TEXT OF SECRETARY ACHESON'S STATEMENT to the North Atlantic Council, Thursday, 18 December, 1952 December 18, 1952
MR. ACHESON
Mr. Chairman, fellow members of the Council. I am deeply touched and very grateful for what the Chairman has said about my service here with you. This is the last meeting which my colleagues and I will attend - for at least four years. (Laughter) It has been a great experience for all of us to have worked in the creation and the building of this great institution. It is particularly gratifying to us that our tenure of office lasted long enough so that we could have one meeting under the new Organization which was set up in Lisbon, and which has been so brilliantly managed by Lord Ismay and his devoted International Staff, and all of us here in our Delegation would feel very remiss if we left your company without expressing to Lord Ismay our deep gratitude for what he has done for all of us and for NATO.
I am told that before the eyes of a drowning man his entire life passes in review and perhaps an expiring minister may be permitted to review briefly some of his recent life in this Organization. And I do this, not to recall or to bore you with events which you know very well, but to suggest to you that we have all been part of a great movement here, perhaps the full significance of which we do not yet fully grasp.
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This movement began soon after the end of the war and it is characterised, as I think we can see, if I may review this story briefly, by two things which are of great significance and great importance; I should say three things. One is the tremendous vitality and imagination of European statesmanship. And this comes at a time when Europe has been through very difficult years - exhausting years - and yet we find a flowering of statesmanship in Europe which is both surprising under the circumstances and really wonderful for the future of the world. Secondly, the thing that I think is impressive is that this statesmanship is exercising itself in a direction which, although not new in the world, is new in the last five, six or seven centuries, and that is the movement toward unity, toward a wider and greater unity and a softening of the particularism of nationalistic feeling. The third thing which I think is significant is that the members of NATO across the sea are getting a new sense of their unity with these forces in Europe, and for the first time since the beginning of my country, there is a readiness, a willingness and understanding that we must assume obligations with you in the maintenance of peace through the common defence. If we keep these things in mind, perhaps it is worth while to look for a moment at some of the particular developments.
The first which I think begins to show the evolution of this idea was the OEEC, and here again you have a response from America to a European statesmanlike proposal, - a proposal put forward by
- 3 - Mr. Bevin and Mr. Bidault to bring the European countries together. At that time it was all of them including the iron curtain countries, for the purpose of working out in common an economic programme in which the United States would assist. Now here is the foundation of the idea of common action, unified action, united action to deal with a common problem. And then it develops in another way, and the next phase in this movement was taken by a man who, I think, is very dear to the hearts of all of us here, Mr. Ernest Bevin. I think we all have the highest regard for his character and the deepest affection for the man himself. And I know that, in saying this, I would have the full support of Mr. Eden as well as the rest of us.
It was in January 1948 that Mr. Bevin communicated with Secretary of State Marshall and said that he was thinking about putting forward a plan, with his European associates, to create a union. He had not quite decided what form it would take, whether it would be a treaty, whether it would be purely military, but it was to bring together in a political, spiritual, military and a defensive way the Western European countries. General Marshall responded that the United States would support it vigorously, which they did, and that resulted in the Western Union Treaty, which Mr. Schuman said in a speech at luncheon today was really the genesis of NATO. And then the next step was the development of the North Atlantic Treaty and that in turn is a series of developments.
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After the Western Union began to develop there were discussions with Secretary Marshall and my colleague Mr. Lovett, who was Under Secretary of State. Then Mr. Lovett worked with Senator Vandenburg and prepared with him and Senator Connally the Vandenburg Resolution which laid the foundation with the United States Congress for a receptive attitude toward the sort of ideas which were coming from Europe. And the basis of the North Atlantic Treaty was to get, for the first time, a commitment from the United States that an attack on one of our countries was an attack on all of us; and that therefore we would not, in the event of a future war, have to wait for a disastrous period of time while the American nation made up its mind as to what its basic interests were. When I succeeded General Marshall and took over from Mr. Lovett, the ground work for the negotiation of this treaty had been well laid and we could carry it to a successful conclusion in 1949.
Almost as soon as we organized under the North Atlantic Treaty and began meeting here in these Councils, we discovered that the idea of a guarantee through political association, important as that was, was not enough. Our colleagues began to speak to us about the fact that it was a great advance that the United States was ready at the outset to throw in its lot with the Western European nations; but if there was no preparation then the United States would be liberating a continent which would have been largely destroyed. Therefore, it was necessary to do more than have a political guarantee,
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it was necessary to prepare, and we had a meeting in London in May 1950. At that meeting we learned something to which I shall return in a moment. It was at that time that Mr. Schuman told Mr. Bevin and me about the proposal which would be brought forth in a very short time and which became known as the Schuman Plan, which was the third great step. But meanwhile we went on in NATO, and at the May meeting we discussed the importance of what was then called "balanced collective forces" as against "balanced national forces"; and we passed resolutions along that line; we passed resolutions creating a permanent Council of Deputies and other very advantageous measures; but we had hardly finished that work when we saw that it was inadequate. All it had done was to continue NATO as a planning operation, but not as an executive or functioning operation. There were plenty of plans, but there was no execution.
