Cold War History

ISSN: 1468-2745 (Print) 1743-7962 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fcwh20

Johnson and European integration: A missed

chance for transatlantic power
Max Guderzo
To cite this article: Max Guderzo (2004) Johnson and European integration: A missed chance
for transatlantic power, Cold War History, 4:2, 89-114
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14682740412331391825

Published online: 09 Aug 2006.

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Johnson and European Integration:

A Missed Chance for
Transatlantic Power

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M AX G U D E R Z O
Focusing on the dilemmas connected to transatlantic relations and European integration in
the Johnson years, this article argues, first, that Washington did not neglect the European
situation in 196468, but a clear analysis of Allies policies fostered growing doubts in
some sectors of the administration about the wisdom of supporting them when they could
directly damage the national interest of the US; and second, that though such changes help
explain the general reassessment of American policies vis--vis Europe carried out by the
Nixon administration, Johnsons policy remained pro-European and genuinely favourable
to the integration process in the old continent, despite the internal doubts and the open
criticism it encountered both at home and abroad.

Both from the historical and historiographical perspectives, the

Vietnam disaster has often obscured the massive international activity
fostered by American policy makers during the Johnson
administration. The gradual opening of sources is making ever
clearer that data and events more relevant for interpreting those years
should be traced rather in the internal developments of the two blocs
than in their bipolar dynamics of contact, meeting, and strife.
Needless to say, the conflict in South-East Asia gradually became an
obsession for those men at the White House, the Department of
State, the Pentagon, and the Treasury, who had contributed to create
and direct American foreign policy between 1963 and 1969. But the
fight at home and abroad had not blinded them to the point of
neglecting other traditional areas of American global action and
forgetting that the bond with old Europe continued to be the main
axis of US international relations.1
Choosing 1967 as a key year with respect to the set of Atlantic and
European issues the Johnson administration had to cope with, this
article focuses on the problems and dilemmas connected to European
integration, analyses a sample of American sources, and supports the
Max Guderzo is Professor of the History of International Relations and holds the Jean
Monnet Chair of History and Politics of European Integration at the University of Urbino
Carlo Bo.
Cold War History, Vol.4, No.2 (January 2004), pp.89114
PU B L I S H E D BY F RA N K C A S S , LO N D O N

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following theses. First, that Washingtons European policy between

1963 and 1969 is still understudied probably as a consequence of a
deeper popular and scientific interest towards Kennedys initiatives
and generally undervalued or misunderstood. Second, that although
it is false that the US neglected the European situation during those
years, it is true that sad experiences from the past and a clear analysis
of European developments fostered growing doubts in some sectors
of the administration about the wisdom of supporting Allies policies,
for higher strategic reasons, even when they could directly damage
the national interest of the US. Third, that such doubts help explain
why the general reassessment of American policies vis--vis Europe
led by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the following period
was not unpredictable but the possible, or even likely, consequence of
a trend gradually developing throughout the 1960s. Fourth, and
finally, that despite these internal doubts and the open criticism it
encountered both at home and abroad, the administrations policy
remained pro-European and genuinely favourable to the integration
process in the old continent.2
A Call to Responsibility
The Atlantic Alliance had been placed under much pressure during
the Johnson presidency. However, as US Permanent Representative to
NATO, Harlan Cleveland, wrote to Lyndon Johnson on 8 January
1969, the Presidents energetic leadership had allowed the Alliance to
overcome the shock caused by Frances military withdrawal in 1966;
to take the initiative in improving relations with the Soviet bloc in
1967; and to react to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in
1968 in a calm and creative way. According to the Ambassador, then,
NATO had shown more powers of endurance and adaptability to
difficult circumstances than both friends and enemies had forecast.
The US government had effectively fostered the American national
interest within a strong alliance. Johnsons personal commitment and
support had been the most important factor in granting Washington
success, wrote Cleveland, and all contributors to the enterprise had
duly appreciated the large rations of time and energy that the
President himself, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Defense Secretaries
Robert McNamara and (from March 1968) Clark Clifford, and all
their aides had devoted to European and Atlantic issues amid other
urgent concerns. In three years of daily telegrams and a score of
transatlantic journeys, Cleveland had observed that US senior

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officials had granted the fundamental problems of the alliance all the
attention they deserved.3
Two years earlier, talking to a group of European ministers in the
White House Cabinet Room, Johnson had defined NATO as the
greatest peacekeeping force in history. The US, Cleveland concluded,
had contributed to adapt it to a new era, in which the Allies would
have to combine forces vis--vis continuing security risks with
flexibility in seizing the opportunity for peaceful changes in the
European status quo. NATO, then, was ready for a new decade, in
service to its members and the whole world, since the lessons learnt
by the Allies in the North Atlantic Council, in terms of cooperative
political endeavor, might certainly prove useful even out of the
Treaty area.4
So, peacekeeping. But also peacemaking the very word Pope Paul
VI used to praise Johnsons constancy and personal commitment in
trying to set in motion the complex and difficult mechanism needed
for settling the Vietnam War. The Pope underlined the Presidents
efforts for the advancement of the social and economic progress of all
mankind and for the rational control of nuclear power.5 Johnson
answered on 14 January 1969, shortly before leaving the White
House, to thank him for the comfort and strength that their
correspondence had given him during the difficult years of his
administration. All I could do from this office I have done on behalf
of Peace, security, and order, he wrote. Whenever he had been able
to seize that opportunity, Johnson added, he had sought to turn mens
minds from violence to reason, from conflict to understanding and
negotiation.6 Yet young people marching in European streets to
protest against the Vietnam War had not taken notice of that and had
written Johnson boia on Italian walls7 the tragedy of a man and a
president who had done almost everything well.
In foreign policy, Johnson had been a firm guardian of the status
quo. He had resisted the traumatic blow of Kennedys assassination,
accomplishing some tasks his brilliant predecessor had just started or
simply announced. He had held a dialogue with the Soviets without
forsaking firmness. He had taken sides when international challenges
had asked for sharp choices, as in the Middle East. But he had not
accepted the idea of an honourable withdrawal from Vietnam early
enough, procrastinating over an unavoidable decision for too long. In
the Atlantic and European issues, Johnson had resisted the French dfi
without yielding to the temptation of resentment, but aiming to
preserve the Alliance cohesion at all costs. Aware of Eisenhowers and

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Kennedys eventual disillusionment with the partners hesitations,8 he

had continued to encourage European integration without overdoing
it or abandoning himself to frustration when the Six had missed
excellent opportunities for progress. Along the way, he had been
helped by aides and advisers who had generally been able to counsel
him correctly about situations in need of presidential decision.
Johnson had not always been an easy interlocutor for his Atlantic
allies. They were often charmed by his volcanic personality but not
ready to let him mesmerize them with his notorious Texan metaphors
and skills of political manoeuvre. National interest and global
responsibility had been two key concepts of USEuropean relations
during those five years. An inner ambiguity lies in those words, when
one uses them to characterize American foreign policy, since the two
concepts sometimes tended to overlap. Hence the basic divergence
affecting the US and Europe in the second half of the 1960s
Americas transatlantic partners were not particularly keen on
assuming global responsibilities in the economic and trade fields, as
well as in political and military matters.
Washington had kept on proposing integration as a goal to
European partners. There had not been a single occasion in which the
Americans had concealed their support for European progress
towards unification. Sometimes, even unintentionally, they had
confused the game, mingling and overlapping distinct concepts such
as integration and construction, unity and unification, community,
confederation and federation. Generally, however, that happened in
good faith, since most American policy makers were convinced that
Europes new destiny, after suicide in World War II, was to emerge
from the holistic summa of its enormous energies, away from inner
conflict, and that the summa had to be anchored with any possible
means and at all costs to the Free Worlds common management.
It was taken for granted that the US was the head of the bloc. The
American offer, then, was self-interested but at the same time imbued
with ideals, even if this might seem contradictory. The idealistic goal
was common responsibility in the global administration of the Western
world. The selfish approach lay in the awareness that US national
interest was partly connected to European integration. Beyond the
intersection of the two concepts semantic reference domains were all
those elements that Washington had tolerated or fought, since the
1940s, depending on single circumstances and an accurate estimate of
costbenefits ratios for American objectives. Nonetheless, in the
background, a general propensity for considering a single emergent

