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The Origins of
NATO
THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

The Vandenberg Resolution: The UN Charter and the Future Alliance

Negotiations over the nature and degree of the U.S. commitment to the defense of its North Atlantic allies were complicated by the conflicting desire of the allies for an iron-clad assurance of immediate U.S. intervention in case of a Soviet attack and the insistence of the U.S. Senate that its constitutional prerogatives be preserved, especially the power to commit the United States to war. State Department officials, after assuming a common position of support for the idea of a treaty, patiently wove together a text that balanced the concerns of its European allies, of the Senate, and of the U.S. military. Domestic U.S. politics, particularly those arising from the presidential election of 1948, played an important role in the international and congressional negotiations.

Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and President Pro Tempore of the Senate embraced the concept of a North Atlantic alliance, introducing what became known as the Vandenberg Resolution, which was passed on June 11, 1948. (Department of State photo)

In keeping with practices worked out during the congressional debate over the Marshall Plan, discussions between administration and Republican leaders over collective security arrangements in Europe were held between April and June 1948. The talks reflected the likelihood of a Republican presidential victory in the November elections. Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, was a leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination before dropping out of the contest. In friendly and candid talks with Secretary of State Marshall and Under Secretary Lovett, Vandenberg embraced the concept of a North Atlantic alliance and agreed to support it in the Senate, but only if substantive negotiations were delayed until after the elections and the UN Charter were more clearly affirmed and invoked in the prospective treaty. 24

The role of personal relations in foreign policy was demonstrated by Lovett's informal discussions with Vandenberg. The Senator, now a convinced internationalist, wanted to be helpful but was mindful of political realities, which he sought to impress on the Under Secretary and the Truman administration. In an April 11 meeting, Lovett tactfully probed Vandenberg's thinking on a number of key issues, including the type of aid Congress would approve; the form of a pact, particularly the willingness of the Senate to approve a slightly modified version of the Rio Treaty with regard to Europe; the role of the United Nations in collective security arrangements; and the legislative preparation needed for eventual conclusion of a long-term European security agreement. A week later Vandenberg and Lovett discussed the wording of a resolution that would provide the legislative groundwork for a long-term pact. 25

On May 11 Vandenberg presented a resolution that he had drafted with Lovett to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which approved it. On June 11 Vandenberg introduced and the Senate passed by a vote of 64 to 6 a resolution advising the President to seek U.S. and free world security through support of mutual defense arrangements that operated within the UN Charter but outside the Security Council, where the Soviet veto would thwart collective defense arrangements. Paragraph three of the resolution referred to issues of military assistance or alliance, encouraging "association by 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 effects its national security." 26

The Vandenberg Resolution was the landmark action that opened the way to the negotiation of the North Atlantic Treaty. While it is clear that the concept of such an alliance first arose during the Pentagon Talks in Washington in March, American action would have been stymied without the Senate action endorsing an internationalist role for the United States.

The Department of State Debate Over the Atlantic Alliance

Passage of the Vandenberg Resolution was a victory for those State Department policymakers who worked through the winter and spring of 1948 to advance the idea of an Atlantic alliance. Secretary of State Marshall's leadership can scarcely be underestimated. By the end of 1947 he was manifestly disillusioned with the possibility of negotiating a European peace settlement with the Soviets, and he recognized the threat to the security of Western Europe without such a settlement. Foreign Secretary Bevin's discussions with Marshall after the London Council of Foreign Ministers meeting interested the Secretary in the concept of an Atlantic area security undertaking.

By March 1948 Marshall had explained to President Truman the dangerous situation in Europe and obtained his approval to go forward with contacts with the Western European Union about some sort of collective defense arrangement. Secretary Marshall turned to senior Department European experts John D. Hickerson and Theodore C. Achilles to guide the exploratory contacts with the British and other Europeans regarding such an undertaking in the early months of 1948. Hickerson and Achilles became strong proponents of a North Atlantic alliance.

After agreement had emerged at the Pentagon Talks in March-April 1948 on an Atlantic alliance and the need to gain congressional support became essential, Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who had worked shoulder to shoulder with Secretary Marshall on the launching of the Marshall Plan for economic aid to Europe, left the State Department in mid-1948. Robert Lovett, who formally took over as Under Secretary of State in July 1948 but started preparing for the position in May, quickly became the Department's principal alliance negotiator and spokesman. Secretary Marshall weighed in at critical junctures, but he was preoccupied with the many foreign affairs crises of 1948 and away from the Department for long periods, traveling to South America or attending UN sessions in Paris concerned with resolving the Berlin situation. Under Secretary Lovett, who directed the diplomatic negotiations throughout the remainder of 1948 leading to the NATO treaty, from the start regarded such an alliance as the essential military complement of the Marshall Plan. 27

