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The Origins of
NATO
THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

Consultations With Congress, January-March 1949

The Brussels Pact and Canadian Governments approved the outcome of the Washington Exploratory Talks and the September 9 paper during the autumn of 1948. Formal U.S. approval required consultations with Congress, which were delayed until the newly elected Congress convened. Secretary of State Marshall and Under Secretary Lovett, who had maintained such close contact with key Senators during 1948, were unable to see the alliance negotiations through to their conclusion. Secretary Marshall was hospitalized at the end of November 1948 and resigned in December, and Under Secretary Lovett insisted on leaving government service along with Marshall. 46

The President chose Dean Acheson as Marshall's successor, and Acheson was sworn in on January 21, after bruising hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that focused on the mounting accusations of communist subversion in the State Department and the indictment of Alger Hiss on charges of espionage. Nonpartisan collaboration between the State Department under Secretary Acheson and the Senate never gained the intimacy reached earlier by Marshall, Lovett, and Vandenberg.

Secretary Acheson personally directed all of the diplomatic negotiations regarding the alliance from February until the treaty was signed and ratified. State Department experts John Hickerson, Theodore Achilles, and Dean Rusk continued their important roles as well. President Truman was kept closely informed on the progress of the difficult negotiations with the allied Ambassadors and with Congress, and he weighed in when necessary to keep moving toward conclusion of the treaty. During the final drafting of the treaty these consultations were most intense, and Secretary Acheson moved back and forth between the domestic and foreign consultations. He met a half-dozen times in February and early March with Senator Vandenberg and with the new Democratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tom Connally, and once with a delegation from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. From February through the middle of March, Acheson met with the Brussels Pact, Canadian, and eventually Norwegian Ambassadors for nine more sessions of the Washington Exploratory Talks. 47

During this February-March 1949 period of consultation regarding the emerging draft of the treaty, considerable attention was given to the admission of additional members beyond the original Brussels Pact group, Canada, and the United States. Norway joined the Washington Exploratory Talks in late February, and agreement was finally reached by early March on the admission of Iceland, Denmark, Italy, and Portugal. Senators also strongly opposed Article 2 in the early draft treaty and its prescription for cultural, social, and economic cooperation, and Secretary Acheson had to obtain modification from the Ambassadors before the Senate was willing to accept the treaty.

President Harry Truman addresses the Washington Summit prior to the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949. Seated are the foreign ministers of the 12 signatory nations. In the front row (left to right): Ernest L. Bevin, United Kingdom; Halvard Lange, Norway; Joseph Bech, Luxembourg; Bjarni Benediktsson, Iceland; Gustav Rasmussen, Denmark; Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgium; Dean Acheson, United States; Lester B. Pearson, Canada; Robert Schuman, France; Count Carlo Sforza, Italy; Dirk U. Stikker, Netherlands; and Jose Caeiro de Mata, Portugal. (Department of State photo)

But the most difficult issue in these early spring consultations was the formulation in Article 5 of the December 24 draft of the automatic involvement of the United States and other members in case of a conflict. Neither Senator Connally nor Senator Vandenberg found the original version of Article 5 acceptable. More than a month was needed before Secretary Acheson and his team were able to reconcile both the Senate leadership and the Brussels Pact diplomats with a compromise Article 5 and an understanding of the automaticity of commitments under the treaty. Secretary Acheson reported at several February meetings of the Washington Exploratory Talks on his consultations with the Senate and the unacceptability of Article 5 in the December 24 treaty draft. He warned that the Senators feared that the United States "was rushing into some kind of automatic commitment." He suggested that the phrase "military or other action" in Article 5 was "an unnecessary embellishment." The Secretary stressed not only the need to bring along the Congress but also the limits of congressional understanding of the seven nations' undertaking.

During a February 8 meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Halvard Lange, Bohlen reflected continuing concern about the wording of Article 5. He told Lange that the alliance had to leave a potential aggressor with no doubts about "what he would run into if he started something" and provide a "sense of security" to European states that would permit economic and political recovery. While the representatives of the Benelux states, France, Britain, and Canada expressed strong reservations regarding any watering down of the wording of Article 5, particularly anything that might undercut the suggestion of swift reaction to aggression, they agreed to make small changes in the wording to meet the Senators' concerns. 48