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European pole the right alter ego, or junior partner, for leading a
hegemonic power system based on respect for complexity and
diversity (in marked contrast to the opposite bloc, the eventual defeat
of which would also depend on this) had always prevailed.
The great American wartime intuition that multilateralism could
and had to be extended from the economic field to the political and
collective security realms had gradually become an hazardous and
brave bet, namely, that rebuilding the Allies power was much better
than balkanizing their resources, in order to contain both the outer
enemy Moscow and inner threats, such as German temptations of
revanche or Gaullist drives to national grandeur.9 Moreover, that
seemed the best approach even in the optimistic hypothesis that, after
the Cold War parenthesis caused by the inopportune breaking off
with the Soviets, one might lead Moscow back to free market and
free international trade rules a sort of pax americana, rooted in
general goals singled out by the US administration during the war,
and based on the eventual diffusion of the American global
development model.
In the 1960s, the astonishing acceleration of European recovery
forced the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to consider that the
final victory of the market economy, which Washington had to pursue
together with the goal of strengthening American leadership based on
military paramountcy and US preeminence in the world monetary and
trade systems, needed a policy of friendly interdependence, not of
counterproductive rivalry, with Americas transatlantic partners.
Otherwise, there was a danger, given historical precedents, that the
states of Western Europe might yield to the temptation of
protectionism or other patterns unfavourable to US interests.
The Americans approach was even too pragmatic. Common
interests, they hoped, would allow the formulation of common
objectives, at which the Allies should aim, proportionate to
everyones resources and assets. This applied to the military sector,
where US leadership was more than evident, but also to the economic
domain, including financial, monetary, and trade patterns; to the
political realm, as well as to the extremely delicate field of cultural
relations. So, the main nerve-centres of the Atlantic system were all
at stake. But the European partners were not that inclined to accept
Washingtons point of view in toto. Such reluctance characterized not
only the French, who hardly tolerated the superpowers very
presence in the continent, but even those who looked favourably on
American theses in most circumstances, out of intellectual affinity or

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indolence, or with a view to exploit them in order to pursue

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Cautious Optimism
In 1967, the American perception of transatlantic relations was
particularly influenced by the new British bid to enter the European
Community, set in motion by the government of Harold Wilson. On
that occasion, Washington once again witnessed the possible
confluence of the two main streams of European policy the US had
developed and implemented to contain the Soviet threat during the
previous 20 years.10 Her Majestys Government was trying to get
closer to the continent, but did not wish to completely lose its
function and ambitions of global co-responsibility, while the
European Community, having survived its dramatic 1965 crisis,
worked in a satisfactory way, confirming its role of important inner
engine for the Six and their partners.
According to the State Department, the Federal Republic of
Germany was led by a stable, moderate, and responsible
government. Germanys 400,000 soldiers in NATOs integrated
force gave the strongest land-based contribution to the Alliance
defence. The economy, growing at an annual rate of five per cent,
provided jobs for over a million foreign workers and abundant aid
for developing countries two-thirds of a billion US dollars per year.
France had remained loyal to the West, notwithstanding Charles de
Gaulles impatience vis--vis European and Atlantic integration
perspectives. With the Indo-China and Algerian wars finally over,
the country had apparently reached a satisfactory political and
economic stability.
As for Italy, the fear of economic collapse and the communist
threat, which had been so strong after the war, had given way to
economic expansion and sufficient political stability. The socialist
entry into the government had turned out to be helpful, and the
centre-left coalition had succeeded in making liberal democracy work
at home, while developing a sturdy foreign policy, imbued with
European and Atlantic integration principles. The renewal of the
Catholic Church began to bear fruit, transforming the Holy See into
a powerful engine for political, social, and economic progress, while
communist East Europe was undergoing a quiet revolution, based
on three main factors national self-assertion, internal liberalization,
and progress in reassociation with the West.11

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The overall perception of the European situation, then, aroused a

sense of cautious optimism. In the short term, some of the most
important objectives that Johnson had singled out while entering the
White House seemed within reach successfully completing the
GATT Kennedy Round and the international monetary negotiations,12
fostering European integration and Community enlargement to Great
Britain and other EFTA members, stimulating non-proliferation talks
with the Soviets, and restructuring NATO after the crisis that France
had long been incubating and had finally triggered in March 1966.
Still far away, on the contrary, were other goals corresponding to the
Wests strongest ambitions German reunification and the
organization of a stable peace settlement in Central Europe; the
building of a European Community that could really embrace East
and West, connecting both sides of the continent to the US within a
great Atlantic partnership; disarmament; and an adequate European
responsibility in assistance to the developing world.13
The US technological progress in the armaments sector allowed it
to maintain a dialogue with the Soviets from a position of strength.
In January, a treaty banning nuclear warheads in space was signed.
Johnson proposed to open negotiations for strategic arms
limitations.14 The Vietnam crisis, however, continued to fruitlessly
consume American energies, even if the end of 1967 brought the
illusion that the military situation had become more favourable,
thanks to the recovery of wide portions of land previously controlled
by the enemy, and to the intensified bombing of North Vietnam and
the Ho Chi Minh trail. The Cultural Revolution had convulsed China
throughout that year, and the MoscowPeking split within the
socialist field had become deeper and deeper, but Washington was
not ready yet to take full advantage of it, reckoning that dtente rules
and the conflict in South-East Asia hampered this most typical
diplomatic manoeuvre.
In those months, however, dtente negotiations showed that the
Vietnam morass, as well as the Six-Day War in June, could not really
influence the substance of contacts with Moscow. Suffice it to remark
that, soon after the war in the Middle East, on 2325 June President
Johnson and Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers Aleksej
Kosygin met at Glassboro, New Jersey, showing that Asian events
belonged to a different domain of international action and need not
jeopardize Washingtons and Moscows mutual inclination.
As in previous years, dtente aroused ambivalent feelings among
the Western European countries. Relief at the superpowers dialogue

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was accompanied by the fear that they might reach agreement at their
partners expense. Whenever a summit was organized, like that at
Glassboro, some Europeans immediately grew alarmed that the US
and the Soviet Union might be about to make a deal affecting
Europes vital interests behind Europes back, others were just happy
with the idea, and yet others the majority were uncertain what
they felt. Not enough, however, according to a regional survey
prepared by United States Information Agency (USIA) officers in
September, were ready to convert that uncertainty into more
responsible behaviour, such as seeking to persuade the US
government to evolve towards a total, reassuring convergence of its
policies and objectives with the European Allies own concerns.15
There was quite a passive attitude on the European side towards
prominent foreign policy issues, as American officers often noticed.
Except for defence, the Allies did not feel any direct need for specific
aid from the US and consequently tended to refuse to accept its
leadership. Washington had few real means to compel them to accept
it hence the importance of persuasion, the USIAs fundamental
raison dtre. Western Europeans seemed more and more prone to
rely on international cooperation just to achieve national goals. They
had given up their empires and were not inclined to respond to US
urgings to assume full responsibilities outside their continent once
again. They shouldered with no enthusiasm their part of the burden
of aid to developing countries, ready to get political influence out of
that, but incapable of understanding the substance of future world
crises of food and population.
A paradox, or even a schizophrenia, resulted from that attitude.
On the one hand, postwar low self-esteem had given way to a
renewed leadership instinct: Europeans want to believe that they are
world leaders Their governments demand to be consulted often
and in detail. They claim special titles to direct the affairs of the
Western Community in certain fields: e.g. the Italians in the
Mediterranean, the Kiesinger government in Central and Eastern
European affairs etc. But on the other hand the continent tended to
introversion, within the environment of a Europe at peace with itself
and in no mood for adventure. The Vietnam War, despite some
governments supportive attitude, was generally interpreted in
Europe as a difficult situation into which the US had stumbled
without knowing how to disengage, thus shaking the Allies
confidence in the American ability to lead the West towards its
basic goals.16

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Short of other attributes of world leadership, as USIA officers

remarked, Europeans were inclined to overestimate the practical
impact of their cultural influence worldwide. From the political and
psychological point of view, the proportion of people in Great
Britain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Italy that
thought their four countries shared similar interests had decreased.
An overall support for integration was still widespread, but Europe
had become more a mystique than a cause for which governments
should be pressed to act resolutely. Thus, American propaganda had
to underline the importance of European unification and the
enduring value of NATO as a political instrument, even more than a
security asset, but with no illusions whatsoever: the tendency to
confirm independence from the US would go on, and Europeans
would continue to talk about unification without building it, maybe
adding some new member to the club, or possibly creating a bland
confederation.17
Clashing Opinions
On 27 November 1967, de Gaulle officially stated French opposition
to the British application for membership in the Community a
head-on collision with the favourable opinion the European
Commission had expressed two months before. This negative
attitude was confirmed during the ministerial meeting of the Six on
19 December. An uneasy period began for the Community, featuring
important turning points like the opening of the customs union 18
months in advance, on 1 July 1968, but also undercurrents of
scepticism about the goal and destiny of European integration and
construction. Only the Hague summit of heads of state and
government held two years later, in December 1969, would
effectively give the go-ahead to the main issues at stake from the
opening of Community enlargement negotiations to the adoption of
the final regulation for financing the common agricultural policy,
from the definition of wider budget powers for the European
Parliament to the appropriation of specific Community funds, and
from the outline of embryonic common foreign policy methods to
the formulation of economic and monetary integration projects.
All such plans would become feasible thanks to the changing of
the guard at the Elyse: with General de Gaulle finally leaving the
scene, his successor, Georges Pompidou would significantly change
the French attitude in the international arena. De Gaulle, by contrast,

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had never hidden his intentions in 1967 regarding the key issue of the
British entry into the Community. During the Rome summit, in May,
he had already made them clear, notwithstanding Italian and Dutch
pressure, confirming the strong doubts expressed in a press
conference just a few days before.18 Anyway, Frances reluctance had
been taken for granted by the US administration since the beginning
of that year, with respect to the British bid and, beyond it, the overall
status of American relations with Europe.
From the trade point of view, the Johnson administration was
already focusing its attention on the post-Kennedy Round period,
with a specific aim maintaining its leadership in the Wests global
trade policy. Such an objective implied that the US preserved its own
export surplus despite the EECs prospective enlargement, a
development which would lead to the creation of the largest market
in the world, with free trade among members and probable strong
barriers against the US and other countries. Washington also had to
take into due account the proliferation of special trade arrangements
discriminating among developing countries, against Latin America,
and also against US exports; and to decide how to respond to those
developing countries that reasonably appealed for preferential tariff
treatment to be granted for their exports. It was necessary for the
administration, therefore, to keep urging the Europeans and other
industrialized countries to accept a progressive reduction of trade
barriers, and also to openly debate the controversial issue of
preferential treatment given to poor countries, discussing American
proposals on the matter.19
The correct perception of an endemic conflict in the Atlantic
context, linked to the different European approach to global
responsibility in the economic and trade fields besides the politicomilitary and security domains, remained a background consideration.
It did not prevail, however, even in those American circles that could
have been more inclined to criticize, or even sabotage, the European
integration process. Top-rank contacts that Robert Schaetzel
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Atlantic Affairs until
September 1966 and thereafter US Representative to the European
Communities and other administration officials carefully cultivated
in high finance, politics, mass media, as well as the intellectual or
technical debate over US foreign policy confirmed that, in spite of the
irritation and impatience that European attitudes and behaviour
sometimes raised in America, the notion of a United Europe carrying
its weight in the world continued to have great appeal. As Schaetzel

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ironically remarked during a Council on Foreign Relations session

with corporation executives, Europe today and in the future will be
necessary to us and the world. It is our unpleasant and thankless task
to nurse them along through this difficult transition period. The
argument, he concluded in a letter sent to Under Secretary of State
for Political Affairs Gene Rostow, seemed to be accepted.20
The task was not only unpleasant but also very complex, since the
European partners actions and expectations were often inconsistent
with one another and generally obliged US policy makers to keep
correcting the aim while international crises, as in the Middle East or
in South-East Asia, required continuous attention. At the beginning
of May 1967, it seemed right to devote a whole National Security
Council meeting to European issues.21
According to a Department of State preparatory paper for that
session, during the previous two or three years relations with Western
Europe had suffered great strain: trade controversies, offset
divergences, non-proliferation suspicions, French challenges to
NATO and attacks against the dollar, unease in Europe because of the
Vietnam War, and discontent in the US over the reluctance of the
Atlantic partners to share global management burdens. Within NATO
political issues were under examination in the context of the Harmel
Study on the future of the Alliance, proposed in November 1966 by
Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel, but State Department
officials were persuaded that the only effective satisfaction to the
European desire for greater influence in the Alliance would come in
the future from the governments themselves expressing that wish
through unification.22
Such an analysis of the situation did not convince some
participants in the NSC meeting. Secretary of the Treasury Henry
Fowler, in particular, vehemently attacked the report, declaring that
it failed to notice the most important problems: whether the US
could live with European financial initiatives and, more precisely,
reach a rational financial accommodation with the Common
Market, blocking a trend that, during the previous eight years, had
lowered American reserves and increased those of the European
partners; and whether and how to react to the French, who were
trying to expel the US from Europe or, at least, to undermine its
power there, and were using the EEC as a means to reach that aim.
Presidents Special Assistant Walt Rostow laconically remarked:
Europe is neglecting the world. It is in an isolationist cycle. To
which President Johnson responded, as practical as ever:

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A substantial part of my time is spent dealing with Europeans. We

have sent our leaders to Europe the Vice President, Secretary
Rusk, and others. There has been a very large exchange of
information. Even with all of this, all the Europeans say they are
neglected. What we need to do is to find a solution. We must find
a way of getting them to make a larger contribution to the cost
of NATO defense.23
These comments demonstrated the Johnson administrations
conviction that the Vietnam War had not driven the US to disregard
its European allies, contrary to all their complaints. They also
betrayed American awareness that interdependence with Europe was
a necessity for the US, not a gift Washington deigned to bestow. The
European governments, therefore, were being offered the chance to
become an equal partner of the US, instead of an ill-assorted team of
quarrelsome supporting riders. However, basking in the chorus, or
flattering oneself by playing the coryphaeus, was probably simpler, or
maybe just as difficult but more attractive, than writing together ex
novo the deuteragonists role.
Fowler, not content with his biting remarks of 3 May, attacked
again at the end of that month, sending Johnson a memorandum on
USEuropean relations. The French, as the document underlined,
used the principle of solidarity asymmetrically, claiming it when it
was convenient to their theses, as in the case of current international
monetary negotiations, or ignoring it when it was not, as in the
NATO context. The Six, according to the Secretary of the Treasury,
did not accept a share of the international burden corresponding to
their economic and financial strength, either in the field of defence
or of monetary affairs. On the contrary, they kept implementing a
policy of hoarding, instead of reducing surpluses in international
payments swollen by receipts from American military expenditures
to contribute to the elimination of deficits elsewhere. Even if they
had not increased their IMF quotas proportionally to their economic
growth, the Six now claimed more voting power in the organization,
thus looking for stronger influence without accepting the growing
responsibilities that should match it. Central bankers, at least, had
generally assumed a cooperative attitude, but the Five had not
wanted or been able to oppose the almost outlaw policy
implemented by France in the gold reserves issue and over the
question of international monetary reform.
That said, rhetorically pondering the divide et impera temptation
that always crept into the American attitude in a state of crisis, Fowler

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wondered whether the US should really be interested in fostering a

further strengthening of the EEC through enlargement and
technological progress. Reducing the transatlantic gap in the latter
sector might damage the US, increasing its balance of payments
deficit and boosting European dollar reserves, that is, a potential or
actual gold drain on the US. Thus, if the administration really wanted
to encourage European integration and EEC economic strength,
Washington should probably require some evidence of maturity
from the Six. Fowler held up as an example of the type of behaviour
the US should require the Italian and German approach to
international monetary system reform, since both countries had
refrained from converting dollars into gold at the expense of the US,
and had instead sought to channel part of their excess funds into
international financial markets. In the trilateral negotiations,
moreover, the Bundesbank had provided a solution for the financial
aspect of the issues at stake. Actions of this type should be
encouraged, since the correction of the balance of payments gap was
much more important than a potentially counterproductive
reduction of the technological gap.
The Six, therefore, should commit themselves to work out new
arrangements for a more equitable sharing of the foreign exchange
costs of common defence, since US military expenditures worldwide,
net of military receipts, had averaged $2 billion annually over the
previous six years, that is a sum equivalent to 90 per cent of the total
US payments deficits in that span of time. According to Fowler, then,
the Atlantic political and military partnership should be enriched
with a real, full-scale financial dimension. This would help prevent a
situation akin to that in the 1930s which did no one any good.24 In
an accompanying memorandum to Johnson, he made clear he was
trying to urge the other parts of the US government to give a far
higher priority to the importance of viable financial arrangements
with Western Europe, particularly the Common Market, in all
military, political, economic and cultural activities. That was the
American Achilles heel in Europe, threatening the US position much
more than all specific issues listed in the State Department paper.25
Fowlers criticism hit the target, since it set out the same doubts
that the Departments of State and Defense faced every day,
notwithstanding their repeated, sincere, and above all necessary
manifestations of commitment to European needs as expressed in
diplomatic contacts, and particularly in the context of the relations
Johnson and his main advisers maintained with top representatives of

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the Allied governments, or the Community and Atlantic institutions.

The laborious dualism of the American attitude could be traced, for
instance, on the occasion of a visit paid in June by Jean Rey, who had
been selected as President of the new Commission of the European
Communities. Rusk congratulated him on his efforts to ensure
success to the Kennedy Round negotiations and stated that the US
was pleased with the outcome, also because political consequences
of a failure would have been catastrophic.26
The Kennedy Round final act was signed in Geneva on 30 June,
1967. In August, Rusk gave vent to his feelings in a meeting with the
Swiss Foreign Minister, Willy Spuehler. The administration, he
remarked, was quite concerned about the Sixs trends towards
isolationism. They might trigger similar attitudes in the US, since its
involvement in world affairs after the War had been an act of will
contrary to the general sentiments of the American people. While
the Americans honoured their Vietnam and NATO commitments, the
British had declared that they would withdraw from South-East Asia
in the 1970s, and the Germans debated cuts in military expenditure.
Europe had paid scarce serious attention to the ArabIsraeli war,
despite the geographical proximity of the Middle East. In short,
European security and prosperity had led to laziness, but to
presume that the US could be the mercenaries for the whole world,
as some Europeans seemed to do, was a mistake.27
These were tough words, clearly betraying the exasperation and
frustration felt by one of the main authors of American foreign policy
in the 1960s. Needless to say, he and his colleagues knew perfectly
well that leadership was not a thornless rose, but with the high
representative of a neutral country, fundamental for international
financial markets, it was not inopportune or impolitic to make clear
opinions and evaluations that had to be emphatically denied when
talking with the enemy, or diplomatically toned down with the Allies.
Wilsons Long March
The Wilson government had hoped to exploit the evolution in British
public opinion about membership of the Community to convince the
Six of its determination constructively to participate in Europes
integration, overcoming doubts and suspicions that, during the first
bid, had contributed to the failure of the negotiations. For the Six,
the British application announced, like the Irish one, on 10 May,
followed by the Danish the day after, and later by the Norwegian

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application, on 25 July raised the basic problem of enlargement,

that is, the relative importance and weight of each country in the
collective decision-making process.28
The French, in particular, had to confront again the old dilemma
whether to accept or not the British in a European structure that
would have certainly yielded much more easily to Paris hegemonic
ambitions without them. American interests were directly involved by
Wilsons initiative, since British success would have added a new
element to European stability, influencing in a significant way the
course of future USEuropean relations. The Five were keen to avoid
a new crisis with de Gaulle, but would demonstrate how much they
supported the enlargement of the Community if the French sought to
block the process once more. According to CIA information, France
was likely to stress the negative consequences linked to the pounds
world role, namely, the difficult political and financial responsibilities
the EEC would assume, once Britain joined the Community. The
issue was quite important and legitimate, since the Rome Treaty
called for mutual help for any member having payments difficulties.29
The British application was a significant turning point. The
American ambassador to the UK, David Bruce, talked about it at
length with Jean Monnet, who believed that the British initiative, set
in motion under more auspicious circumstances than with the
Macmillan government, marked a famous moment in European
history, a new development in the political movement that had
commenced with the ECSC, as a base for a European house of
nations, large enough to accommodate Britain. Monnet had always
underlined that British participation was essential to European
construction; and, according to Bruce, if the operation proved
successful, the US, far from being injured by the existence of a
cohesive and united Europe, would derive massive and fortunate
benefits from it. The Anglo-American special relationship had come
down to little more than sentimental terminology, in spite of the
deep ties still linking Britain and the US. Hence, the UK entry into
the European Community would only strengthen American relations
with it and its new partners.30 On 16 May, de Gaulles press
conference partly cooled down any enthusiasm. Ambassador Charles
Lucet stated matters very clearly: British membership, he said, is not
for today, not for 1967.31
Wilson, of course, did not throw in the towel at once and instead
decided to transfer the dispute to the formal level, declaring on 17
May that the British application deserved an adequate response, that

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is, a decision by the EEC Council. On 26 June, the Council requested

the Commissions opinion on the applications of Britain, Ireland,
Denmark, and Norway. President Rey declared that the
Commissions report would be ready by September. Some days later,
on 4 July, Foreign Secretary George Brown gave the Western
European Union Council the most complete and political statement
so far of Britains desire to become a member of the Communities.
Europe, Brown declared, should grow stronger so that its voice could
be better heard, the Communities were the real basis for effective
political unity, and Britains entry would not change existing
institutions, but only their weight and size. Dutch Foreign Minister
Joseph Luns and his Belgian, Italian and German counterparts, Pierre
Harmel, Amintore Fanfani, and Willy Brandt soon expressed very
favourable responses to Browns speech. On the Commissions side,
the new team guided by Rey proved much more supportive of
Britains application than Walter Hallsteins EEC Commission had
been at the time of the first bid, and careful in formulating a faultless
opinion that France could not use as a means or pretext for further
delaying formal discussion on Londons proposal.32
The Commissions favourable verdict, on 29 September, threw
the ball back into the court of the intergovernmental section in the
Community decision making process. When US ambassador to
France, Charles Bohlen, sounded out French Foreign Minister
Maurice Couve de Murville, Couve did not commit himself the
new Commissions report had to be studied carefully, he declared.33
This certainly implied that the ministerial meeting scheduled on 23
October would not mark a turning point in the French attitude. De
Gaulle was temporizing. The British had played an intelligent game
until then, trying to avoid the traditional difficulties of
intergovernmental negotiation by manipulating the domestic politics
of the Six. They had shown willingness to debate all pertinent issues,
gaining support of the Europeans in Commission, in the Five and
even in France, as Bruce remarked on 25 October. However, they
had now to face the main problem the Five would not risk a
showdown with France for Britains sake. Siege tactics were the only
choice. As Wilson put it, anyway, time is on our side became Her
Majestys Governments position.34
It seemed that one had to handle France like the Soviet Union
through a strategy of containment and waiting. The Americans
had the time and money to afford a long siege of Moscow as well as,
on a different scale, Paris. But what about the British? Much

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depended on their economic situation and the pounds dangerous

ups and downs.
On 20 July, Wilson had announced an austerity programme
designed to cut inflation and avoid a devaluation of the pound, but
the opinion gradually emerged that this measure might actually help
British membership of the Common Market. On 18 November, after
three years of effort and a final week of extreme tension in the major
foreign exchange markets, the government decided to give up and
devalue the pound by 14.3 per cent. At the same time, at the end of
intensive negotiations, the IMF and the most important financial
powers promised London massive credits totalling $3 billion in order
to defend the new rate. An enduring improvement of its balance of
payments would have helped Britain to free itself from its need for
recurrent huge injections of US financial aid, but the impact of the
devaluation on the British application to entry into the Common
Market was not at all certain. Had the operation borne fruit within a
few months, a major obstacle from the Sixs point of view would have
disappeared, but the question of the special relationship with the US
and the fundamental doubt about the pounds status as a reserve asset
were bound to remain under strict examination in any case.
The Community had played an important role throughout the
crisis, especially during the last weeks before 18 November. The
British government had requested the Six to accept a devaluation of
the pound without devaluing themselves. All but France gave their
agreement by 15 November, provided the measure would not exceed
15 per cent. According to the French, devaluation did not basically
modify Britains poor financial condition, which Paris claimed to be
one of the most important obstacles to UK membership of the EEC.
On the contrary, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, and the
Benelux countries thought the British Cabinets decision, added to
previous drastic measures, had just removed the major remaining
uncertainty preventing the formal opening of negotiations.35
On 27 November, reacting to the devaluation of the pound, de
Gaulle once more used a press conference to state his opposition to
British membership of the Communities, postponing re-examination
of the matter until relations with the UK had changed deeply a
transformation that might possibly be reached through British
association with the Six. On 12 December, in Brussels, Brown and
Rusk debated the difficult situation. According to the former, France
would prove susceptible to combined pressure from the Five. Luns
and Fanfani, he said, agreed to the idea, whereas Harmel was toying

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with unacceptable compromise suggestions. Brown tried to involve

the Americans in the operation, declaring that Rusk should adopt the
same line in his bilateral conversations with representatives of the
Five in Brussels. Rusk and his collaborators, however, immediately
blocked him and underlined that his plan aimed at a showdown
between the Five and de Gaulle, underrating the grave repercussions
of that move on the Communities and cherishing the illusion that
pressures from the Five could really push Couve to turn up his card.
On the contrary, according to the US, it would be much better for
Britain to play a long game, allowing the FRG, Italy, and the Benelux
countries to choose whatever course they deemed best. Above all, old
errors should not be repeated again. Brown declined to accept the
US argument, remarking that the postponement of a clear decision on
negotiations would only weaken the British position, whereas a yea
or nay answer would mean progress. He also asked Rusk for
help once more. The US Secretary of State, however, did not commit
himself. He openly told Brown that he doubted the wisdom of the
suggested UK approach but promised in any case to talk
with colleagues among the Five so as to sound them out on the
negotiating issue.36
Thus, the British manoeuvre culminated in an explicit request for
US help, but the Americans preferred to maintain their noninterventionist position rather than to risk making the situation
worse. Luns and Fanfanis support to Browns approach emerged
during the EC Council meeting on 1819 December. France,
confirming its pocket veto against the British application, remained
practically isolated, mainly thanks to the Belgian and Dutch attitudes,
effectively supported by the Italians, whereas the German delegation
moved more cautiously. In spite of the outcome, however, no
Community crisis loomed on the horizon. It had already been clear
for some time that the FRG was not inclined to enlarge the gap with
Paris beyond formal dissent. The meeting hence produced a sad final
communiqu, remarking that no member objected in principle to the
enlargement of the Common Market; all member states deemed
economic recovery a fundamental precondition for British
membership; five countries believed that negotiations should be
opened in full agreement with the Commissions view, but one
member state had the opposite view that the application should be
considered only after the UK economic recovery had been
completed. The applications for membership would hence remain on
the Councils agenda.37

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No one would have profited from a crisis. The Germans were

inclined to solve the querelle step by step. The Belgians seemed
almost resigned to Paris will. The Dutch, brave enough to openly
challenge de Gaulle, were also realistic. The Italians were going to
face an election in the spring and certainly did not wish for a
European crisis at the same time. As for the Americans, they tended
to think that little worked better than nothing, as their reaction to the
Luxembourg compromise had perfectly shown. Temporary as it
might have been, the failure of the British approach to Europe
saddened those who, like Monnet, had hoped that 1968 might be the
enlargement year for the Community.38 Europe, perhaps, could do
nothing but wait for a new president at the Elyse.
Missed Opportunities
In March 1968, visiting the US, the former German Chancellor
Ludwig Erhard expressed strong criticism against the anti-American
feeling that de Gaulle, who had played a role in infecting all of
Europe, was trying to exploit. Europeans, according to Erhard,
were frequently schizophrenic: they requested US intervention for
certain issues, like the stability of the dollar, but when that
intervention took shape in action, they claimed that Washingtons
attitude might damage their interests. As for Vietnam, everybody
cried that the Americans had to end the war, but few could offer
realistic alternatives to the course chosen by the Johnson
administration. Rusk, fully tuned into those remarks, noticed that
the main risk was the growth of isolationism on both sides of the
Atlantic.39
The most effective antidote would probably have been Europes
progress towards unification political, even more than economic.
Such a reversal of the typical functionalist approach to integration
emerged from American statements in unexpected situations too. At
the end of April, answering some questions by the Swiss government,
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs John Leddy declared
that Europes recovery made the economic goal less important than
the political objective of integration. Only a united Europe, he
remarked, could play a decisive and constructive world role. In
short, as the Department of State once more confirmed, only a major
political component, given the US balance of payments situation,
could counterbalance US opposition to [an] expanded area of
European commercial discrimination.40

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It was apparent, then, that the US was ready to support progress

of European integration not ex abundantia cordis, but within the
intersection boundaries between American national interest though
generally pursued in an enlightened manner, with a view to the
medium and long term, leaving out narrow-minded profit
calculations of Washingtons political and economic initiatives and
the partners hopes of recovering affluence, power and centrality in
the international arena.
These ambitions were more or less conscious, according to
specific cases: more than evident in France, where the May 1968
upheavals would soon reshape the countrys awareness of its own
inner strength and ability to maintain leadership in foreign affairs;
rather toned down, in the FRG, by the fear of relapse into the sin
of power politics and by the priority of reaching reunification
dabord; mediated, in the Beatles Britain, by growing self-perception
of a general, relentless decline from imperial grandeur; anguished and
limited in Italy by social strains, announcing a decade of inner
upheavals bound to culminate in the assassination of Aldo Moro;
more imbued, for obvious reasons, in the Benelux countries with the
awareness of benefits granted by multilateral and pro-integration
approaches to the main international issues. In no case, however,
were those ambitions sufficient to induce European governments, in
that last season of the old international relations system, preluding
the great turning point marked by the mid-1970s, to move towards
any crucial yielding of national sovereignty, such as to pave the way
to collective influence, holistically stronger than the mere sum of the
European actors single moves and foreign action.
The stubborn conservation of development models anchored in
the past was not affected even by the recurrent fear, above all in an
electoral year like 1968, that the choices the US had made in the
1940s might not prove definitive. Just as the 1965 crisis had shown
that the European integration process was not at all irreversible, as
most people liked and like to imagine, no particular sharpness of
mind was required to hypothesize that the American presence in
Europe might soon be nostalgically considered, except by de Gaulle
and his supporters, an idyllic parenthesis that had permitted the
European embryo to mature in the bosom of the pax americana a
growth suddenly interrupted by some agonizing reappraisal of US
foreign policy.
Facing Washingtons innovative international bet, as outlined at
the beginning of this article, Western Europeans had correctly reacted

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at the time of fear and need, among ruins left by World War II. After
that, they had grown rich and lazy. The 1960s was the decade of
missed opportunities, for European construction and the
strengthening of a European role within the Atlantic Alliance. All
problems left unsolved would present themselves again and again
during the following decades, complicated by the new tougher rules
of the international system after the turning point of the mid-1970s.
One has only to remember the tragic weakness of the Communitys
foreign and security policies; the democratic deficit undermining the
bond between the legislative and executive powers in the
Communitys top institutions; the difficult coexistence of
protofederal agencies like the Central European Bank with
intergovernmental approaches to the European Union dynamic; and
the key issue of majority or unanimity vote on the most important
decisions to be taken by the Community quite a leitmotiv linking
Luxembourg 1966 with Nice 2000.
The Europeans made their worst mistake, affecting Community
integration, but with a remarkable fallout in the Atlantic context,
when they did not dare to choose either the brave proposal of
European responsibility on an intergovernmental basis inspired by
de Gaulle and favoured by everybody who deemed best, for various
reasons, to use old power structures instead of inventing new ones
or the energetic organization of new protofederal relations, which
would have been even more sympathetic to Washingtons
expectations and concrete encouragement. On the contrary, they
were not able to leap forward and almost miraculously, but at a very
high cost, saved the Community by the Luxembourg compromise, in
January 1966.
After that, however, the Six gave up the goal of a substantially, not
only formally political integration, and preferred to remain on the
more technical, familiar ground of economic cooperation, mistaking
out of propaganda or self-deception enlargement for deepening,
and fragmentary policy collaboration for a global effort building a
common European identity. That has produced a new body, partly
international and partly supranational, very interesting for scientific
observation, but also very backward in its ability to effectively
influence key nexuses of international power relations, as the recent
Iraqi crisis has widely demonstrated.41
On the other side of the Atlantic, Johnson took up Kennedys
legacy in US European policy, trying to free the grand concepts his
predecessor had enunciated in Philadelphia on 4 July 1962, from the

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miscalculations that had contributed to Britains shocking failure in

its first approach to the Common Market.42 In 1964, while Kennedy
Round preliminary negotiations and the domestic debate on the fatal
Vietnam choices polarized attention, Johnson and his collaborators
took a position of tacit encouragement to European initiatives and
explicit support for the nuclear multilateral force and commercial
liberalization. They did not manage, however, to elaborate a really
updated Atlantic design. They failed, therefore, to exercise effective
leadership and to rise above the hesitations and anxieties of their
principal allies, with a clearer sense of kairos.
Justifications abounded not least the agitated circumstances in
which Johnson had come to power. Remedying that lack of radically
innovative spirit, however, would become more and more difficult in
the following years, when the terrible Vietnam crisis, with its
domestic and international fallout, would absorb growing quantities
of time and energy from policy makers, generally driving them to a
prudent conservative management of US Atlantic and European
policy, rather than a dangerous search for change. With gradual
adjustments suggested by the European partners variable behaviour,
along the lines partially examined in this essay with particular regard
to 1967, circumstances would then shape this sector of US foreign
policy, through obvious fluctuations over and below the central band,
within the basic frame of American international action during the
Johnson years a wary conservation of the status quo.
NOTES
1. On US foreign policy in those years see, for example, Diane B. Kunz (ed.), The
Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade. American Foreign Relations During the 1960s (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Warren I. Cohen and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
(eds.), Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World. American Foreign Policy, 19631968
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); H.W. Brands, The Wages of
Globalism. Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995); idem (ed.), The Foreign Policies of Lyndon Johnson. Beyond
Vietnam (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999). For a general
assessment of the Johnson Administration, see Robert A. Divine (ed.), The Johnson
Years, vol.1, Foreign Policy, the Great Society, and the White House, vol.2, Vietnam, the
Environment, and Science (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1987); vol.3, LBJ
at Home and Abroad (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1994); Robert Dallek,
Flawed Giant. Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 19611973 (New York/Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998); idem, Lyndon Johnson as a World Leader, in Brands (ed.),
The Foreign Policies, pp.618. These and other volumes and essays are listed in
Massimiliano Guderzo, Interesse nazionale e responsabilit globale. Gli Stati Uniti,
lAlleanza atlantica e lintegrazione europea negli anni di Johnson, 196369 (Firenze:
Aida, 2000), pp.57189.
2. Many thanks to Piers Ludlow and Leopoldo Nuti, whose effective and brilliant
comments on the first draft helped focus the article in this direction. Obviously,

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4.

5.

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6.

7.
8.

9.

111

responsibility for the proposed theses and the methodological approach to sources and
bibliography on the subject remains that of the author.
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas (LBJL), National Security File (NSF),
Agency File (AF), NATO, box 10, vol. Filed by the LBJL, no.17a, Cleveland to
Johnson, 8 Jan. 1969.
Ibid. See also Clevelands answers in LBJL, Oral History Interviews (OHI), Harlan
Cleveland, 13 Aug. 1969. Cf. Larry Berman, Johnson and the White House Staff , in
Divine (ed.), The Johnson Years, vol.1, pp.187213; David Kaiser, Men and Policies:
196169, in Kunz (ed.), The Diplomacy, pp.1141.
LBJL, NSF, Files of Walt W. Rostow (FWR), box 14, File Official, no.19d, Pope Paul
VI to Johnson, 5 Jan. 1969.
Ibid., no.19h, Johnson to Pope Paul VI, 14 Jan. 1969, draft. On the Vietnam issue see
among others Richard H. Immerman, A Time in the Tide of Mens Affairs: Lyndon
Johnson and Vietnam, in Cohen and Bernkopf Tucker (eds.), Lyndon Johnson,
pp.5797; Robert D. Schulzinger, Its Easy to Win a War on Paper: The United
States and Vietnam, 19611968, in Kunz (ed.), The Diplomacy, pp.183218; Lloyd C.
Gardner, Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Final Months, in Divine (ed.), The
Johnson Years, vol.3, pp.198238; idem, Pay Any Price. Lyndon Johnson and the Wars
for Vietnam (Chicago: Dee, 1995); Michael H. Hunt, Lyndon Johnsons War. Americas
Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 19451968 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996),
pp.72128.
This typical slogan-like red-pastel writing, meant to insult the President by describing
him an executioner, could still be read in Pavia, in a short alley very close to the main
courthouse, in the year 2000. It has recently disappeared under a layer of new paint.
See Pascaline Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the United States of Europe (New
York: St. Martins Press, 1993); idem, American Support for European Integration
from World War II to 1996: Not Just a European Marketplace, in Luigi V. Majocchi
(ed.), Messina quarantanni dopo. Lattualit del metodo in vista della Conferenza
intergovernativa del 1996 (Bari: Cacucci, 1996), pp.15590; Eckart Conze, Die
gaullistische Herausforderung. Die deutsch-franzsischen Beziehungen in der
amerikanischen Europapolitik 19581963 (Mnchen: Oldenbourg, 1995).
On this topic examined in Guderzo, Interesse nazionale, and a previous essay,
Globalismo, nazionalismo, federalismo e rischio morale: gli Stati Uniti e
lintegrazione europea, 196364, Storia delle Relazioni Internazionali 1112/1
(199697), pp.141201 see Geir Lundestad, Empire by Integration. The United
States and European Integration, 19451997 (Oxford/New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998), esp. pp.14, 5882; idem (ed.), No End to Alliance. The United States
and Western Europe: Past, Present and Future (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1998). Cf. among others Ren Schwok, Les relations entre les Etats-Unis et la
Communaut europenne: conflits ou partenariat? (Genve: Georg, 1992); Thomas
Alan Schwartz, Victories and Defeats in the Long Twilight Struggle: The United States
and Western Europe in the 1960s, in Kunz (ed.), The Diplomacy, pp.11548; idem,
Lyndon Johnson and Europe: Alliance Politics, Political Economy, and Growing Out
of the Cold War, in Brands (ed.), The Foreign Policies, pp.3760; idem, Lyndon
Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2003); Beatrice Heuser, Transatlantic Relations: Sharing Ideals and Costs
(London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1996), esp. pp.533, 90104; Francis
H. Heller and John R. Gillingham (eds.), The United States and the Integration of
Europe. Legacies of the Postwar Era (New York: St. Martins Press, 1996); David W.
Ellwood, Lintegrazione europea e gli Stati Uniti (19571990), in Romain H. Rainero
(ed.), Storia dellintegrazione europea, vol.2, LEuropa dai Trattati di Roma alla caduta
del muro di Berlino (Roma: Marzorati, 1997), pp.52371; Frances Burwell and Ivo H.
Daalder (eds.), The United States and Europe in the Global Arena (Basingstoke:
Macmillan, 1999); Jeffrey G. Giauque, Offers of Partnership or Bids for Hegemony?
The Atlantic Community, 19611963, International History Review 22/1 (March
2000), pp.86111; idem, The United States and the Political Union of Western
Europe, 19581963, Contemporary European History 9/1 (March 2000), pp.93110.

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10.

11.
12.

13.
14.

15.
16.
17.
18.
19.

20.
21.
22.

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Cf. also Georges-Henri Soutou, Was There a European Order in the Twentieth
Century? From the Concert of Europe to the End of the Cold War, Contemporary
European History 9/3 (Nov. 2000), pp.32953; Schmidt, Europe and the World,
pp.35566.
On Britains first application cf. among others Wolfram Kaiser, The Bomb and Europe.
Britain, France and the EEC Entry Negotiations (19611963), Journal of European
Integration History 1/1 (1995), pp.6585; Simona Toschi, Washington London
Paris, an Untenable Triangle (19601963), Journal of European Integration History
1/2 (1995), pp.81109; Rolf Steininger, Grossbritannien und de Gaulle. Das Scheitern
des britischen EWGBeitritts im Januar 1963, Vierteljahrshefte fr Zeitgeschichte 44/1
(1996), pp.87118; Richard T. Griffiths and Stuart Ward (eds.), Courting the Common
Market: The First Attempt to Enlarge the European Community, 19611963 (London:
Lothian Foundation Press, 1996); George Wilkes (ed.), Britains Failure to Enter the
European Community, 196163. The Enlargement Negotiations and Crises in
European, Atlantic and Commonwealth Relations (London/Portland: Frank Cass,
1997); N. Piers Ludlow, Dealing with Britain. The Six and the First UK Application to
the EEC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); John Newhouse, De Gaulle
and the Anglo-Saxons, in Douglas Brinkley and Richard T. Griffiths (eds.), John F.
Kennedy and Europe (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), pp.3248;
Ward, Kennedy, Britain, and the European Community, pp.317332; Frances M.B.
Lynch, De Gaulles First Veto: France, the Rueff Plan and the Free Trade Area,
Contemporary European History 9/1 (March 2000), pp.11135; Oliver Bange, The
EEC Crisis of 1963. Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and Adenauer in Conflict
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp.108206.
LBJL, NSF, Name File (NF), box 1, Bator Memos, no.20, European Box Score,
Bator and Davis, undated. On general aspects of US foreign policy in 1967, cf. Dallek,
Flawed Giant, pp.391493.
On the topic see among others Steve Dryden, Trade Warriors. USTR and the American
Crusade for Free Trade (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Diane B. Kunz,
Cold War Dollar Diplomacy: The Other Side of Containment, in idem (ed.), The
Diplomacy, pp.80114; idem, Butter and Guns. Americas Cold War Economic
Diplomacy (New York: Free Press, 1997).
LBJL, Office Files (OF), Ernest E. Goldstein, box 13, White House Luncheon for
European Ambassadors, no.2 ff., memo, Rostow to Johnson, 14 Nov. 1967.
Cf. Robert A. Divine, Lyndon Johnson and Strategic Arms Limitation, in idem (ed.),
The Johnson Years, vol.3, pp.23979. See also Glenn T. Seaborg, with Benjamin S.
Loeb, Stemming the Tide. Arms Control in the Johnson Years (Lexington, MA: Heath
& Co., 1987).
LBJL, OF, Ernest E. Goldstein, box 16, Western Europe, no.4, Regional Analytical
Survey for the Western European Area, USIA/IAE, 15 Sept. 1967.
Ibid.
Ibid.
LBJL, NSF, Country File (CF), France, box 173, vol.11 (memos), no.160, Bohlen to
Rostow, 23 May 1967; no.159, Bohlen to Rostow, 24 May 1967.
Ibid., NF, box 1, Bator Memos, no.29b, memo, Rusk to Johnson, 11 Feb. 1967. On
monetary issues, cf. CF, Germany, box 188, vol.13 (memos), no.128a, memo of
conversation between K. Schiller and Rostow, 27 April 1967. Among other recent
works, see G. Grin, Lvolution du systme montaire international dans les annes
1960, Relations Internationales 100 (1999), pp.37792; on the Sixs association
policy, cf. Anna Bedeschi Magrini, Dalla Convenzione di Yaound ai Trattati di Lom,
in Rainero (ed.), Storia dellintegrazione europea, vol.2, pp.26183.
LBJL, NSF, NF, box 7, Rostow Memos, no.160a, Schaetzel to Rostow, 16 Feb. 1967.
Ibid., National Security Council Meetings File (NSCMF), box 2, vol.4, tab51, no.6,
memo, Bator to Johnson, 3.5.1967.
Ibid., no.3, memo, Problems ahead in Europe, undated. On nuclear issues see, among
other recent works, Beatrice Heuser, European Strategists and European Identity: The
Quest for a European Nuclear Force (19541967), Journal of European Integration

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25.
26.
27.
28.

29.
30.

31.
32.

33.
34.
35.

36.

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History 1/2 (1995), pp.6180; Laurence Hubert, La politique nuclaire de la

Communaut europenne (19561968). Une tentative de dfinition, travers les
archives de la Commission europenne, Journal of European Integration History 6/1
(2000), pp.12953. On the Harmel Study see LBJL, NSF, AF, NATO, General, box
36, vol.5, no.4, CIA Intelligence Memorandum no.1680/67, The Harmel Study:
NATO Looks to Its Future, Washington 7 Dec. 1967; cf. among others Frdric Bozo,
Dtente versus Alliance: France, the United States and the Politics of the Harmel
Report, Contemporary European History 7/3 (Nov. 1998), pp.34360.
Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers (FRUS), 196468, vol.13,
doc.251, Summary Notes of the 569th Meeting of the NSC, 3 May 1967. Cf. also
LBJL, NSF, NSCMF, box 2, vol.4, tab51, no.7.
LBJL, NSF, NSCMF, box 2, vol.4, tab51, no.4a, Fowler memo, U.S.European
Relations, 23 May 1967.
FRUS, 196468, vol.13, doc.254, memo, Fowler to Johnson, 25 May 1967.
Ibid., doc.257, memo of conversation between Rusk, Rey et al., 9 June 1967.
Ibid., doc.262, memo of conversation between Spuehler, Rusk et al., 14.8.1967.
On the British application see Sir Con ONeill (ed. by Sir David Hannay), Britains
Entry into the European Community. Report by Sir Con ONeill on the Negotiations of
19701972 (London: Whitehall History Publishing in association with Frank Cass,
2000). Among other books, cf. Ariane Landuyt (ed.), Europe: Fdration ou nations,
(Sedes, 1999) esp. the essays by Robert Bideleux, Lambigut anglaise devant
lintgration, pp.97120; idem, Le Danemark: intrts nationaux contre idaux
fdralistes, pp.12952; and Niall OCiosin, LIrlande et lintgration europenne,
pp.1217. See also Dermot Keogh, The Diplomacy of Dignified Calm An Analysis
of Irelands Application for Membership of the EEC, 19611963, Journal of European
Integration History 3/1 (1997), pp.8198.
LBJL, NSF, CF, UK, box 210, vol.10 (memos), no.156, CIA Intelligence
Memorandum, Britain and the EEC, 16 Jan. 1967.
Ibid., box 211, vol.11 (memos), nos.9393a, Rostow to Johnson, 8 May 1967 and
encl. tel. 9217, Bruce to Rusk, 8 May 1967. On the special relationship cf. among
others Alex Danchev, Special Pleading, in Kathleen Burk and Melwyn Stokes (eds.),
The United States and the European Alliance since 1945 (Oxford: Berg, 1999),
pp.27188. On Monnet and the American Europeanists, see Franois Duchne, Jean
Monnet. The First Statesman of Interdependence (New York: Norton, 1994) esp.
pp.330 ff.; Clifford P. Hackett (ed.), Monnet and the Americans. The Father of a United
Europe and His U.S. Supporters (Washington, DC: Jean Monnet Council, 1995); David
L. DiLeo, George Ball and the Europeanists in the State Department, 19611963, in
Brinkley and Griffiths (eds.), John F. Kennedy, pp.263280. On the ECSC cf. also
Raymond Poidevin, La Haute Autorit de la CECA et les Etats-Unis (19501967), in
Guido Mller (ed.), Deutschland und der Westen. Internationale Beziehungen im 20.
Jahrhundert. Festschrift fr Klaus Schwabe zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart: Steiner,
1998), pp.2629.
FRUS, 196468, vol.13, doc.253, memo of conversation between Lucet and Leddy, 19
May 1967.
LBJL, NSF, CF, UK, box 211, vol.12 (memos), no.139, CIA Intelligence Memorandum
no.1371/67, The Status of Britains Bid for Common Market Membership, 1 Aug.
1967. On the WEU see for instance Anne Deighton (ed.), Western European Union
19541997: Defence, Security, Integration (Oxford: European Interdependence
Research Unit St Antonys College, 1997).
FRUS, 196468, vol.13, doc.269, tel.4932, Bohlen to DS, 10 Oct. 1967.
Ibid., doc.272, tel.3313, Bruce to DS, 25 Oct. 1967.
LBJL, NSF, CF, UK, box 211, vol.12 (memos), no.115a, CIA Intelligence
Memorandum no.6775, The Impact of Britains Devaluation of the Pound, 20 Nov.
1967. Cf. Tim Bale, Dynamics of a Non-Decision: The Failure to Devalue the
Pound, 19647, Twentieth Century British History 10/2 (1999), pp.192217.
FRUS, 196468, vol.13, doc.280, tel.1011, Rusk to DS, 13 Dec. 1967. On the
possibility of an American intervention, see LBJL, NSF, CF, UK, box 211, vol.12

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38.

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(memos), no.147, memo of conversation between Rusk, Leddy, Cheslaw and censored
names, 9 Dec. 1967; and, above all, no.148, memo of conversation between Rusk,
Cheslaw and censored names, 6 Dec. 1967. In the latter document, in particular, Rusk
remarked that holding bilateral talks on France might prove quite dangerous.
FRUS, 196468, vol.13, doc.283, Intelligence Note No. 1020, Bureau of Intelligence
and Research, Denney to Rusk, 26 Dec. 1967. On the various European countries
attitudes cf. Rainero (ed.), Storia dellintegrazione europea, vol.2, esp. the essays by
Raffaele DAgata on the FRG (pp.42758), Massimo de Leonardis on Britain
(pp.389426), Marinella Neri Gualdesi on Italy (pp.287338), Donatella Viti on
France (pp.33988), and Marcello DellOmodarme, LEuropa dei Nove (pp.85118).
See also Landuyt (ed.), Europe, esp. the short essays by Ralph Dingemans, LAllemagne
de lOuest et lintgration europenne, pp.6376; idem, Les Pays-Bas et lintgration
europenne, pp.8596; Ariane Landuyt, LItalie entre lidal europen et
lintgration, pp.3547; idem, La Belgique, le Luxembourg et lintgration
europenne, pp.7783; and Jacques Valette, La France et lide du fdralisme
europen, pp.4961.
LBJL, NSF, CF, France, box 173, vol.12 (memos), nos.7676a, memo, Rostow to
Johnson, 30 Nov. 1967, and encl. memo, Read to Rostow, 29 Nov. 1967; no.74,
memo, Goldstein to Rostow, 1 Dec. 1967; White House Central Files (WHCF),
Subject File (SF), CO 81 France, box 30, memo, Goldstein to Johnson, 30 Nov. 1967;
memo, Goldstein to Johnson, 13 Dec. 1967; Monnet to Johnson, 16 Dec. 1967. On
Monnet, among many other works, cf. Grard Bossuat and Andreas Wilkens (eds.),
Jean Monnet, lEurope et les chemins de la paix (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne,
1999), esp. pp.20393 and pp.357433.
FRUS, 196468, vol.13, doc.296, memo of conversation between Rusk and Erhard, 21
March 1968. On Erhards foreign policy see for instance Horst Osterheld,
Aussenpolitik unter Bundeskanzler Ludwig Erhard 19631966. Ein Dokumentarischer
Bericht aus dem Kanzleramt (Dsseldorf: Droste, 1992); Volker Hentschel, Ludwig
Erhard. Ein Politikerleben (Mnchen: Olzog, 1996), pp.435649.
FRUS, 196468, vol.13, doc.302, tel.151414, Rusk to the Embassy in Switzerland, 23
April 1968.
Among recent works on these issues, see Alan S. Milward, with George Brennan and
Federico Romero, The European Rescue of the Nation-State (London: Routledge,
1992); Alan S. Milward et al., The Frontier of National Sovereignty. History and
Theory, 19451992 (London: Routledge, 1993); and other books and essays quoted in
Bernard Bruneteau, The Construction of Europe and the Concept of the NationState, Contemporary European History 9/2 (July 2000), pp.24560.
On Johnsons attitude towards Kennedys legacy cf. for example Lyndon Baines
Johnson, The Vantage Point. Perspectives of the Presidency, 19631969 (New York:
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971), pp.141; George W. Ball, The Past Has Another
Pattern. Memoirs (New York: Norton & Company, 1982), pp.31637; and Paul R.
Henggeler, In His Steps. Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy Mystique (Chicago: Dee,
1991).