FIRST, CAN YOU SUMMARIZE THE PART THAT ERNEST BEVIN PLAYED, AND HIS GOALS, SO FAR AS INVLOVLING THE UNITED STATES IN THE DEFENSE OF EUROPE WERE CONCERNED, IN '47 –'49?

Mmmm... Uh, perhaps I should just go back, uh, that, uh, for the first year and, really, a half, after the war, uh, Bevin... as Labour government, but he personally wanted to see whether we could work with the Russians, and it was only towards the end of '46 that, uh, he came to the conclusion it was going to be very difficult. And, this all came, really, to a head, so to speak, in the Moscow conference of the spring of... '47. Uh, where the French... decided that they would play in with the British and the Americans, particularly on the, joining the bi-zone in Germany. But it was, I think, at the London conference, in the autumn, the last, the last four-power conference for a long time uh, that, uh, Bevin, uh... had a dinner party for, for, uh, Marshall, and the Americans... when he said, "Look here, we're going to be in very, very great difficulties in Europe. We're very weak...there's no strong power on the mainland of Europe, and we shall really need America back again." Because by this time, the Americans were already going to give, uh what became Marshall Aid. So Bevin was more or less saying the Marshall Aid won't be any good unless we can also have a, a sense of security in Europe, which means we must have something military. Marshall, as far as I can remember, said to Bevin... "Yes.. we have to aim at this, but it's going to be very difficult. We, in America, it means a tremendous change, and... everything we've fought for... since Independence. So you must help us by doing all you can in Europe." So Bevin said yes, that I will do. And the result of that was, of course, first the treaty with France, the treaty of Dunkirk in '47, and then extended into the Brussels treaty with the Benelux countries in the summer of '48. And that resulted, actually, in the setting up of a military headquarters at Fontainebleau, and, uh, Field Marshal Montgomery. But then Bevin turned around and said to the Americans, "We've done all we can. We can't get anything else in it, we can't", nobody thought of German rearmaments in those days; it was too early for the Italians, the Scandinavians weren't part of this kind of set-up; and, and as you see... it's not enough, but we have done what you asked us to do, we've done our best. Now it's got to be increased. Now, for Bevin, it was not a totally new idea to, to have America involved, because long, long ago, at a speech he made to the Trade Union Congress, in the '20s, '26, I think it was, he said, "The future of this country depends upon European unity, faced with the great powers, but" and this is the difference between Bevin's concept of European unity and what has, came afterwards "but we must do it with America and Canada." So in a way it wasn't a sudden idea of Bevin's to have America and Canada involved in a European scheme. And it was from then on, of course, the negotiation started for NATO. Very much, of course, strengthened by, uh, what had happened in Prague, where there'd been the... I think it's the Kury, the Communists in power, and then the Berlin blockade.

ALTHOUGH I KNOW THAT YOU WEREN'T DIRECTLY INVOLVED BY THAT TIME, DO YOU THINK THE AMERICAN CONGRESS, WITHOUT THE KOREAN WAR, WOULD EVER HAVE COMMITTED TROOPS TO EUROPE IN THE WAY THAT THEY DID? WAS THAT THE KEY EVENT?

I think it was, yes, I mean the, the, the, the ... to, to commit themselves to the extent that they did. I mean, they'd... undertaken major commitments...like the Truman Doctrine, which I haven't even mentioned, which happened of course at the time in...early '47. But the actual sending over of troops, backup troops, in a big way, I think, was entirely... into the fears, which were naturally created by the Korean War. Because here was a divided country in Asia, where Stalin had allowed the Communist half to attack the other half; and why should that not be repeated, uh, in Germany where again there was a... a Communist, uh, third and, uh, capitalist two thirds. And, and there was real fear, I think, in that time. I, I was actually in India, so I mean, I was...

BUT WHEN YOU CAME BACK TO EUROPE IN 1951, WERE YOU CONSCIOUS THEN OF REAL FEAR?

Yes, but I think by that time... we were beginning to feel that, you know, the, the major decisions were being taken, although not yet exactly how German rearmament was to be, was to be carried out. 'Cause very naturally, the Americans, uh, when persuaded to send troops back, uh, said... "The Europeans must do their bit." And that involved the Germans doing their bit. Well, nobody liked that very much. Least of all the Germans, who had become suddenly demilitarized, in their thinking, by good, uh, good Allied reeducation. And of course the French didn't like it, but nor, nor, nor did Bevin, whilst he was still in the government, until the summer of '51. And had hoped to get 'round it by sort of armed police forces and things of that kind...the, you know, grand shuts, the frontier guard. But obviously that wasn't enough, and so then the French, uh, produced this brilliant idea of the European Army, which was to keep German formations...to a relatively small size within European formations.

THE BRITISH ATTITUDE TO THAT SCHEME WAS SOMEWHAT SIMILAR TO ITS ATTITUDE TO THE...AND LATER THE COMMON MARKET. IT WAS IN FAVOR OF EUROPEAN UNITY, WAS IT NOT, BUT...

Yes. Uh, we...we had never... thought of, uh, and even Churchill, who after all had started the whole European movement in his great speeches in Zurich and The Hague. He had never conceived Britain as being part of it, and very benevolent...

COULD YOU JUST START THAT SENTENCE AGAIN?