Initially Secretary Acheson's consultations with key Senators had been private, as were his parallel meetings with North Atlantic ambassadors. Public Senate debate over the draft treaty, and particularly Article 5, unexpectedly and prematurely erupted, however, in mid-February when the Kansas City Times printed a story about a February 7 meeting between Acheson and Lange, during which Acheson may have reflected some ambivalence of his own. The Times reported that the Secretary of State had concealed Senate Foreign Relations Committee concerns about the wording of Article 5 from the European ambassadors and had told Lange that although only Congress could declare war, the United States would assume a moral commitment to act against an attack on the alliance. 49

During the February 14 Senate debate, Senator Connally joined the "irreconcilables," such as Senator Forrest Donnell, in disclaiming any moral or legal commitment to go to war for Europe. "I do not believe in giving carte blanche assurances," proclaimed Connally, suggesting that the European negotiators had cleverly hoodwinked the State Department. After the debate, Vandenberg and Connally met with Acheson to lay out the concrete changes to the draft Article 5 needed to secure passage. Vandenberg told Acheson that action under the article "should be a matter of individual determination" and that the word "military" should be removed. Connally recommended that the phrase "as it may deem necessary" be inserted in order to emphasize that a "military" response would not always be necessary. 50

Most European representatives regarded the Senate outburst as a dire threat to the draft treaty, claiming that any watering down of Article 5's wording would diminish the alliance's value. British Foreign Secretary Bevin, although dismayed by the proposed changes, was willing to go even further to accommodate the Senate and ensure approval of the treaty. Bevin concluded that in the long run the wording of Article 5 would not matter. The United States would be drawn into repelling any attack on the alliance, no matter what technical responsibility the Senate had for declaring war. 51

Following up on Secretary Acheson's efforts to find some compromise language for Article 5 that would satisfy Senators Vandenberg and Connally, Bohlen drew up four alternate drafts of the article hoping to find at least one version that would meet the desires of both the allies and the Senators. These several drafts differed essentially in the language describing the action to be taken by member states in case of attack on an alliance member: providing for military action, some other less defined "action," or some still less definite "measures." 52

Acheson presented these drafts to President Truman who threw his personal weight behind the effort. The President intervened with Senator Connally and urged his full support for Acheson in the Article 5 matter. By the end of February, after still more meetings with leading Senators and with the ambassadors, Secretary Acheson's efforts led to a compromise that reconciled Senate concern about holding on to constitutional powers to declare war and commit the United States and the Allies' desire for automatic involvement.

Agreement was finally reached on the complete text of a treaty that satisfied the principal Senators and the ambassadors who reflected the views of their governments. The agreed Article 5 included the minimal definition of automaticity by committing each of the member states to "take such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."

Surrounded by congressional leaders, President Truman ratifies the North Atlantic Pact at the White House, July 25, 1949. (Bettmann Newsphotos)

Secretary Acheson moved the treaty process forward as rapidly as possible, appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 8, where he reported publicly on the progress of treaty negotiations with the prospective alliance members at the Washington Exploratory Talks and on the text of the draft treaty that the ambassadors had approved. The committee followed the lead of Senators Connally and Vandenberg and quickly approved the draft, making only minor language changes that confirmed the constitutional prerogatives of the Senate. Senator Vandenberg repeatedly cautioned the Secretary that the tighter the commitment to automatic involvement, the less likely the chance of rounding up the two-thirds majority vote needed to ratify the treaty in the full Senate. 53

The Truman administration issued statements that made reference to language in the Rio Treaty (attack on one is an attack on all) and in Article 51 of the UN Charter (allies jointly and severally taking measures to restore peace and security) as precedents for U.S. involvement in a multilateral defense arrangement. 54

To meet the specific objections raised by the Senators, the concepts in these statements were applied to Europe through reference to the Vandenberg Resolution. Further clarifying language was placed in the first sentence of Article 11 ("The treaty shall be ratified and its provisions carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes."). This permitted Senators to claim that their powers over issues of peace and war had been respected while the language of Article 5 provided reassurance to the allies of speedy U.S. response in case of aggression. 55

Scope and Membership of the Alliance

The founding membership of the North Atlantic Alliance was not decided until March 1949. Norway, which was withstanding a press and diplomatic campaign of threats from the Soviet Union for considering aligning itself with the North Atlantic powers, was invited to join in early March, followed soon after by Denmark and Iceland. U.S. and Brussels Pact military opinion was against the inclusion of Italy in the alliance because of the probable drain on resources and the thought that Italy would be unable to contribute to the defense of the West. On the other hand, political opinion strongly endorsed Italy's inclusion in order to stiffen Italian resistance to communist subversion. 56

