considered an attack against them all. President Truman saw in this commitment a powerful deterrent to aggression. The primary purpose of the treaty, he told the nation in his inaugural address, was “to provide unmistakable proof of the joint determination of the free countries to resist armed attack from any quarter. . . . If we can make it sufficiently clear, in advance, that any armed attack affecting our national security would be met with overwhelming force, the armed attack might never occur.”¹⁷

Secretary Acheson, in a statement to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 28 July 1949 in connection with its consideration of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949, expressed this concept in very straightforward terms:

The North Atlantic Treaty provides for concerted action in defense of an area which is absolutely vital to our security interest. That common defense will cancel out an advantage which marauding nations have always had in Europe. I mean the advantage of piecemeal aggression, the technique of the fait accompli that dictators have used to absorb independent nations before and since World War II.

The fundamental pledge of the treaty, that an attack on one signatory will mean an attack on all, closes the door to piecemeal aggression.

Does this mean, then, a determined aggressor nation will take the desperate angle of an all-out war? I do not believe that in the light of the pledge of the treaty, and with the military program now proposed, any aggressor at this time would dare to do so.¹⁸

“The principal benefit to the United States is the great promise this treaty holds for world peace,”  Senator Connally had said.¹⁹ The report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the North Atlantic Treaty also saw its influence for peace extending beyond the North Atlantic area to the world as a whole:

The security of the North Atlantic area is vital to the national security of the United States and of key importance to world peace and security. . . . The committee strongly believes that it would be in the best interests of the United States and indeed, the entire world, to sustain and encourage the momentum of confidence that has been building up in Europe, by ratifying the treaty at an early date.²⁰

President Truman, in his 12 April message, pointed out another way in which the treaty contributed to world peace—its effect as an example to the world of international cooperation to assure the future of freedom:

Together, our joint strength is of tremendous significance to the future of freemen in every part of the world. For this treaty is clear evidence that differences in language and in economic and political systems are no real bar to the effective association of nations devoted to the great principles of human freedom and justice.²¹

The North Atlantic Treaty was expressly subordinated to the purposes, principles, and provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations saw it as designed to foster those conditions of peace and stability in the world which are essential if the United Nations is to function successfully.²² This is evidence that in 1949 the United States still looked to the United Nations as the long-term best hope for worldwide peace and security. Secretary Acheson in his 7 April 1949 letter to the President transmitting the North Atlantic Treaty stated: “The foreign policy of the United States is based squarely upon the United Nations as the primary instrumentality of international peace and progress.”²³ 

But it was also generally recognized that the United Nations had not yet become effective in the maintenance of international peace and security. Senator Connally, in his 5 July 1949 speech to the Senate, reviewed the situation:

No international document was ever endowed by the people of the world with greater promise of security and prosperity. In the very first article [of the United Nations Charter] the signatories pledged themselves to maintain international peace and security, and to that end ‘to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of aggression or other breaches of the peace. . .’

Yet here we stand, 4 years away from San Francisco, with undiminished belief in the Charter, in the correctness of its work and spirit, and in the fundamental need for a universal United Nations. But no sincere and realistic person can blind himself to the fact that peace is still remote and the security we long for is yet to be attained. The long catalog of 30 Soviet vetoes and the frustrated efforts to write a peace treaty with Germany bear eloquent witness of how effectively the peace and security machinery of the world has been hampered.²⁴

The United States believed that the United Nations must be strengthened. In 1948 this had been the purpose of the Vandenberg Resolution. In 1949 this was viewed as one of the important objectives of the North Atlantic Treaty. Ambassador Warren R. Austin told the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 14 April 1949:

Its framers have kept actively in mind, throughout the negotiating period, the great measure of strength and support which this defense arrangement should bring to the United Nations, the paramount international organization for the maintenance of peace and security.²⁵

It is evident from the statements of Administration and Congressional spokesmen that, while reiterating that the North Atlantic Treaty would strengthen the United Nations, they saw this being done in ways rather more indirect than direct. Secretary Acheson stated that the treaty was “designed to strengthen the United Nations by providing for the orderly and coordinated fulfillment of the obligations of the participating nations under the Charter.”²⁶ Ambassador Austin saw the treaty as strengthening the United Nations “by expressing the cooperative spirit which is necessary to animate any great voluntary peace effort.”²⁷ The Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged ratification of the treaty because, among other things, it was “designed to foster those conditions of peace and stability in the world which are essential if the United Nations is to function successfully.”²⁸

Some Americans apparently supported the North Atlantic Treaty as a necessary and therefore practical step but still looked forward to the day when the United Nations would be able to fulfill its promise as—in President Truman’s words—“a great instrument for peace and security and human progress in the world.”²⁹ Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, seemed to be speaking for these Americans when she said in the committee on 28 July 1949:

I for one believe that the United Nations can be strengthened; that it will be strengthened and there will be an international police force under that world organization.