Uh...Churchill had, uh, had never conceived, uh, of Britain as being part of...a European community, as it later developed. Uh, uh, he above all wanted to get Germany and France together to destroy... the enmities of the centuries, and his concept was, he would bring the bride and the bridegroom to the altar, and he'd be the best man, and, uh, wish them well, and be at their side. But, uh, not, uh, he wasn't joining in the marriage, if one can conceive of a, of the threesome, which has happened, of course. And, uh, and so... wh-wh-where, where, when, when he and Eden came back in '51, I think they disappointed a lot of the keen Europeans, who had supposed that they would be more interested in... joining in... what you might call "institutionalized Europe." But at that time... we were still... on the policy which, called "the three-legged stool"... we, we wanted to, we did a lot for Europe, we wanted to be involved in Europe, but not institutionally. Uh, certainly not into any-, into anything federal. And, uh, equally, we were very heavily involved in turning the empire into a commonwealth at that time; and again the, uh, the American connection was terribly important, and we felt we were best placed to bring the Americans back into Europe.

SO BRITAIN THOUGHT OF ITSELF AS A KIND OF MIDWIFE, ALSO, OF A UNION BETWEEN AMERICA AND EUROPE.

Yes, I think we did. And we thought we had these three sort of basic responsibilities, which we were admittedly still weak to carry out, but there was a sort of hopefulness that somehow... things would improve, and, uh, and we would recover our strength to a greater degree than in fact we did.

DO YOU THINK IN 1952, '53, '54, WHEN YOU WERE INVOLVED IN ALL THOSE NEGOTIATIONS, THERE WAS ALREADY A CONCEPT THAT THE AMERICAN STRATEGIC NUCLEAR DETERRENT WAS THE ULTIMATE PROTECTOR OF THE INTEGRITY OF WESTERN EUROPE? WAS THERE ALREADY AN IDEA THAT THE BRITISH ATOM BOMB WAS BEING OFFERED TO EUROPE IN THE SAME WAY, OR NOT?

It was never being offered to Europe, in the sense of "Let us have a, a European army..." with the British, with the British, uh, atom bomb as part of it. Uh, it was certainly in our minds that, uh, that as we were certainly committed to the military protection of Europe, I mean, if we got it as our interests to be, to be involved to a greater or lesser extent, and the stronger we were, the better it would be for us and, we thought, for Europe. And, of course, naturally we thought of, uh, that, that as we had after all invented... or had a great part in the invention of the atom bomb... it was quite natural that we should feel that we ought to be a nuclear power minor, if you like, to the Americans, but still a nuclear power. This was all part of the position that we saw for ourselves at that time, and that others saw for us as, uh, the second most important Western power.

SO THERE WAS NO SENSE OF SURPRISE, CONTROVERSY, OR ANYTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT BRITAIN DEVELOPING THE ATOM BOMB.

I don't recall it; I mean, I... if you mean by that, uh, were the, were our continental allies saying, "Well, why the, why are the British playing with this instead of, uh, giving some more divisions?" I don't think so. I don't... I don't recall that. There may have been individuals, but not, I think, as a serious part of, of... international politics.

WERE YOU CONSCIOUS OF THE FRENCH REACTING WITH ANY KIND OF ENVY, OR INTENTION TO IMITATE, ONCE THE BRITISH CLEARLY HAD AN ATOM BOMB?

I think the French at that time were, had a lot of other problems; of course, they, they had, they had Vietnam, they had North Africa... they had every kind of difficulty. And eventually, of course, with de Gaulle coming back in, uh, in '58, wasn't it? So... I don't think the French were sold, I mean, some French may be, but the French in general, which were plagued by a succession of very weak governments, nor France's allies, were thinking of France in terms of the France that developed, uh, eventually, from, under de Gaulle. And that would have included, I think, France as a nuclear power; they weren't thinking in those terms. But, certainly, France was always taking the line that France should be a great power that it should be on a level with everybody else. So when eventually she did move in this direction, I don't think it came as a surprise. But in those days, I don't remember it; I mean, I'm not saying that people didn't pay any attention; it, it wasn't, I think, in the forefront of... of anybody in my mind, or, I think, of other people's.

YOU WERE WITH BEVIN IN THE FORTIES, OR WHEN YOU WERE IN EUROPE IN THE EARLY FIFTIES, WAS THE NOTION, DO YOU THINK, "WE MUST DEVELOP THE BOMB BECAUSE THERE IS THIS THREAT FROM THE SOVIET UNION?"

Well, I think it was partly, certainly partly, uh, the second—

CAN YOU SAY IT IN COMPLETE SENTENCES?

I think it was certainly partly the feeling that, uh, that yes, uh, this was the weapon, so to speak; this was the, sort of, as the tank had been in 1918, this was the super-tank of the future, and, uh, and we'd, we'd... especially as we had, uh, been involved in the, in the eventual, uh, in the, in the invention of the weapon, that we, we ought to have it. And there was a certain dissonance, of course, that we felt we had been rather badly treated by the Americans at the end of the war. We had always thought that, uh, the partnership in, in, in the nuclear field would have gone on, which of course it didn't, and then it was revived again later.

DO YOU THINK THIS WAS PART OF THE OBJECT DEVELOPING OUR OWN WEAPON, WAS TO RESTORE THAT RELATIONSHIP?

Well, we all, we always... did say... we took as axiomatic that there had to be a close, uh, military relationship with America, and, uh, we certainly weren't... thinking of the bomb, uh, in order to become an independent power. But I think nevertheless we did feel even then that, uh, there were issues on which American interests might not be entirely the same as our own, and this was part of being a great power, which we regarded ourselves as being. And I think later on the French felt very much the same.

DURING 1952-54, THERE WAS A FEELING, POSSIBLY, AMONGST CERTAIN GERMANS ON THE LEFT WING, THAT A GREAT OPPORTUNITY WAS LOST, THAT GERMAN REARMAMENT DISHED AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SOLUTION TO THE EUROPEAN PROBLEM AND THE GERMAN PROBLEM. WHAT'S YOUR REPLY TO THAT CHARGE, IF THAT'S WHAT IT IS?

Well, I have been involved in a lot of correspondence with some of these... very people. And I think there were three... as they would think, chances, for a different policy.

