As in all negotiations, problems were encountered from time to time, but what came to be known as ‘the NATO spirit’ produced a feeling of mutual desire to reach a satisfactory conclusion, with the ambassadors managing to take their respective foreign ministers along with them, while the US State Department kept the Senate Foreign Relations Committee involved.
MEMBERSHIP
At the start of the Washington discussions it was clear that membership of the proposed alliance would include the Brussels Treaty powers (the Benelux countries, France and the UK), Canada and the United States, but there was some discussion over other potential members.
It was considered highly desirable that Denmark and Norway should join the proposed alliance, and, if possible, Sweden as well. These were long-established democracies and were as much threatened as any other country in Europe; indeed, in 1948–9 Norway was probably the most threatened of them all. Further, they occupied very important strategic positions. Denmark sat astride the western end of the Baltic, dominating (with Sweden) the Skaggerak and the Belts; it also owned the island of Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic. Of greater importance to the United States, however, was Danish ownership of Greenland, which was a vital stepping-stone in the air route from the United States to Europe at a time when transport aircraft had a comparatively short range. Norway was also strategically important, since it lay along the southern flank of the Soviet Union’s naval routes to the Atlantic and shared (with the USSR) the island of Spitsbergen. Sweden, however, was adamant that it would not abrogate its neutrality, and its membership was not pursued.
Once talk of an Atlantic pact started, Canada, the UK and the USA all expressed a desire that Iceland should be a founder member, as did Norway when it joined the discussions. Iceland was a small, unarmed nation which found itself occupying a key strategic position in the North Atlantic. It had become independent from Denmark in 1918 and had made an immediate declaration of perpetual neutrality, although Denmark had retained responsibility for its foreign affairs until April 1940. During the Second World War Iceland had been occupied by British troops, who arrived on 10 May 1940, but in July 1941 these had been replaced by US troops, the last of whom departed in April 1947. The US had, however, negotiated the right for its aircraft to transit through Keflavik for as long as US occupation forces remained in Germany.
Iceland had been seeking its own partners, but appreciated early on that it could obtain no realistic guarantee of protection from the proposed Nordic pact. An Icelandic mission visited the USA on 14–17 March and was given an assurance that Iceland would have a special position in the alliance, that it would not be required to produce any armed forces, and that no foreign troops would be stationed in Iceland in peacetime. A very lively domestic debate eventually resulted in agreement to join.
Italy was a more difficult problem. It had emerged from the war in a weak position, having first fought as a partner with Germany and Japan in the Axis pact, before signing an armistice in 1943 and then joining the Allies as a ‘Co-Belligerent’. For some years after the war Italy was not a member of the United Nations, and when discussions about a potential Atlantic treaty began there was considerable debate on whether Italy should be included or not. Internally, there was no clear support among the Italian people for such an alliance, and the Left – in particular the very strong Communist Party – wanted to declare the country neutral. Externally, there was some reluctance among other potential members who had been at war with Italy until only a few years earlier, while the United States seemed to waver: on one hand it did not want to upset other potential members, but, on the other, it did not want to upset the large Italian community in the USA. Some even argued that the northern orientation of the proposed treaty – its title had already been tentatively agreed as the ‘North Atlantic Treaty’ – appeared, by definition, to exclude the ‘southern-tier’ nations.
The United States encouraged Italy to seek to join the Western Union, but the visit of the Italian Chief of General Staff, General Marras, to the USA in December 1948 appears to have hardened the US official position in its favour. Thus, when the Ambassadors Committee, now including a representative of Norway, met in Washington on 4 March 1949 Acheson’s opening speech included the statement that the United States favoured Italian membership. Ernest Bevin had included Italy in his original proposals for a Europe-wide defence treaty, but thereafter he expressed some reservations; faced with this firm proposal by the United States, however, these reservations were withdrawn and Italy was invited to join the talks on 8 March and accepted on 11 March.
Unlike other potential members, Portugal was a dictatorship, and was not invited to join the Washington talks until early 1949. Portugal stipulated that accession to the treaty would not mean that it would accept foreign troops stationed on its territory (Norway had stipulated likewise), although US bases were permitted in the strategically important Azores.
France, as usual during this period, was beset by domestic political problems. In early 1947 the government was formed from a coalition of centrist parties, and on 4 May the prime minister, the Socialist Paul Ramadier, dismissed Maurice Thorez and three other Communists from government. Despite these upheavals, France joined the United Kingdom in the Dunkirk Treaty and shared the lead with the United Kingdom in finalizing the Brussels Treaty. In 1949 the new prime minister, Henri Queuille, said that the United States must not allow France and western Europe to be invaded by the Soviet Union as they had been by Germany, and also added that the defence of western Europe must start on the Elbe (i.e. the border between the Soviet and Anglo-US zones of occupation). Not surprisingly, the French Communists were greatly opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty, but it went to the National Assembly on 17 May and was approved on 27 July.
United States’ membership of a peacetime European defence pact was by no means a foregone conclusion either, and one of the key factors in any US involvement had to be the agreement of the US Congress. Here the master stroke was the decision to ‘allow’ the Senate to take the initiative. Thus was born the ‘Vandenberg Resolution’, which, like many things in NATO’s birth, went through the governmental system in an exceptionally short time. Thus, the first discussions were held with Senator Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on 11 April, a draft was first considered by the Foreign Relations Committee on 11 May, and it was passed by the Senate (by a majority of 64 to 6) on 11 June 1948. The resolution recommended that the president should pursue:
progressive development of regional and other collective arrangements for individual and collective self-defense in accordance with the principle and provisions of the [United Nations] charter.
Association of the United States by constitutional process with such regional and other collective arrangements as are based on continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, and as affect its national security.
Contribution to the maintenance of peace by making clear its determination to exercise the right of individual or collective self-defense under Article 51 [of the UN Charter] should any armed attack occur affecting its national security.{1}
Several other countries were considered for membership during the original negotiations, but their cases were either postponed or rejected for one reason or another. It was recognized from the start that West German membership would be inevitable, but would not be appropriate in the first instance. Similarly, it was always intended that Greece, Turkey and Spain would eventually become members.