In the meantime, we can either sit idly by and wring our hands or take positive action. The Atlantic Pact goes as far as possible under present conditions. It is a program for collective security, It is not an aggressive program but a program of defense, a program that can be a pilot plant for a future world police force.³⁰

In the aftermath of World War II only the United States was in a position to provide relief to the devastated nations, victors as well as vanquished. As President Truman was to write in his memoirs: “In the first two years that followed V-J Day the United States provided more than fifteen billion dollars in loans and grants for the relief of the victims of war.”³¹

By the spring of 1947 it had become evident to the United States that piecemeal emergency assistance, while relieving suffering, was not rebuilding the economy of Europe. The United States also became convinced, according to President Truman, that “if the nations of Europe could be induced to develop their own solution of Europe’s economic problems, viewed as a whole and tackled cooperatively rather than as separate national problems, United States aid would be more effective and the strength of a recovered Europe would be better sustained.”³² This concept was also given expression by Secretary of State George C. Marshall in his famous 5 June 1947 speech at Harvard University. The response of the European nations was immediate and enthusiastic; the European Recovery Program, known as the Marshall Plan, was the ultimate result.³³

It was generally considered essential that Western Europe’s economic recovery be given priority over its rearmament. However, it became apparent that West Europe’s economic recovery could not be completely achieved in the atmosphere of insecurity and fear which the Soviet threat had induced in its peoples. In his address to the Congress on 17 March 1948 President Truman stated: “While economic recovery in Europe is essential, measures for economic rehabilitation alone are not enough. The free nations of Europe realize that economic recovery, if it is to succeed, must be afforded some measure of protection against internal and external aggression.”  He continued with a reference to the Brussels Pact: “The movement toward economic cooperation has been followed by a movement toward common self-protection in the face of the growing menace to their freedom.” ³⁴

During the negotiations in the fall of 1948 which resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty, President Truman perceived that the need to create a sense of security in Europe in order to facilitate its economic recovery was “the key point.”³⁵ It became one of the Administration’s principal arguments for the North Atlantic Treaty. One of the clearest and most complete statements of this concept was provided by Secretary Acheson on 8 August 1949, to the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees during their joint hearings on the Military Assistance Program:

With respect to Europe, primary emphasis has been placed upon the revival of the economies of the free peoples as the necessary foundation of their social structure and political organization. The European Recovery Program has in fact achieved a gratifying degree of economic rehabilitation. It also has produced salutary results in the form of greater political stability and renewed confidence in the future. 

Yet, it has become increasingly clear that economic measures alone are not enough. Economic recovery itself depends to a considerable degree upon the people being inspired by a sense of security and the promise of the future to put forth their best effort over a long period. This sense of security and faith in the future in turn depend upon a firm belief in the ability of the free nations to defend themselves against armed aggression. Such a belief is notably lacking in Western Europe today. Therefore, the capacity of mutual self-defense on the part of the free nations of Europe must be increased, largely by their own effort, without impeding progress toward economic recovery. We must not now, by failing to recognize fully the fear of security which is growing out of the clear pressures exacted from the East, lose the gains already made. Prompt action is imperative to create the conditions that will allay that fear and will erase the conditions that might encourage an aggressor to resort to military force. 

It is for these reasons that the European Recovery Program, the North Atlantic Treaty, and the proposed Military Assistance Program are elements of a broad and soundly conceived policy with definite and attainable objectives. Two of the pillars are in place. Favorable action on the Military Assistance Program is vitally necessary now as an essential element of the structure.³⁶

The German problem in the late 1940’s had two aspects. First, there was the problem of relations between the Soviet Union on the one hand and the United States, Great Britain, and France on the other. Second, there was the problem arising from the quite different attitudes of the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and France on the other toward Germany. The United States and Great Britain wanted Germany’s economic revival to reduce the burden on them which a destitute Germany imposed. France was fearful of Germany’s economic resurgence because of what it would mean in terms of restored German war potential.