I DON'T THINK WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TIME TO OUTLINE THEM ALL IN DETAIL...

Well, I can give them to you very, very briefly. Uh, the first chance was during... the, uh, the, the... negotiations in which I was involved, with Stalin, in 40, uh, '48, to stop the Berlin blockade. Now, the one thing Stalin wanted to do, he didn't bother much about blockading Berlin; it was to stop the creation of an independent German government, and to get back to a united Germany under four-power authority. Well, that, I think, could have been regarded as a, as a possibility. But of course we had the blockade, and we had to face the blockade. The second chance, I think, was... but I don't think it was a chance, I mean, they, they might think so, it was when Churchill, after the death of Stalin, wanted to, um, get on terms with the Russians again, because that would have, of course, have involved, automatically, holding up all the, the negotiations, which by then had gone a very long way for an independent Germany and Germany as part of the European Army. Uh, the, the... and, and, uh, that had come after, of course, the exchange of notes in '52 with the Russians, and there was one of the Russian notes, the East German historians say...could have been interpreted as an offer by Stalin to consider... a reunited Germany on acceptable terms. But frankly, I'm convinced, and if we had more time I could explain why, that this was yet another attempt by Stalin to stop, uh, the, the, the creation of a, an independent West German state, uh, as part of the Western European community.

BUT WAS THERE NOT A PERFECTLY FEASIBLE COMPROMISE THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ACCEPTABLE TO THE GERMANS, TO THE WEST, TO THE RUSSIANS, THAT WOULD HAVE GONE ALONG THE LINES OF A UNITED GERMANY WHOSE NEUTRALITY AND DISARMAMENT WAS GUARANTEED BY THOSE SIDES? WAS THAT NEVER A POSSIBILITY?

Uh, well, I, you can never say whether anything would or would not have been a feasible compromise... but I think at that time we would not have regarded it as a very likely one... but, but, we did feel that we had to, had to make sure, and, uh, and, and indeed, uh, before, before, we could possibly expect the Germans in, in the Adenauer government, to come into NATO, or to, to join the European Army first, and then later, on the collapse of the European Army, to come into NATO with the European union, uh, that we had to show that we had not neglected the possibilities of, what you were just talking about, for the unification. And we did, in fact, apart from the exchange of notes which I've referred to, uh, we, we, we did, uh, have a conference in Berlin in the winter of, uh, the early part of '54, when Anthony Eden came forward with plans for German reunification. But we, bearing in mind what had happened in Poland in 1945-46, when you had not had what Stalin had promised...was free elections, but you had a Polish government who'd been nominated, so to speak, by, by the, by the Russians, basically, and then a Poland which had no choice but had to become an ally of Russia's, that we were not going to risk that in the case of Germany, and therefore, you had to have Germany united by genuinely free elections, which we could guarantee in our zones and which it was up to the Russians to offer in theirs, and that the Germany that emerged from those free elections must, uh, unlike the poor Polish government in '40... '45, have the choice of what it wanted: if it wanted neutrality, we'd have had to go along with it; if it, uh, if it, if it had wanted, most unlikely, but if it had wanted to join in with the Russians, it could have done so. Of course it was much more likely, you may well say, that we were not exactly gambling, uh, but, uh... they could choose the West. Now, the question of neutrality, of course, Anthony Eden had rather strong views--

WHAT WERE THE POSSIBILITIES OF A DIFFERENT OUTCOME THAN THE ONE THAT FINALLY EMERGED?

I don't honestly think there were, because... let's face it, I mean... the division, uh, of Europe really resulted from the... lack of... confidence between, uh, two entirely different, uh, sets of countries; I mean, the Soviet Union has one set of values, I'm not saying they're bad values, they're a different set, from western democratic values. And, uh, what happened was the, Europe was divided as a result of the war, where the armies ended. The... to resolve that confidence, you have to, to resolve that, that conflict, you have to have much more confidence, which we'd hoped to create in '45 and '46, but had not been created in '45 -'46. And what we were doing in, in, in the period we're now talking about, which is '54, was immediately after the death of Stalin, when we'd had a cold war of considerable bitterness going on for five years. There wasn't a sort of natural... trust and confidence on either side in the other. And you were to leave Germany, this is, this really very important country, which, which everybody was a big dubious about it, I mean, in the West, and in East, and in Germany itself. Adenauer, after all, who was the head of a... big majority government in Germany, he himself wanted to see Germany anchored in the West, because he was afraid that if she was not anchored in the West she'd be a sort of, uh, a heavy weight, sort of lumbering about and getting mixed up with the wrong people in the end, or, or trying to, trying to carry out dangerous policies as she had in the past. It was really, after all, six... nine years, since, since the, since we'd defeated... the great German menace, which we now like to associate entirely with, with Hitler.

BUT...

And what we were afraid of, we who were doing all this, from Eden downwards, was that if we missed this great opportunity, which Adenauer wanted to take, which the majority of the Germans wanted to take, of getting Germany once again as a, as a Western, democratic nation, we had no idea what would happen instead; it would certainly be a great gamble, and a gamble that might very well turn very wrong, given the whole German past, and, and, and the, and the fact that we had no confidence in the Russians, and they had perhaps no confidence in us.

AND A UNITED NEUTRAL GERMANY WAS NOT A POSSIBILITY, AS FOR EXAMPLE A UNITED AUSTRIA.

Well, frankly we didn't think so. We thought, uh, Austria was a small country which... could have a vocation of neutrality, if you like; we'd, we'd never seen Germany as a country which had a natural vocation for neutrality. Or would be necessarily allowed to remain neutral.

FINE.