During that summer we had a great many suggestions including a long memorandum from the French Foreign Office indicating some of the steps which in their judgment were necessary to build an effective, closely-knit organization. Then we had the meeting in September in New York, and there our Delegation put forward a suggestion which was that there should be a real unified command with troops, a staff, a commander, and supply arrangements so that there would be in Europe an army which could grow and be effective. At the same time it was pointed out by our military advisors that in order to have any effective defence of Europe it had to be a defence as far east as
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possible, and that was particularly important to the northern members of this Organization - the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. And so we worked in September on a plan for a forward defence, and in working on that plan it became perfectly clear that it was not workable unless Germany took part in its own defence and in the defence of Europe. But the problem was how to do that and we adjourned that meeting without coming to a conclusion.
Then we met in Brussels, and there we adopted the unified command and the idea that Germany should participate in its own defence and the defence of Europe. In the meantime, M. Pleven had put forward a proposal that would take the main ideas of the Schuman Plan and apply them in the military field, and we went to work on that, and also on an alternative plan - but the more we worked at it the more clearly it seemed that what later became known as the European Defence Community was the only proper solution to this matter, and we went to work very hard at that point. And so the Treaty was finally signed, not only to create the EDC but also providing, as was so necessary, the way to bring Germany voluntarily and willingly, and on a basis of equality, into its own defence and the defence of the West.
In the meantime the third great step - the Schuman Plan - was going forward; going through all the difficult stages of negotiation and ratification, and finally it has been put into effect. I think that it is fair to say that at the present moment we have no idea how vast will be the change in the thinking of Europe and of the
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countries outside of Europe as the Schuman Plan actually operates, because here there is, in truth, a cession of sovereignty - here is a new edict, which will create new types of thinking and the cohesion of new loyalties to it, and it is of the most profound significance to Europe and to the world. That brings us back again to where we are with the EDC. It is now before a number of parliaments for consideration. There are all sorts of difficulties of one sort or another which arise. We in the United States do not minimise or underestimate those difficulties. We know the great problems which it raises for all of you who are considering it. But what I want to suggest to you is that, in the light of the review which I have made this afternoon, and in the light of the further provisions which are in the EDC Treaty and which are now actually in operation through the ad hoc group, which is working on a broader political foundation for unity in the western world, - what we have in the EDC Treaty is not merely a method of bringing German troops to the defence of Europe, but rather an essential step in one of the great developments of history - which is unification, through the Coal and Steel Community, through the military community and through the political association which is now under discussion.
Here you have an essential step in the building of this great new force in the world. And from the point of view of a colleague of yours across the sea, I cannot over-emphasise to you the importance which we attach to this movement and to this step in the
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movement. Perhaps, if I may use a figure of speech, it seems to me that as you create this strength and unity - this European entity - you are in effect creating a great centripetal force which will bring into an ever closer association with Europe, our British friends across the Channel and your American and Canadian friends across the Atlantic Ocean. It is as this strength is created at the centre, as this vital, new, strong development occurs that you will attract strength. If this process is reversed now, in my judgment you will set up a centrifugal force. If, instead of having unity at the centre, you have disunity you will have disunity and weakness throughout the Atlantic Community. And this isn't a matter that people can argue about, nor is it a matter that one can approve or disapprove. It is in my judgment as inevitable as the movements of the stars in their courses. It would be just as silly to argue with the course of a star as it would be to say that there just must be closer and closer association between Great Britain, as the next neighbour, and Canada and the United States on the one hand, and a weak Europe, on the other, and do nothing about it.
Whereas, if you go forward, as I know you will, and develop this ever- growing strength and unity, then you will present an ever growing attraction to your British, Canadian and American friends.
That is the last message which I and my colleagues would like to leave with you. We believe that we have all taken part in something of profound significance. It seems to us that if we are successful here, the Twentieth Century will be known for what has
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come out of our work, and will not be known for the disasters which preceded it.
At your next meeting you will have other colleagues from the United States. They are all known to us and we know that they will work with you just as closely and just as enthusiastically as we have, and we know that you will give them your confidence and your friendship. They are as loyal and devoted as we are to our country, and not only to that, but to this great association which our country has so freely and so unanimously joined, and I know that we can recommend our successors to you and that you will find them worthy of your confidence. I am deeply touched, Mr. Chairman, by what you have said and I am honoured to have had this opportunity to say one last word before we break connections which we have held for so long, and at the end of this Meeting, all of us will bid you an affectionate farewell.