The North Atlantic Treaty, besides offering additional strength to the Western powers in their dealings with the Soviet Union, appeared to present a solution to the problem of France’s very real fear of Germany. This point was not emphasized as much by Administration spokesmen for the treaty as by the Senate. In its report on the North Atlantic Treaty the Senate Foreign Relations Committee characterized it as “essential to the development of that degree of unity and security among the North Atlantic states which will make possible the reintegration of Germany into western Europe and the ultimate solution of the German problem.”³⁷

Senator Vandenberg addressed the German problem in some detail in a speech to the Senate on 6 July 1949 in defense of the North Atlantic Treaty:

The treaty is here for another reason. We have not finished World War II until the German problem is settled. There can be neither peace nor economic stability in western Europe until the German problem is liquidated. There can be no release for us from our own burdensome occupational responsibilities in western Germany until free and self-sufficient government is reestablished in these areas. This means, on the one hand, that the Germans must have a reasonable and hopeful opportunity to build a sound and healthy economy for themselves and to resume their place in the family of nations. But it requires, on the other hand, that this recovery shall not restore the aggressive military potential which, twice in our lives, has plunged the world in war.

This time there must be no mistakes upon this score. Germany’s immediate neighbors cannot be blamed for special solicitude in this respect. They cannot be blamed for insisting that German recovery must be subordinate to these protections. To meet this elementary need, . . . we have now signed this pending 20-year pact with our western allies. . . . It would apply just as promptly and effectively to a German aggressor as it does to a Communist aggressor. But by the same token it also is a powerful and well-nigh indispensable aid to maximum German recovery—and therefore to European recovery—because it permits greater recovery latitudes than Germany’s twice-ravished neighbors would otherwise tolerate.³⁸

During this period there was great interest in the United States in European integration. Its value was reviewed by Secretary Acheson in a statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, meeting in joint session on 8 February 1949 to consider action on the European Recovery Program:

I believe that we have recognized here, from the very beginning, and so have the participating countries, that the greater the unity, both economic and political, among the free nations of Europe, the greater the progress towards the restoration of those conditions of economic health, social tranquillity, political freedom, and security which represents our common goal.³⁹

The European Recovery Program, like the Brussels Pact, was viewed by the United States as a step toward the closer integration of the free nations of Europe. Although two non-European nations were signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty, it also was seen as contributing to European integration. In its report on the treaty, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee stated:

Since 10 of the nations forming the North Atlantic Pact are European nations, the committee considered the possible effect of the pact on the development of European integration in the economic and political fields. Much practical integration has already been achieved through the Benelux union and the Brussels Pact. The European recovery program, which should insure a degree of lasting economic integration of the participating nations, and the proposed Council of Europe, which has as its objective cooperation in the political field, are concrete and encouraging steps toward unity.

The committee believes that the North Atlantic Pact, by providing means for cooperation in matters of common security and national defense, creates a favorable climate for further steps toward progressively closer European integration. Moreover, cooperation for common security gives added momentum to the movement toward unification.⁴⁰

The Senate, rather than the Administration, appears to have taken the lead in advancing the idea that one of the consequences of cooperation under the North Atlantic Treaty would be lower long-term costs to the United States of its economic and military aid to European nations. The Foreign Relations Committee expressed its conviction that “the greater the degree of coordination achieved the greater will be the results at the least cost to each participant.”⁴¹ Senator Connally, in his 5 July 1949 speech to the Senate, stated:  “. . . I am certain that article 3 will enable all of us to consider defense measures on a very practical basis, to comprehend rational arrangements that will in the long run help to reduce the burden of armaments.”⁴² He also envisaged savings in economic aid resulting from the treaty:

With this protection afforded by the Atlantic Pact, western Europe can breathe easier again. It can plan its future with renewed hope. New business enterprises, increased trade, and planning for long-range recovery should be the direct results.

The treaty is thus a logical and necessary complement to the recovery program. Through it we shall protect our past and future investments in that famous calculated risk [the European Recovery Program] which already has paid remarkable dividends. We might even look forward to the time when we can anticipate rather substantial savings in our ECA [Economic Cooperation Administration] expenditures, once the full impact of the treaty has been felt in Europe.⁴³

In the beginning of NATO the United States felt that the principle of common defense inherent in the treaty would have to take the form of an integrated defense with a division of responsibilities among the nations.⁴⁴ The idea was that the nations of Western Europe could no longer maintain complete, balanced defense establishments on an individual basis. Each would specialize in the kinds of forces and the production of weapons for which it was best suited and which would best fit into a pattern of integrated defense.