Well, we would, we, I mean, I've, I, uh, I mean, I've always... the Russians, I think, are people who, who don't give away a bird in the hand for two in the bush. But we also would have been gambling enormously with what after all had been a, a fairly successful German and Western policy admittedly at, at the heavy price of the division of Germany, but still, which was going very well. Were we suddenly to say, to hell with all that? Let's try something else, which may turn out better, but might turn out very much worse?

ONE OTHER THING THAT WAS HAPPENING DURING THIS VERY COMPLICATED PERIOD: YOU WERE AT THE LISBON CONFERENCE IN 1952. WHAT'S YOUR RECOLLECTION OF THAT... THESE ENORMOUS CONVENTIONAL GOALS THAT WERE DRAWN UP AT THAT TIME, AND HOW QUICKLY DID EVERYONE REALIZE THAT THEY WEREN'T GOING TO BE REALIZABLE?

Well, uh, of course those were the days when we had far bigger armies than we have ever had since; and therefore one didn't, one wasn't quite so horrified by these figures and these master visions, but I think even then it was considered... a pretty ambitious goal. But... you know, they were goals, they didn't seem entirely impossible at that time.

WHEN DO YOU THINK THEY BEGAN TO SEEM SO, AND WHY?

Well, I think, uh, as... well, we had heavily re-armed shortly before the time of the Korean War; I mean... we had troops in millions at that time. Well, later on we began to... to cut, cut down our forces; everybody else began to cut down their forces in the West, and so achieving these... these goals became more and more difficult. And then one began to, uh, look for different strategies in NATO which were based on, on the deterrent and the, the, the three different aspects of it, the, the nuclear deterrent, the...strategic nuclear deterrent, the tactical nuclear deterrent, the conventional forces, and of course the, the unity and will of the, of the countries concerned. And, uh, when you began to develop those sorts of concepts... you no longer were saying we must have X divisions to quite the same extent.

BUT THOSE WEAPONS WERE JUSTIFIED VERY MUCH AT THE TIME AS BEING... BECAUSE WE CAN'T DO IT CONVENTIONALLY WE MUST RESORT TO THESE WEAPONS.

Yes, because we hadn't after all built up to Lisbon goals; it wasn't a case of having the Lisbon goals and then cutting them down; we, we never got them. And it became increasingly unlikely that we would.

DID ANYONE SEE ANY PARTICULAR DANGER IN A POLICY THAT RELIED ON THESE WEAPONS? DO YOU RECALL THE SENSE IN WHICH THE AMERICANS WERE ENCOURAGING A RELIANCE ON TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE EARLY 1950s?

Uh, well let's face it, there were not yet... strong conventional forces. I, I mean, there, there was not yet a German army, and, and look how much now NATO depends upon the German armed forces, there wasn't, there wasn't... there weren't any German armed forces, Uh, there wasn't much of a... French army there, and what there was...was in Vietnam and in, and in Algeria. Um, uh, the, there were... I mean... there wasn't enough to, to produce, uh, a balance, uh, with the, with the Soviet forces in the, uh, Warsaw Pact forces, that inevitably there was dependence... on nuclear weapons. Now, whether you would have to have that particular... sort of...balance of, uh, smaller weapons, battlefield weapons, nuclear weapons, and, uh, strategic nuclear weapons... is a, is a very big philosophical argument, which I wouldn't want to get involved in, because I'm not an authority on it.

MOVING FORWARD TO 1957, WHEN YOU CAME BACK TO NATO...THE THING HAD GONE A STAGE FURTHER. WHAT CAN YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE IMMEDIATELY AFTER SPUTNIK?

Well, it's nothing, and certainly... I think it rather shaken, uh, the Americans, and, and... the Europeans, insofar as we'd always felt that America was ahead of Russia in these matters, and, and that something had to be done to, to put it right, which the Americans of course hastily began to do. But, uh, but... I think that there was worry, and it continued, I mean, after all I went to Moscow in '60...and that was the time when Gagarin went up, and again people, the Russians had the first man in space. People, see, I think, even the first dog in space. And, um, again the Americans were rather worried, and naturally the European allies were rather worried, because we relied upon the Americans for, for a lead in... in these weapons, because after all we all felt that the Russians were ahead in conventional weapons. But was ahead, I don't mean to say technically ahead at that time, but... that they had more.

SO DO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN REACTION TO SPUTNIK? WHERE YOU WERE, WHAT YOU WERE DOING AT THE TIME?

Not especially; I mean, I remember much more clearly when I was in Moscow and Gagarin went up... which of course... encouraged Khrushchev quite wrongly to think that, uh, Russia was going to not only catch up with, but overtake the, the Americans.

WHAT...

In other fields as well.

IT WAS OF COURSE THE PERIOD RIGHT AROUND THIS TIME, '57, '58, WHEN THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ANGLO-AMERICANS WAS BEING REPAIRED BY MACMILLAN AND EISENHOWER AND THE MCMAHON ACT WAS BEING AMENDED... WERE YOU CONSCIOUS OF THAT IN NATO?

Oh, well, because, I mean, we were working very closely, of course... working closely with other people in NATO, but much more closely with the Americans than with anybody else. And similarly when I was in Moscow, of course, we worked much more closely with the Americans than with anybody else, both after the war and again when I was ambassador in...'60, in the '60s.

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? HOW CONSCIOUS WERE YOU THAT THE AMERICANS WERE DIFFERENT FROM ANYBODY ELSE AND WHY DO YOU THINK THEY WERE?

Well, I think it goes back really to the wartime alliance, and it goes back to other things; I mean, we speak the same language, we have a lot of similar ideas; on the whole, I mean, I'm not suggesting for one moment that we and the Americans see every problem alike, but I mean, American and British diplomats are more like to, to, to... to, to agree on something then, the, then, than any other two countries, I think.

DO YOU THINK THAT THAT...

