THE STRANGE GAME OF NUCLEAR POLITICS

...Instead of MLF, we might yet offer something more positive in the way of a European economic partnership with America—such as President Kennedy's dream of a co-prosperity community of the United States of America and the United States of Europe...

...2. It removes a national nuclear force—Britain's—from the world scene and would put an end to the proliferation of national nuclear forces in the Western world, if Britain's example is followed...

...I do not think," Lippmann said in London, "that Europe is in all that bad shape...

...4. The interlocking vetoes and integration of nations and forces in the ANF would keep the German finger off the nuclear trigger while allowing Bonn a finger on the safety catch...

...It is a proposed delegation of sovereignty unprecedented in peacetime...

...Firing of the missiles would be in the hands of an American officer alone...

...Earlier he was chief of the Paris bureau of the Sunday edition of The New York Times...

...There is no sudden defense crisis requiring an immediate decision on MLF...

...The pity is we have not pressed some other choice of our own...

...And if "sunk" is too morbid a metaphor for a policy that is now all at sea, there is still the possibility of our being bailed out in time by the British...

...Largely to put those fears to rest, he has said that after he visits Washington he will go to Moscow, and then return to Washington for final talks with President Johnson...

...It would be more than a pity if they were blocked by Washington's impatience...

...Would the United States relinquish its veto power to a unanimous "European" vote...

...So we have MLF—the multilateral force...

...But why not drown it entirely in an Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF), from which all participating nations would be committed never to withdraw...

...It sets the highest possible example not only for Germany, but for Italy, Belgium, and every other country of the Western Hemisphere—including France— that may be tempted to reach for the uncertain prestige of dubious nuclear power...

...To this incongruous level has sunk the grand strategy of the great design of an Atlantic community...

...Thus Washington finds it easier to play international politics, sometimes confused with statesmanship, with what is still government-owned...

...The crew would be composed of all participating nationalities, no country furnishing more than a third of the crew of any...

...Germany, like the United States, talks of paying from thirty-five per cent to forty per cent of the cost—with a proportionate say in the decision...

...However, the products of prosperity are largely in the hands of private enterprise...

...And even time for the German people to solve the German problem—or rather our problem with Germany—by putting a Wilson of their own into power...

...West German elections are coming up in the new year The latest public opinion poll indicates thirty-seven per cent in favor of the Socialists and thirty per cent for the now governing Christian Democratic Union...

...It has been hinted at, once there is European participation in the project...

...In defense, Washington claims MLF is the only way to contain Bonn's appetite for nuclear weapons, whetted by de Gaulle's nationalist effort to accumulate a nuclear stockpile...

...These are Wilson's admirable intentions...

...Actually MLF is a political device for winning Western Europe, particularly West Germany, away from de Gaulle and especially his nuclear nationalism...

...True, Willy Brandt is not Harold Wilson, nor the West German Socialist Party the Labor Party, but they will have to do...

...The effect of the British proposal on de Gaulle's internal opposition will be fascinating to watch...

...They would, however, be painted a conventional battleship gray and fly a special flag—Neptune's trident in a field of as many stars as nations participating...

...nuclear weapons are not...

...Rightly, I think, the new Labor government asserts four advantages for the Atlantic nuclear force (ANF) as against the MLF: 1. It has far greater military meaning and weight...

...It is one thing to surrender one's power to initiate nuclear war...

...It needs time for Khrushchev's successors to practice that for which the Chinese are already reproaching them—Khru-shchevism without Khrushchev...

...Otherwise, 1965 is liable to go into history as the year of nuclear politics and other such incendiary absurdities...

...One purpose of collective strength in defense is to make fruitful negotiations possible for the easement of East-West tension . . . A defense policy which does not contain within itself the seeds of further progress towards disarmament is one which, in the present state of the world, we cannot longer regard as appropriate...

...Britain's nuclear force has always been de Gaulle's argument for a French national nuclear force...

...3. It eliminates any sound reason for an independent European force, since Europe would be part of the Atlantic force to which the United States would also be tied...

...In state elections held since the last federal election of 1961, the Social Democrats for the first time, won more votes than the Christian Democrats—12.4 million against 12 million...

...But MLF, we are told, has a nobler purpose, namely, the unity of NATO...

...Now enters Britain, on the heels of the Labor Party victory...

...One would have thought it would come natural to Americans, whose business after all, as Calvin Coolidge laconically put it, is business...

...Among British proposals, besides ANF, is a further extension of nuclear control and international consultation...

...On the other hand, an MLF which would be primarily a German-American force, Wilson feels, would aggravate Soviet fears and thus lead directly to a renewed arms race and Soviet reconciliation with China on Mao's terms...

...How would the decision—to fire or not to fire—be reached...

...In return, but still a negotiable issue, Britain insists on a British veto—or possibly a "European" veto—on the use of the Atlantic nuclear force...

...But so far it has won only West Germany at the potential price of the detente with Russia and, ironically, the remaining unity of NATO...

...InJOSEPH BARRY was the European columnist for The New York Post for the past six years...

...But that is what we have just promised German Defense Minister von Hassel...

...Also, Britain still might agree to an MLF scaled down from twenty-five ships to ten or fifteen, so as to reduce German preponderance in the total force...