Secretary Acheson, in a statement to the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed Services on 8 August 1949, expressed the view that savings would accrue from this division of responsibilities:

The practical application of this principle will ultimately bring into being a defensive strength far more effective than the sum total of what the member countries might be able to achieve individually, and at a considerable over-all saving. This concept is of particular interest to the United States as promising not only a revitalized defense force for western Europe but also one which the Europeans in time can support without further direct assistance from US.⁴⁵

In an address to the NATO Parliamentarians’ Conference in New York on 4 October 1965, NATO Secretary General Manlio Brosio said:

In the western world, it is universally accepted by the allied governments that the Atlantic Alliance is today as necessary as ever. At the same time, all of us are agreed that the world has changed since 1949, and that the alliance may have to change with it, though here, of course, is where the divergencies start, . . .⁴⁶

Any American contemplating the future of NATO would do well to consider the original concept which his country had of this organization. 

Notes

1. U.S., Congress, House Concurrent Resolution 25, Participation in World Peace, (Fulbright Resolution), Congressional Record, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., 21 September 1943, LXXXIX, Part 6, 7706.

2. U.S., Congress, Senate Resolution 192, Collaboration for Post-War Peace, (Connally Resolution), declaratory of war and peace aims of the United States, Congressional Record, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., 5 November 1943, LXXXIX, Part 7, 9222.

3. Harry S Truman, “Restatement of Foreign Policy of the United States,”  address delivered in Central Park, New York City, on 27 October 1945, Department of State Bulletin, XIII, 331 (28 October 1945), 655.

4. Harry S Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 1, Year of Decisions (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1955), p.516.

5. Margaret Ball, NATO and the European Union Movement (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1959), pp. 9-11.

6. Harry S Truman, address to a Joint Session of the House and Senate, Congressional Record, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., 17 March 1948, XCIV, Part 3, 2997.

7. U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearings on H.R. 5748 and H.R. 5895, Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 28 and 29 July, and 1, 2, 5, and 8 August 1949, p. 74. Hereafter cited as MDAA Hearings. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, in a 7 April 1949 report to the President on the North Atlantic Treaty, stated: “In establishing it [the Brussels Pact], they repeatedly advised us that, despite their determination to do their utmost in self-defense, their collective strength might be inadequate to preserve peace or insure their national survival unless the great power and influence of the United States and other free nations were also brought into association with them.”  Department of State Bulletin, XX, 512 (24 April 1949), 532. However, Secretary Marshall’s comment and President Truman’s memoirs invite the inference that, while Secretary Acheson’s statement may be true, the United States did not then (in early 1948) encourage the European nations to believe that it had made its decision to associate formally with them.

8. International Peace and Security Through the United Nations, S.R. 239 (Vandenberg Resolution), Congressional Record, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., 11 June 1948, XCIV, Part 6, 7791.

9. Harry S. Truman, “Inaugural Address of the President,” delivered on 20 January 1949, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 500 (30 January 1949), 124.

10. Charles E. Bohlen, “The North Atlantic Pact: A Historic Step in the Development of American Foreign Relations,”  address before the Philadelphia Bulletin Forum on 23 March 1949, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 509 (3 April 1949), 430.

11. Harry S Truman, message transmitting the North Atlantic Treaty to the Senate, 12 April 1949, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 514 (8 May 1949), 599.

12. Dean Acheson, “The Meaning of the North Atlantic Pact,”  address delivered on 18 March 1949 over the combined networks of the Columbia and Mutual Broadcasting Systems, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 508 (27 March 1949), 385. 

13. MDAA Hearings, p. 45. See also  “The U.S. Military Assistance Program,” Department of State Bulletin, XX, 516 (22 May 1949), 645.

14. Tom Connally, speech to the Senate on the North Atlantic Treaty, Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 5 July 1949, XCV, Part; 7, 8818. See also Military Assistance Program, Joint Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., on S. 2388, 8, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, and 19 August 1949, Washington, GPO, 1949, p. 125, for response by Honorable W. Averell Harriman, United States Special Representative in Europe for the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), to question from Senator H. Alexander Smith on this subject. Hereafter cited as MAP Hearings.

15. Ibid.

16. MAP Hearings, p. 646; Bohlen, p. 430; Charles E. Bohlen, “The American Course in Foreign Affairs,” address made before the New York State Bar Association in New York City on 28 January 1949, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 501 (6 February 1949), 159.

17. Truman, “Inaugural Address of the President,”  pp. 124-25. Subparagraph (4) of the Vandenberg Resolution uses the following language in this regard: “Contributing to the maintenance of peace by making clear its determination to exercise the right of individual or collective self-defense under article 51 should any armed attack occur affecting its national security.”  Quoted from Senate Document No. 48, North Atlantic Treaty, documents relating to, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., Washington, GPO, 1949, p. 88.