And certainly, and certainly, I, I spent six years in Moscow after all, and, and, and so I've had to deal with all kinds of diplomats, and... we had an, we had an awful lot of common problems in those days too, especially, especially in that postwar period.

HOW DID THE SITUATION CHANGE FOR YOU IN NATO WHEN DE GAULLE ARRIVED IN FRANCE?

Well, I mean, we realized... fairly soon, and...de Gaulle, of course, had never been in favor of NATO; I mean, he'd made that very clear—he... to prove that having this, as he called it, "American alliance on French soil," annoyed him very much when he used to drive past our signs or all these flags, you see, which appeared to... give a sovereign authority to the headquarters on French soil. And I think he also, to do him justice, felt that, uh, France would never really recover her strength and all that, if she continued to rely on, on, o-on, on allies to that extent, that she needed after the disasters of the war and the end of the war to have her own independence. And he was certainly already determined—

I'M SORRY, THE MICROPHONE IS... GO ON.

Uh, and, and we already had a, a, a very good, uh, preview, as it were, of what de Gaulle was going to do once he became strong enough and had solved other problems, um, in, in, in, in France; there were always two great sort of official banquets. One was for the diplomatic corps; the other was for what the French called the "co-constitue" and the international organizations in Paris, who were at that time NATO, the OECD, and, uh, UNESCO. And we always got invited to this well in advance. But, we noticed that, uh, after the, some holidays, we didn't get our invitation. And he'd decided that NATO was not... an international organization in France, which he wished to give this kind of uh, what shall I say, authority to. So UNESCO and the OECD went, but not us. On the other hand, we were invited, I suppose this was considered more suitable, to a military review on July the 14th!

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF DE GAULLE'S SUGGESTION OF A TRIPLE ENTENTE TO RULE THE WORLD, AS IT WERE? WHAT RECOLLECTIONS DO YOU HAVE OF THAT?

Well, we, we were, we were rather horrified by the suggestion, because of course, by this time, this came shortly after, uh, Germany had become a, a fully equal and independent member of the alliance and Italy also regarded herself as not unimportant; and, uh, the idea that we should go in for a sort of three-power directorate (I think that's the phrase), we felt this was going to cause great, great trouble with the Germans and the Italians, not to mention all the other members of NATO. So we, we... we frankly wished to God he hadn't put this proposal forwards, and of course, needless to say, it wasn't kept secret, and I remember the German ambassador coming, rushing around, telling me that Adenauer was in a terrible state, Adenauer had not yet become a great friend of de Gaulle's at this time, and something must be done about it, and what could we do, and so on and so forth. The solution they eventually found, of course, didn't please de Gaulle, because he wanted something institutional; he wanted to show that France was with the United States and the United Kingdom a sort of core of the alliance, not merely that it was, that it was seen to be. And, uh, so we, we, we said... after consulting the Americans, uh, but we quite agree, of course we had common interests in other parts of the world, and let us by all means discuss these common interests, and only the three of us need do that; let us have a... little group discussing the problems of, uh, the far east, or, or the, or wherever, you see, or the Middle East, and, and I think these groups were in fact set up, and, and did, did get down to work. But that of course wasn't at all what de Gaulle wanted. And, um...certainly in a sense he felt, uh, rejected, and rebuffed, uh, but I don't think he was surprised.

BUT ISN'T THERE...

But this again, this again, I mean, made him feel that, uh, you know, NATO wasn't the kind of thing he particularly wanted to base his policies on.

DON'T YOU THINK HE HAD SOME JUSTIFICATION IN SAYING, "AFTER ALL, THAT'S WHAT THE BRITISH ALWAYS WANTED WITH THE AMERICANS."

Ah... at, but we never had an institutional relationship with the Americans. We didn't need it, or at least we didn't think we did. What de Gaulle wanted was something quite institutional; I mean, he wasn't prepared to have these cozy talks which we offered him. Well, that's what we never had with the Americans; there's, there's never been an Anglo-American alliance, or anything of that kind.

BUT WE DID, FOR EXAMPLE, HAVE NUCLEAR SUBMARINE PROPULSION PLANTS, WHICH HE WAS NOT ALLOWED...TO BUY, AND WE HAD HARDWARE ARRANGEMENTS WHICH HE WAS EXCLUDED FROM.

Yes, that's right... the, that was, uh, that came out of the wartime alliance, I suppose really, when we did work very closely together. After all, the French were not in on all the nuclear, I mean, the Canadians were, but not the French. On all the discussions, on nuclear power...during and immediately after the war. So it was rather natural it should go on with us, and the Americans were in no mood to extend this to other countries, and don't forget the Americans under Roosevelt had their doubts about de Gaulle; it was we, uh, Churchill and the British who had to force the Americans and the Russians to accept France as a, as one of the Big Four.

BUT, NEVERTHELESS, BRITAIN HAVING BEEN ITSELF EXCLUDED IN 1946, WAS READMITTED TO THE CLUB IN 1958, UNDER TERMS WHICH VERY CLEARLY EXCLUDED FRANCE.

I don't think we would have objected to the French being brought in then...

BUT THE AMERICANS OBJECTED.

Yes, indeed, but I mean, uh, that, that, yes, that wasn't our fault. I mean, I can quite see... I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm explaining British policy; I'm not explaining de Gaulle, he was very good at doing that himself. What I am saying is that De-, what de Gaulle's proposals did make great difficulty...within NATO, as it by that time had become.

TO GO BACK TO THIS DECISION TO ARM NATO ALLIES WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AT THE 1957 MEETING, DO YOU RECALL WHETHER THAT WAS PRIMARILY A REQUEST BY THE EUROPEANS, ESPECIALLY THE GERMANS, OR AN AMERICAN SUGGESTION, OR A BIT OF BOTH?

Honestly I don't remember. Um, I certainly don't remember their being anything, you know, so... obvious as, uh, later on, when Helmut Schmidt, uh, did definitely put in a request for... for, uh, what became the Pershings and the Cruises on German soil. Now, it may be that there had been... France's... he was their Minister of Defense, wasn't he? He might well have put forward such a request, so, but I don, I don't remember it, uh, honestly. Who, who did what. I though-, I thought it, it went ahead, uh, inside the NATO setup, I mean, of course that's an important... affair, relatively painlessly. I know there were, there were, there were problems; of course, with public opinion in Germany and elsewhere.

THERE WAS CONSIDERABLE SUSPICION, ESPECIALLY DURING THE PERIOD WHEN FRANZ JOSEF STRAUSS WAS DEFENSE MINISTER, THAT IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, HE WAS TRYING TO GET AROUND THE COMMITMENT THAT ADENAUER MADE IN 1954. AT THE TIME WHEN YOU WERE IN NATO, WERE YOU CONSCIOUS OF THOSE SUSPICIONS?

Oh, yes, I remember I used to see a good deal of Franz-Josef Strauss, because we were all trying to bring him into the NATO family, more or less, and he was... doing a certain amount of that kind of thing. But I think they were very much Franz Joseph Strauss; I don't think he ever got a... you know, sort of German government behind that kind of policy. 'Cause I think, uh, the one thing that, uh, the Russians... well, I would not be confident the Russians would put up with Germany... in control of nuclear weapons. Uh, you never know; they put up with a lot of things, once they happened, they said they would never accept it; I think that is one they really wouldn't. Anyway, my experience in Germany was that the Germans... didn't think they would accept it, and therefore they didn't want to, to have anything to do with it, it would be too dangerous. Because, uh, I think today... although the Russians have great respect for the Germans...and for their qualities and, uh, all their dealings in the past, which is...not only military; um, at the same time, they, they do have fairly recent memories of...of having been treated pretty badly by the Germans. So you have these two, two things. I do, I don't believe it, you know, when they start giving you lectures on German militarism and revanchism and all that; that's become a little bit, uh, standard propaganda; but, certainly Germany is the European country...which the Russians... you know, sort of think twice about. And I remember when I left Germany, uh, in, in, just after the Cuban missile, sorry, left Russia to go to Germany after the Cuban missile crisis.

CAN YOU JUST START THAT AGAIN?

Uh, Khrushchev of course knew I was going to Germany, and he himself was rather interested in Germany; he'd sent... Joubert ahead of him as a sort of John the Baptist, and was rather hoping to be invited, I think, to Germany, and he spoke to me for about three and a half hours.

SORRY, COULD YOU JUST SORT OF START THAT STORY AGAIN FOR ME?

Uh, well, when, when, when I left Russia, I was going to Germany, and I had about three and a half hours with Khrushchev, uh, just after the Cuban missile crisis I was amazed he could find the time; and he talked about Germany. He was very interested in Germany, because, uh, he was rather wanting to get there. You know, he'd been to France, he'd been to Italy, he'd been everywhere, but he hadn't yet been to West Germany. And, uh, he talked about it, but there wasn't a word about militarism or revanchism; it was just, you know, "What a remarkable country this is! You know, here we are, talking only" what would it be? "15 years or so after we've all defeated". he included us in having defeated the... the, the, the Germans, which he didn't always, "and yet here they are again, you know, powerful country, significant" uh, we were talking about, uh, chemical plants, you see, he said, uh, "You think they can offer me as good a chemical plant as you can, maybe better?" you see, "and think what they did in, in, in Russia when we had all these Baltic barons and what they did for us..." And it, it was this great feeling of, uh, of, uh, of a great country, and, a one one they had to take account of. But no longer, I think, a military menace. Although they would far rather that, uh, they didn't have a Germany with, with its own hand on its own nuclear trigger.

THERE WAS...

And I think they would rather have a divided Germany, I think, than a, than a united one. But, uh, but not, I think, purely in military terms.

THAT WAS THE PERIOD, WHILE YOU WERE THERE, OF THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MLF-TYPE SUGGESTIONS. WERE THE RUSSIANS CONSCIOUS OF THAT AT THE TIME, AND WHAT WERE THEIR REACTIONS?

Well, I don't remember... I mean, they wouldn't have shown in very much, but I, I would have thought, being Russians, they wouldn't have thought it very serious; I mean, after all, a lot of people in the West didn't think it was very serious either. I don't think the Russians lost much sleep on those particular proposals.

WHAT DO YOU RECALL ABOUT SOVIET REACTIONS, IF ANY, TO THE NASSAU AGREEMENT? WERE YOU THERE AT THAT TIME?

Uh, '62? Yes, I must have been, because I, I left in, in, after the Cuba missile crisis, which was October of, of, in, uh...

WELL, THEN, THAT WAS DECEMBER OF '62, SO YOU--

Yes, it was, it was later, you see. So I wasn't there.

WAS THERE ANY RUSSIAN REACTION TO THE FRENCH ATOM BOMBS?

Uh, not, uh, not publicly, I don't think. And, uh, I don't remember much talk about it either.

IT WASN'T SOMETHING THAT UPSET THEM, AS YOU RECALL.

Well, not as far as I can remember. I mean, they, they, they never thought of... uh, Khrushchev, who did a lot of talking to Western ambassadors, I don't remember his ever coming to me and saying how terrible this is, and why do you allow the French to have an atom bomb on the... But he wouldn't necessarily have done that; he, he, he might or might not have, uh, talked to the French, but I, I would rather doubt it.

AND DID KHRUSHCHEV COMPLAIN ABOUT THE EXTENT TO WHICH EUROPE HAD RESORTED TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THIS PERIOD?