Portugal also took up the invitation to join the alliance although reluctantly, noting the danger to its alliance with Spain but recognizing the strong sentiment in Western Europe against any alignment with Franco-ruled Spain. Among the negotiators, the sharpest argument regarding membership arose over the decision to extend the territory covered by the alliance to include Algeria. By March 17 the negotiators issued invitations to Italy, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Portugal to be original signatories of the treaty. 57

Strong representations from disappointed Governments of Turkey and Greece pointed out that the admission of Italy was a significant departure from the Atlantic concept of the alliance. It was not until 1951 that these countries became members of the alliance in their own right. 58

Signing and Ratification

On March 8 Acheson reported to the President that he had won the approval of the Senate leadership, with extremely minimal wording changes, for the December 24 draft treaty produced by the Ambassadorial Working Group. The language of Article 5 very closely follows that of draft A of Bohlen's February 16 memorandum. 59

The allies offered no serious disagreements with the wording agreed on by Acheson and the Senators. The 18th meeting of the Exploratory Talks, March 15, conducted a general review of the draft treaty, during which the members briefly discussed the relationship of Article 5's wording to the UN Charter, made small corrections to the text of the document, and approved it, subject to French concordance. No interpretations were attached to either Articles 5 or 11. 60

Foreign Ministers of the 12 founding member states of NATO--Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the United States--began to assemble in Washington in late March 1949. Secretary of State Acheson commenced a series of informal discussions with individual Foreign Ministers at the Department of State on March 31. On April 2 the Secretary chaired a formal conference of the 12 Foreign Ministers (accompanied by senior Foreign Ministry officials and resident ambassadors) at the Department of State. The first order of business at this 2-hour meeting was approval, by acclamation, of the text of the treaty. The ministers then held a preliminary discussion on the procedures to establish the North Atlantic Council, the Defense Committee, and other subsidiary bodies to implement the treaty.

The signing ceremony took place on the afternoon of April 4 in the Departmental Auditorium on Constitution Avenue before an audience of some 1,500 diplomats, Cabinet officers, Members of Congress, and other dignitaries. The meeting, which was broadcast live over a national television and radio hookup, began at approximately 2:45 p.m. Secretary Acheson made some welcoming remarks, and the 11 other Foreign Ministers then each made a 5-minute statement. President Truman arrived at 4:25 p.m., made his formal remarks, and then presided over the formal signing by the Foreign Ministers. Out of deference to Secretary Acheson, the President left to him the honor of signing for the United States. 61

In his address, Truman tied the objectives of the new treaty to those enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The treaty "would create a shield against aggression and fear of aggression--a bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all our citizens."

The meeting ended shortly before 5 p.m. after concluding remarks by Acheson. Later that evening President Truman hosted a dinner for the Foreign Ministers in honor of the occasion. 62

Soviet efforts to deter the conclusion of the Atlantic alliance included clumsy attempts at diplomatic intimidation of Norway and threats to suspend the wartime treaties with Britain and France. The main Soviet effort was made in the UN General Assembly when it convened in New York in April 1949 soon after the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. Foreign Minister Gromyko's attempt to characterize the treaty as an attack on the UN Charter failed to elicit any support in the United Nations. 63 Opposition to the North Atlantic pact was strongest in France and Italy, states that not coincidentally had the largest communist parties in the West. In addition to heated rhetorical exchanges, fights broke out in the Italian chamber, and parties of the left organized mass anti-treaty demonstrations. Parliament in both states, however, ratified the document with strong majorities.

The ratification process was completed by August 24, but not without further difficult negotiations and discussions. The Governments of Britain and the other Brussels Pact nations, which postponed ratification action until the U.S. Senate had acted, were particularly concerned that a treaty had been concluded but the United States had not yet done anything about providing actual arms and military equipment. Foreign Minister Bevin steered the ratification process forward on the basis of assurances from Secretary Acheson that legislation would be introduced into Congress as soon as ratification was completed. 64

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held 16 days of hearings on the treaty with most of the discussion centered on Article 5 and the automaticity of the obligation of member states to come to the aid of treaty members in case of attack and the relationship to the UN Charter. Senator Vandenberg and others were concerned with Congress' constitutional prerogatives, and the hearings made a clear record of Secretary Acheson's assurances on behalf of the Truman administration that the treaty would operate within the parameters of Article 51 of the UN Charter. In its June 6 report to the Senate recommending ratification, the Foreign Relations Committee made the strongest possible case for preserving congressional prerogatives. 65

The Senators also worried about several other matters not so thoroughly aired with the West European ambassadors in the 1948 and 1949 talks. Secretary Acheson was able to meet the concerns of Senators regarding the process for the accession of new members to the treaty by obtaining President Truman's commitment that the accession of any new member nations would require the advice and consent of the Senate. The Secretary was later to greatly regret another assurance he gave to the Senate, in response to concerns that Article 3 would mean providing substantial numbers of U.S. troops to Europe in support of NATO, that there was absolutely no such expectation of the assignment of U.S. troops. 66

The Senate, after 10 days of debate, agreed with the Foreign Relations Committee and approved the treaty on July 21 by a vote of 82 to 13. The President ratified the treaty on July 25; it entered into force August 24, 1949, after the other signatory nations quickly ratified. The first meeting of the North Atlantic Council was convened by Secretary Acheson in Washington on September 17.

Military Assistance to NATO

Even before ratification was completed, the issue of U.S. military assistance for the NATO countries had become a major matter of concern and even conflict within the U.S. Government and with the other NATO allies. In the summer of 1948, Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer had headed a delegation of U.S. military officers charged with exploring with Brussels Pact military leaders their essential military assistance requirements. These early soundings were carried out within the terms of official U.S. policy (NSC 14/1) that favored providing military assistance to non-communist nations.

An August 1948 report by the State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee listed 59 nations qualified for aid and assigned the Brussels Pact the highest authority. The U.S. military establishment continued to be concerned that such assistance would deplete the equipment available for the U.S. armed forces, and the argument grew for foreign military assistance to be a separate congressional appropriation. This position was endorsed by Averell Harriman, the European Recovery Program representative in Europe, who argued that the provision of military assistance to West European nations in order to promote economic recovery was stalled by the unsupportable defense budgets. 67

President Truman moved more confidently toward legislation for a military assistance program after his re-election. In December 1948 the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Administrator of the Economic Cooperation Administration constituted a Foreign Assistance Coordinating Committee (FACC), one of whose tasks was the preparation of military assistance legislation. In the winter of 1949, the Department of State, at the direction of the President, took the lead in fashioning the military aid program, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Department providing expert analysis and sometimes critical restraint. The FACC had by March 1949 developed an outline of prioritized military assistance that would provide "substantial" assistance to the Brussels Pact nations, Canada, and Turkey and limited or token assistance to a number of other non-communist countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The first year assistance would total nearly $1.8 billion, of which nearly $1 billion would go to the Brussels Pact nations under the North Atlantic Treaty. The evolution of dollar estimates for military assistance was accompanied by debates within the U.S. Government as to whether the United States would receive base rights from nations receiving assistance. Article 3 of the treaty with the Western European Union afforded a vehicle for reciprocal exchanges, including base rights, under the provision for collaboration and cooperation among the treaty members.

Within days of signing the North Atlantic Treaty, the Brussels Pact nations, Denmark, Norway, and Italy all made formal requests to the United States for military assistance. Later in April the Truman administration submitted military aid legislation to Congress, but action was delayed until after the ratification of the treaty in late July. After 3 months of lengthy committee hearings and debates in the House and Senate, the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 was approved by Congress in late September and signed into law by President Truman. Congress appropriated $1.4 billion for the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) in October 1949, and military assistance began flowing to the North Atlantic countries early in 1950 following the establishment of an MDAP program and the conclusion of necessary bilateral agreements. 68

Conclusion

The danger of Soviet aggression against war-ravaged Western Europe following the end of World War II led to a drastic change in traditional American foreign policy. After 160 years during which American leaders had avoided peacetime "entangling alliances," the United States in 1948 and 1949 embarked with the non-communist nations of Europe on a search for collective security. The North Atlantic alliance was a recognition of the growing interdependence of the nations bordering the North Atlantic and an acknowledgment of how much the security of the United States depended on the security of Europe. But even as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began to form, many recognized that it was more than a means of repelling rampant communist expansionism. It was a historically unprecedented kind of alliance, based on democratic values that would make possible Europe's postwar recovery, historic integration, and continued freedom.

After 50 years the mutual effort of the United States and its NATO allies still serves as a shield for an emerging united Europe and has demonstrated the interdependence of the United States and Europe on many levels beyond the vital military relationship. The United States and Europe have come an enormous distance since the difficult and uncertain days of 1947, but the new challenges that have arisen in Europe make evident that the alliance has not yet lost its purpose. The commitment made by the original allies in 1949 to defend peace, security, and democracy in Europe remains valid today.

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