...Here is no outright condemnation of MLF, but rather counsel that it be expanded to ANF...

...Each ship would have eight Polaris missiles with a range of 2,875 miles— each missile carrying a nuclear warhead equivalent in power to thirty-five Hiroshima bombs...

...It is not in a state of crisis which requires emergency action to save it from some disaster which is not happening...

...There is no urgent need for the installation of Pershing rockets in West Germany which can hit the Soviet Union...

...As of now, the fleet would be badly undermanned, since only the United States and Germany have solidly enlisted in the scheme...

...Even if it were desirable to invent one, Khrushchev's successors are not cooperating because they have their own problems with the Communist alliance...

...He wrote "teft Bank, Right Bank...

...Instead of increasing the number of fingers on the nuclear trigger, Wilson is proposing removal of Britain's own by putting the British deterrent irrevocably under Atlantic control...

...Europe has problems, but they are not comparable with those of the early Fifties, when it was thought we were on the verge of a thermonuclear war...

...stead of five Polaris submarines, there are now plans for twenty-five surface vessels built exactly like cargo ships in order to confound Soviet detection systems...

...It is an old idea—"a particularly crude example of obsolescence, one of those things which grew out of the 1950s," Walter Lippmann remarked in London in late November, "which if it came into existence would be an impediment rather than a contribution to the process of uniting Europe...

...Originally conceived by General Lauris Norstad, and vetoed by President Eisenhower, as a land-based nuclear force under NATO command, it later became the Navy's baby and went to sea—in what are still paper boats...

...On that score it rates one restrained cheer...

...As against the Soviet threat...

...In reply, critics claim that far from satisfying Bonn's desire, MLF further sharpens it...

...It is this latter factor that has frightened Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals...

...If the German Socialists formed the government, they would most likely follow the course chosen by their British confreres and put all German nuclear notions into the Atlantic nuclear basket—and the world could breathe easier...

...Not at all...

...The British nuclear deterrent is the world's third largest...

...So the new British Prime Minister has, in effect, been pleading with the American President...

...make any difference to the realities, because the deterrent exists and deters and there is a balance of power...

...We share it...

...Letter from Europe The Strange Game of Nuclear Politics by JOSEPH BARRY Paris rpiHE trouble with the Atlantic Alli-ance, West German Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder said nostalgically in Bonn the other day, is that there is no clear Soviet menace, no Berlin crisis...

...Unlike the Nassau agreement between the late President Kennedy and former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Britain would forego any escape clause enabling it to pull out its contribution for national use in an emergency...

...As against the threat from Charles de Gaulle...

...That is a blunt dismissal sufficient unto itself...

...We want to play our part," he told Parliament, "in turning the negative postures of the alliance into something more positive and outward-looking...

...Yet that is what we have been pressing...

...What Europe needs most from the United States is a breathing spell...

...In fact, the Kremlin may be counting on us to provide it with a clear German menace—such as a German finger on the nuclear trigger, a built-in part of the multilateral force (MLF) blueprint...

...he would be under orders of the allied political group, presumably at NATO headquarters in Paris...

...Having been an activist for a very long time, I now am a masterly inactivist," and he firmly advises such a course for President Johnson...

...We believe," Prime Minister Harold Wilson told the House of Commons shortly before his trip to Washington, "a mixed-manned surface fleet adds nothing to Western strength, is likely to cause dissipation of effort within the alliance, and may add to difficulties in East-West agreement...

...Britain, under the scheme tentatively proposed, would donate its three projected Polaris submarines plus its V-bomber force and TSR2 supersonic fighter planes to the Atlantic command...

...Whether we solve the problem of the nuclear deterrent one way or another does not...

...There are no more blocs, East or West...

...time for the Common Market to become de Gaulle-proof as the time when he can exercise a veto runs out...

...The British propose the creation of a Cabinet of Heads of Government meeting in Washington...

...It is obviously part of the design, whatever the strings tied to that German finger...

...It is still under discussion...

...Wilson, however, came armed with an alternative—to be examined further on...

...Among them, at any rate, are no nuclear nationalists, no Franz Josef Strauss, Bonn's former defense minister whose "relationship to power," as it has been indelibly expressed, "is basically erotic," a love affair that imperils peace...

...France and Germany are not going to war over their differences, Britain is not going to war with anybody on the Continent, the Soviet Union is not going to war against Western Europe...

...This not only fulfills his campaign promise, but it opens the way for bringing at least our half of the nuclear world under rational, international control...

...It would take de Gaulle another decade to equal it —and when he did, it would prove inadequate, just as the British now recognize their deterrent to be...

...The chances seem increasingly good...

...Masterly inactivity," Lippmann concluded, "is what I recommend...

...Final decisions in nuclear crises—as in the Cuban confrontation—would rest with the President of the United States, but at least there would be counsel with those fatally affected by it...

...it is another to surrender one's voice in one's annihilation...

...Of equal importance, in my opinion, is Wilson's intention to use the proposed ANF to improve relations with the Communist world...

...The example is a most significant one...

...The German Socialists are not gaining so much because of the party's intrinsic strength as from the Christian Democrats' internal splits and Chancellor Erhard's ineffectual leadership...

...We understand completely your desire to dilute German militarism in a multilateral force...