Well, well, uh, I take it...you mean... not resorted to the use of them, but resorted to, resorted to nuclear weapons in the central part in the armory. I... I... don't remember his talking very much about it. Of course, they, they, don't forget, were building up their own at that time; and they were rather, they were rather wanting to give the impression that they were very much stronger in nuclear weapons than in fact they were; and that became, of course, all too clear that the, well, fairly clear at the time of the nuke, Cuban missile crisis. So I don't think their propaganda line was one of "how terrible it is that you're building up," because they were rather trying to show that we are, we are ahead in the field, which they weren't.

WERE YOU CONSCIOUS...

They were worried, incidentally, and they really were, bout the Thor missiles, which the Americans had put in England, and in, and in Italy, and in, and in Turkey. And of course one of, one of Khrushchev's... excuses, if you like, or reasons, maybe... I wouldn't like to... judge which, uh, for putting missiles into Cuba was, uh... "You Americans have put missiles into countries which neighbor, which are neighbors to the Soviet Union; why are you now complaining that, uh, we have missiles, in a country that's a neighbor of yours?" And I think what he wanted to do, uh, was to go to the United Nations and do a great deal in which the Americans would withdraw theirs, and he would draw his, and everybody would be happy ever afterwards. But they were, what he was not expecting was the American naval action... to interfere with his ships. That stopped the whole, the whole plan.

LET ME JUST GO BACK TO 1957, IF I MAY. WHAT WAS THE GERMAN REACTION PARTICULARLY? WAS THERE ANY EUROPEAN REACTION TO THE BRITISH WITHDRAWAL OF TROOPS AND TO ITS VERY CLEAR STATEMENT OF ALMOST TOTAL RELIANCE ON THE NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AT THAT POINT?

Well, they, uh, our European allies didn't like this very much, uh, because that was very much the Duncan Sandys policy, wasn't I, at that time...I, I was heavily involved in it, of course, 'cause I, I arrived at NATO from, from Yugoslavia; the very first thing I had to do was to go and announce in the, in the NATO council that we were proposing to cut down on our, our troops. And they, they didn't like it at all. Uh, but of course they were never opposed to our having nuclear weapons, and nor do I think they are today. I mean, I think if you took a, a vote in NATO, you wouldn't find them, uh, saying, "What a good thing the Labour policy is, because there'll be more conventional troops." First of all, I think they were rather dubious whether there would be more conventional troops. But they don't, I think, want us to go out of the nuclear business, and they certainly didn't then. What they, what they were worried about was... how far we were going to go in cutting our, our, our troops, uh, on the continent. Which was, of course, the major commitment. Although that was almost as revolutionary a... a thing for, for, for... British policy as the American, uh, move away from isolationism.

YES.

You know, when we committed ourselves to keep, uh, a stated number of troops and aircraft on the continent? we'd never done that in the whole of our history.

IF YOU COULD JUST ADDRESS THAT ISSUE AGAIN... EDEN MADE THIS COMMITMENT IN 1954. WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT?

Well... the European army scheme had broken down. Europe was in a mess. Adenauer didn't know what was going to happen. Uh, Eden, uh, who had a very good sense of timing, said, "Something has to be done." There was a, a plan, which I and, um... my colleague in NATO had drawn up, which was for this kind of eventuality, which had had to be kept very secret, because the Americans would otherwise have suspected that we were trying to have an alternative to the European army. But Eden remembered this, and said, "We must go 'round Europe with, uh, with this particular plan." Well, the plan was, of course Germany into NATO and we The French were not very keen on it. Mendès France would fail to get the, the other plan...the European-army plan through the French Parliament; wasn't sure he could get this kind of thing through the French Parliament. Obviously, the French wanted some reassurance and some commitment. And the commitment that we had always foreseen we would have to give, but we kept it very secret, was that we would, we would commit ourselves to troops and aircraft stationed on the continent. And in the, the negotiations in Lancaster House in '54, with which I was very closely connected, when we saw things were... had reached the point when... something else was needed, otherwise the whole thing would break up, uh, this, Anthony Eden decided, I said, as I said before, he had an awfully good sense of timing, that the moment had come to, as it were, put the coppice down on the whole of this by this offer. And I don't think it went to Cabinet, funnily enough; I think it was a little group of ministers, with the prime minister, who, during the negotiations, agreed to this, and the next morning it was put on the table. We persuaded Dulles, of course, to make a, an American commitment; it couldn't go as far as this in detailed terms, but was a, a pretty far-reaching American commitment.

BUT...

And the two together persuaded Mendès France that, uh, he could get away with it, and that he could get French...

BUT WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT, WHY DOES BRITAIN HAVE TO PUT TROOPS IN GERMANY IN ORDER TO GET GERMANY RE-ARMED?

Because at that time, because at time, nobody wanted, uh, too strong a, German military... position in the alliance. And... Germany had to be rearmed, but, but...nobody, least of all the Germans, wanted the German armed forces to be as important a part of NATO as they are today. At that time... it was considered axiomatic that there should not be more German troops in Germany, mind you, than there were Allied troops. It, the planning was, I think, for 12 German divisions. No, not the, not things like the Lisbon... process. And the, and the planning was equally definite that the, if there were to be twelve German divisions, there must be at least four French, four British, and four Benelux, to make twelve other divisions, so there wouldn't be more Germans than us. That was the thinking in those days.

AND THIS WAS A REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE OF POLICY FOR BRITAIN.

...well, the revolutionary thing was... to commit ourselves to the continent. See, we'd never before, we, we, we moved troops over to fight in war in the continent, but only when the crisis had come. We'd never, we'd never, we'd never previously stationed troops there. And, and been committed, as it were, from the, from the word "go." We were already in Berlin, but that was a rather special case.

SO BOTH BRITAIN AND AMERICA REALLY WERE DOING SOMETHING QUITE NEW WHEN THEY MADE THESE COMMITMENTS.

Well, the Americans... oh, absolutely, the American admittedly didn't go as far as us, but it went as far as they could go, No, this was regarded, I mean, by everybody there — I mean, Adenauer, Mendès France, and the rest...as something. There were... French diplomats, you know, who said, "My God, we've, wen wanted this, and we worked for this all our diplomatic lives; now it's happened," they were almost in tears. Where now we take it for granted... they're all saying why do we keep 'em there, you know.... But that time it really was; it was... it was the thing that, that decided the success of that whole enterprise. Which was very necessary at that time.

THERE WAS ONE OTHER NECESSARY CONDITION, AND THAT WAS CONCEDED BY ADENAUER, WASN'T IT, ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

Absolutely; he made that concession. And of course, mind you, we also did, did keep... one card up our sleeve, if you like: that, uh, we did insert the clause that we might have to withdraw them... for other purposes... we still had, uh, imperial commitments and things of this kind, but that we wouldn't do so, uh, excepting with a favorable vote of two thirds of the members of the Western European union. We rather took it for granted that, uh, we'd get that two-thirds with the help of... our friends in Benelux.

DO YOU RECALL...

But we were, but we were committed to it.

DO YOU RECALL THE OCCASION WHEN ADENAUER MADE THAT COMMITMENT?

Yes, I do. Because just as—

CAN YOU DESCRIBE IT FOR US?

Yes, I can. Because just as our concession was vital, so Mendès France wanted this concession from Adenauer. Now Adenauer was not, I think, reluctant, really, to give it; but by that time, they were all absolutely fed up with Mendès France. Because he'd, he'd been making himself impossible, you see he, he was out, I think (he explained this to me later, when I met him... months afterwards), that he had to go back to France and say, "I have had to accept this, that, and the other; I worked like a blackguard trying for everything else, but, you know, I couldn't do it." And, and he was always trying to get a bit more. Uh, but, uh, he got, of course, our commitment, and he got the American commitment, and then he had to get this Adenauer commitment, which, as I say, Adenauer was ready to give, but he was damned if he'd see Mendès France! I had to be running, messenger-boy, backwards and forwards, a lot of the time. In fact, at one point, even Eden wouldn't go there; he was determined at the conference he wouldn't talk to Mendès France, he sent me to talk to him all the time. But, but, uh, Mendès was in no way... playing this game; it wasn't quite a game, because he, he had a problem, back in France, but, uh, he was making himself very difficult, to get the maximum, for his purposes, of getting a vote through. He didn't want there to be another negative vote in the Chamber of Deputies, because that would have been a seesaw, the end of France as part of the European community.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE ALLEGED STATEMENT OF DULLES, AFTER ADENAUER HAD PROMISED "SIC REBUS STANTIBUS."

Did Dulles say that?

REPORTEDLY. HE WENT AROUND TO ADENAUER AFTER THE CONCESSION AND SAID, "I UNDERSTAND, OF COURSE, CHANCELLOR, THIS IS ONLY 'SIC REBUS STANTIBUS.' "

I don't remember that. Adenauer, Adenauer didn't, didn't have that sort of...Adenauer wasn't that... Machiavellian in that sense.

BUT THIS WAS DULLES SAYING IT...

Yes, I know, and Adenauer wouldn't have seen it that way at all, I don't think.

NO...

Of course Dulles regarded himself as a great friend of Adenauer... I don't remember that.

IF YOU COULD JUST SAY ONCE AGAIN WHETHER YOU THINK THAT WAS A CRUCIAL...

I think it was, yes, I think, I think without that Mendes would have had a great difficulty. But again, I don't think it was so difficult for Adenauer, really, because I mean, um, public opinion... I mean, they were getting a bit fed up with constantly being asked to do this, that, and the other. But, at that time, there wasn't a strong German feeling of... we want to keep our freedom of action from nuclear weapons at all. Adenauer least of all. Because Adenauer wasn't a very military-minded person.

FINE.

So he was quite ready to do it. But, uh, he didn't want to be pushed all the time by Mendes.

TO ASK YOU A GENERAL QUESTION: DID THE BRITISH IN ALL THESE NEGOTIATIONS FEEL THAT THE FRENCH WERE ALWAYS A BIGGER PROBLEM THAN EVERYONE ELSE?

Uh, well, we, we'd always wanted to recreate a sort of...a strong France, because we realized we were not strong enough on our own... we wanted France as well. And that started with Churchill fighting... the French case at Yalta, and forcing Roosevelt and Stalin to get France a zone; and this is, tends to be forgotten by the French and others. So it's always been rather ambivalent. Uh, and, uh, on the other hand, uh, we were, were not very keen on a lot of de Gaulle's policies... I think... we understood them, in the sense that he felt he had to get France going again and he had to be rather tiresome; but still, we... there were lots of things where we, we, where we didn't see eye to eye on this thing. And in as way... in NATO itself, of course on the whole we...we are much closer to the Germans. I mean, we, we, we were, our view of NATO and the American connection is much more similar than the French one. France is getting back again a bit closer, but still she, she, she is a very... special member of the alliance.

WE TALKED TO ONE OTHER DIPLOMAT, VERY JUNIOR TO YOU, BUT HE SAID THE EASIEST PEOPLE TO DEAL WITH WERE THE AMERICANS; AFTER THAT, WE GOT ON WITH THE GERMANS FINE; AND RIGHT AT THE BOTTOM IS FRANCE.

Well, I think that has been so; there has been... the feeling in, in... recent years. But, uh, nevertheless, we have got to get... to get on with the French, and I think, you know, when things get too bad, we always say, "Oh, my God, let's do something about it," and so do the French.