18. MDAA Hearings, p. 16.

19. Connally, p. 8818.

20. North Atlantic Treaty, Senate Executive Report No. 8, Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., Washington, GPO, 1949, pp. 7 and 27. Hereafter cited as Senate Executive Report No.8. See also Ambassador Warren R. Austin, “U.S. Answers Soviet Charges Against North Atlantic Treaty,”  statement made before the plenary session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on 14 April 1949, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 513 (1 May 1949), 554.

21. Department of State Bulletin, XX, 514 (8 May 1949),600.

22. Senate Executive Report No.8, p. 27.

23. Acheson, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 512 (24 April 1949), 532.

24. Connally, pp. 8816-17.

25. Department of State Bulletin, XX, 513 (1 May 1949), 552.

26. Department of State Bulletin, XX, 501 (6 February 1949), 160.

27. Warren R. Austin, “The Proposed North Atlantic Pact,”  excerpt from an address made before the Vermont Historical Society on 24 February 1949, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 505 (6 March 1949), 299.

28. Senate Executive Report No.8, p. 27.

29. In an address made before the Final Plenary Session of the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco on 26 June 1945, Department of State Bulletin, XIII, 314 (1 July 1945),4.

30. MDAA Hearings, p. 25.

31. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. II, Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1956), p. 110.

32. Ibid., p. 1l3.

33. In spite of the tremendous amount of prior work and planning that had to be done by the European nations and then by the Administration, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948 was sent to the Congress on 19 December 1947 and was signed into law on 3 April 1948.

34. Congressional Record, 80th Con g., 2d Sess., 17 March 1948, XCIV, Part 3, 2997.

35. Truman, Years of Trial and Hope, p. 248. At the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949, President Truman said in this regard: “We are determined to work together to provide better lives for our people without sacrificing our common ideals of justice and human worth. But we cannot succeed if our people are haunted by the constant fear of aggression, and burdened by the cost of preparing their nations individually against attack.” Department of State Bulletin, XX, 511 (17 April 1949), 482.

36. MAP Hearings, p. 6.

37. Senate Executive Report No.8, p. 28.

38. Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 6 July 1949, XCV, Part 7, 8893.

39. Dean Acheson, “ERP Gives New Faith in Vitality of Democratic System,”  statement made before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 8 February 1949, Department of State Bulletin, XX, 503 (20 February 1949),234.

40. Senate Executive Report No.8, p. 25.

 41. Ibid., p. 10.

42. Connally, p. 8814.

43. Ibid., p. 8818.

44. The envisioned division of responsibilities was outlined by General Omar N. Bradley, Chief of Staff, United States Army, in a statement to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 29 July 1949 (MDAA Hearings, p. 71):

First, the United States will be charged with the strategic bombing. We have repeatedly recognized in this country that the first priority of the joint defense is our ability to deliver the atomic bomb.

Second, the United States Navy and the Western Union naval powers will conduct essential naval operations, including keeping the sea lanes clear. The Western Union and other nations will maintain their own harbor and coastal defense.

Third, we recognize that the hard core of the ground power in being will come from Europe, aided by other countries as they can mobilize.

Fourth, England, France, and the closer countries will have the bulk of the short-range attack bombardment, and air defense. We, of course, will maintain the tactical air force for our own ground and naval forces, and United States defense.

Fifth, other nations, depending upon their proximity or remoteness from the possible scene of conflict, will emphasize appropriate specific missions.

45. MAP Hearings, p. 8.

46. Congressional Record, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 21 October 1965, CXI, 197, p. 27105.

Contributor

Colonel E. P. Braucher, USA (USMA; M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; M.S., George Washington University), upon graduation from the Air War College in June 1966 was assigned to command the 937th Engineer Group (Combat), South Vietnam. From 1961 to 1964 he was assigned to the United States Delegation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Paris, and was the accredited Alternate U.S. Representative to the NATO Armaments Committee. In 1965 he served as military assistant to the Assistant Director (International Programs), Defense Research and Engineering, Office of the Secretary of Defense, specializing in NATO matters. Colonel Braucher is a Master Parachutist, and at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 1957-61, he served successively on the staff of the XVII Airborne Corps; as Commander, 307th Engineer Battalion; and with the joint planning group of Continental Army Command and Tactical Air Command. Other assignments have been with combat engineer units in Germany (1945-47) and Korea (1954-55); as aide-de-camp to the Commanding General, 1st Infantry Division, Germany (1947-49); as Instructor, U.S. Military Academy (1950-53); with Hq U.S. Army Forces, Far East (1955-56); and as student, Command and General Staff College (1956-57).

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor