JFK in Europe over NATO

Kennedy’s 1963 Europe Trip

Kennedy felt the need to strengthen the Atlantic alliance in 1963 for a number of reasons. He was suspicious of Gen. De Gaulle’s motives in backing away from the alliance in so far as France appeared to be withdrawing from NATO and promising not to help NATO defend the West in the case of an attack from the East. De Gaulle had stated that he would not help pay for NATO, and Kennedy viewed that France was, in its own way, trying to divide the West. Pick described Kennedy’s viewpoint in 1963 by writing: “the President has evidently become convinced that General de Gaulle will stop at virtually nothing to divide Western Europe from Britain and the US. His actions are considered to have gone beyond mere nuisance value. The US resents the fact that the French decision against paying for United Nations peace-keeping operations was recently delivered in virtually identical terms with those of the Soviet announcement.” In other words, while NATO members were suspicious of Kennedy because they thought he was trying to cut a backroom deal with the Soviets, Kennedy was suspicious of France because he thought De Gaulle was trying to do the same thing.

The importance of NATO at this point in history was purely political: the Cold War was underway and the arms race was the hot button issue. NATO was an alliance between the U.S. and the European states against the perceived threat of the Soviet bloc. In Kennedy’s State of the Union address in 1963, he said, “The first task of the alliance remains the common defense. Last month Prime Minister Macmillan and I laid plans for a new stage in our long cooperative effort, one which aims to assist in the wider task of framing a common nuclear defense for the whole alliance.” Kennedy viewed NATO as being a line of defense against Soviet aggression, particularly with respect to the use of nuclear weapons. He wanted a NATO that could offer nuclear defense in the case of a nuclear attack.

Kennedy’s relationship with Gen. De Gaulle was strained. Kennedy was trying to organize a more tightly knit European alliance, that would be directed by the U.S. and that would respond to its orders. France did not want to participate in this kind of arrangement. De Gaulle had always been more independently minded. He had headed the Free France movement during the WWII and resisted German occupation while the majority of France was happy to stay out of the war. De Gaulle was not about to take orders from another country now.

Kennedy and De Gaulle had met in 1961 to discuss the Berlin issue and the problem that the Soviet Union was presenting to the Western powers with its blockade and now Berlin Wall. De Gaulle and Kennedy had agreed in essence on the important issues at the time but the manner of execution and the way in which a unified response to the Soviet Union would be issued was a point that they did not agree upon (Kennedy, 1961). Kennedy wanted NATO to be a strict line of defense and to be viewed as a deterrent, and in order for that to happen, NATO had to be strong with each of its members committed to stopping the Soviet threat. De Gaulle was not about to jump into another military confrontation and did not want to participate in military drills or contribute financially to the NATO line of defense. This exasperated Kennedy on the one hand, and on the other hand he too wanted to effect the peace. He skipped visiting France in his 1963 European visit because he was more interested in strengthening the U.S. image. As Pick (1963) put it: “The US has failed to out-manoeuvre France so far. President Kennedy is making an outstanding effort now. General de Gaulle will again be visiting Germany in July. The President, by engaging in a virtual popularity contest. is trying to insure against a further German effort to strengthen Franco-German relations at the expense of the Atlantic alliance.” In other words, Kennedy’s visit was about making the U.S. look good to the Germans so as to keep the French in check.