Within the Department of State's Bureau of European Affairs there was from the start an undercurrent of support for the alliance idea as well as a feeling of urgency. The State Department did not, however, speak with a single voice. George Kennan, chief of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, was an early opponent of a military solution to the Soviet threat to Europe and the creation of an alliance with Western Europe on the grounds that it would harden the division of Europe into opposing blocs. Only economic competition would succeed. Rather than arming Europe, he felt that both Soviet and allied troops would have to be withdrawn from Germany and Austria. Kennan later remarked on the irony, considering his views, of his assignment by Lovett to serve on the working group of Brussels Pact diplomats who developed the actual language for a treaty. 28

Chief Soviet expert and Counselor of the Department of State Charles Bohlen, although not directly involved in the alliance planning and negotiation during 1948, was at first opposed because of the presumed likely reactions of the Soviet Union. Bohlen was also concerned about the utility of alliances in general. Bohlen feared overreacting to the Soviet threat in Europe and joined Kennan in an April 1948 memorandum opposing the alliance on the grounds that it was premature and might well cause problems of its own in the West. 29

In July 1948 Bohlen wrote of his continued opposition until there was better coordination with the Europeans and until it could be better determined what the Soviet reaction to such an alliance would be. While not denying a Soviet threat, Bohlen, along with Kennan, denied that the Soviet Union was bent upon world domination, and they argued that the West was stronger vis-a-vis the Soviet Union than at any time since the end of the war. Bohlen argued that the period from 1945 to 1947 had been the time of greatest danger for the United States and the West with their armed forces demobilizing and the American public not yet alerted to the Soviet threat.

But the Soviet army had not moved. Through 1948 the Soviet Union had not moved beyond the Iron Curtain. An Atlantic alliance at this time might provoke a dangerous Soviet response and do more harm than good. Europe needed to be economically strong to best resist communism. Bohlen wanted the West to avoid overreacting and unnecessarily provoking the Soviet Union. When in November 1948 Secretary of Defense Forrestal asked if the Soviet threat had expanded so seriously during 1948 that it justified deployment of a larger U.S. military force, Bohlen responded, with Marshall's concurrence, that little had changed since the spring of 1948. 30

Moving Toward Military Assistance
to Europe and Coordinated Military Planning

The basic concept of an Atlantic alliance against communist aggression that emerged from the secret Pentagon Talks in Washington in the spring of 1948 envisaged both the provision of U.S. military equipment and supplies to West European armed forces and U.S. involvement in a coordinated defense against an attack on any of the West European partners. Despite the Brussels Pact military staff talks that were held in London in August, which included U.S. officers as observers, the United States and Europe remained far apart in forging a common military stance against the communist bloc throughout the remainder of 1948. The Europeans looked for the immediate delivery of U.S. arms and supplies to the armies of the individual partners, but the United States insisted that military assistance be contingent on Europe coordinating and essentially unifying its armed defenses against the Soviet Union.

While diplomatic exploratory talks began in Washington in July 1948 on the nature and scope of the Atlantic alliance, American leaders waited in vain for the development among the Brussels Pact nations of any coordination of military plans or any other steps toward unifying defenses such as standardization of weapons. 31

The Joint Chiefs of Staff had not been enthusiastic supporters in the spring of 1948 of military assistance to West European countries or of any sort of strategic commitment to those countries. The JCS were greatly concerned that military assistance to Europe would be achieved at the expense of arms and equipment desperately needed for the buildup of U.S. armed forces to meet their expanding postwar missions and obligations. The deep concerns of the U.S. military leaders were partially allayed by a policy approved by the President in early July 1948 regarding the provision of military assistance to Europe. NSC 14/1 called for the enactment of legislation to permit military assistance to selected non-communist nations in Europe. Any grant of military aid should not jeopardize U.S. military requirements, and recipient countries were expected to provide as much self-help and mutual assistance as possible, integrate their arms industries, and standardize their weapons on American types. 32

Nor did the JCS look with favor on alliance plans that would deprive U.S. forces of the flexibility to meet global demands with the dwindling appropriations for arms that marked the first few postwar years. Moreover, Plan Half Moon-the JCS plan for responding to a major Soviet military attack in Europe, which was approved in May 1948 and guided U.S. military planning through 1948-assumed an American evacuation of Europe, strategic defense of Britain and Suez, and eventual liberation of Europe later. 33

France presented a special problem to U.S. advocates of an Atlantic alliance. In the summer of 1948, France made manifestly clear that it would not rely for its own security on U.S. troops and that it needed to be rearmed and re-equipped first before concerning itself with coordinated long-range European defensive planning against a Soviet attack. For a time U.S. negotiators put off these French requests with explanations about the lack of available arms to give France and the need for legislation before any such assistance could be rendered. In September, however, Under Secretary Lovett informed French diplomatic representatives that the United States would try to meet, at President Truman's direction, the most urgent French requests by transferring from U.S. stocks in Germany equipment for three French divisions. 34

The Washington Exploratory Talks, July-September 1948, and the Debate Over the Scope of the Alliance

On June 28, 1948, the National Security Council, in directive NSC 9/3, authorized the U.S. Government to seek means, within the terms of the Vandenberg Resolution, to provide support to the free states of Western Europe. 35 The nations of the Western European Union were advised that the President was prepared to authorize U.S. participation in talks with European representatives to draw up military plans for use in event of a Soviet attack and to coordinate military supply. Discussions led to the convening of the Washington Exploratory Talks on Security on July 6 attended by representatives of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, and the Benelux states. The talks continued through September 10. By July 9 when the talks moved to the key question of U.S. association with the European states, the Europeans broached the idea of a "North Atlantic Pact" to include U.S. membership.

During the talks, which were held at the State Department, U.S. and West European diplomats negotiated the basic scope and structure of the North Atlantic alliance. Secretary of State Marshall decided that the talks were not for the purpose of making final decisions, and no special military representatives or officials from other Foreign Ministries were to attend. State Department officials headed by Under Secretary of State Lovett met in 10 formal sessions and other private meetings with the Ambassadors and other diplomats of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Canada. The negotiators considered two main issues: the scope of the alliance and the form it would take. U.S. negotiators were careful, however, not to exceed their essentially limited mandate under the Vandenberg Resolution, and they kept the alliance negotiations essentially tentative, foreseeing that the real negotiations would take place after the November national elections and inauguration of a new President. The Exploratory Talks did succeed, nevertheless, in bringing the Brussels Pact nations and the United States much closer to an alliance. 36

The major debate in the Washington Exploratory Talks arose as the Brussels Pact representatives strongly resisted the State Department determination to broaden any alliance to include not just the Brussels Pact members but all nations bordering the Atlantic that could have an important role in the successful defense of Western Europe against a Soviet attack. The United States argued for the inclusion in any alliance of Norway, Denmark (especially Greenland), Iceland, Ireland, and Portugal (especially the Azores). Those islands bridging the Atlantic made U.S. involvement in an effective alliance workable. Sweden also was considered by U.S. officials as a potential alliance member.

The Brussels Pact nations preferred that a prospective alliance be limited to the United States and the Pact. There was clear anxiety among the Pact nations that an expanded alliance would greatly reduce the amount of U.S. military assistance and equipment that alliance members would receive. European diplomats tried to cling to the Brussels group as the inner core of any alliance but eventually conceded and went to their governments with the proposal for a wider group of associated nations. George Kennan was sympathetic to the European preference for a two-pillared alliance of the United States and the Brussels Pact, but Lovett and his aides such as John Hickerson pressed for the expanded alliance that was eventually achieved.

The U.S. negotiators and the Brussels Pact diplomats also wrestled over the essential clause in any alliance undertaking: the basis on which members were obliged to come to each other's aid and defense. On August 9 during the ninth working group meeting, State Department Counselor Charles Bohlen indicated that U.S. involvement would be conditioned by the terms of the UN Charter and "must recognize the separation of powers within the U.S. Government." At its next meeting (August 12) the working group began studying the Rio Treaty as a model for a North Atlantic treaty. 37

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty emerged from discussions regarding the nature of the U.S. obligation to come to Europe's assistance in case of attack. The Europeans argued for the formulation already included in Article IV of the Brussels Treaty under which the allies would "afford the party attacked all the military and other aid and assistance in their power." State Department representatives insisted that the United States could not constitutionally enter any alliance that would require it to go to war automatically. They offered the wording of the Rio Treaty--already approved by Congress--as the best alternative. Article 3 of the Rio Treaty stated that an attack against one party would be regarded as an attack against all, but Article 4 provided for "individual determinations by each party, pending agreement upon collective measures, of the immediate measures which it will individually take in fulfillment of the obligation." U.S. and European negotiators agreed to blend the provisions of the Brussels and Rio Treaties.

The agreed compromise language made the responses by the individual alliance members to cases of attack conditional on their "constitutional processes." Looking back a quarter century later, Dean Acheson recalled that negotiations for the North Atlantic Treaty "became a contest between our allies seeking to impale the Senate on the specific, and the senators attempting to wriggle free." 38

On September 9 the participants submitted a memorandum to their governments that outlined the text of an alliance treaty. 39 The alliance negotiations went into a 3-month recess to avoid involvement in the November 1948 U.S. elections. By keeping the creation of a Western alliance out of the campaign, European and American diplomats believed that the anticipated Republican victory would have little impact on the final agreement when talks resumed.

Drafting the North Atlantic Treaty, October-December 1948

By September 1948 U.S. and Brussels Pact diplomats had made substantial progress in formulating the basic elements of an alliance, but no further progress on the treaty was possible until after several essential events in the last months of the year: the U.S. national elections, review and appraisal by the U.S. and the Brussels Pact governments of the results of the Washington Exploratory Talks, an approach to the other possible members of an expanded Atlantic alliance, preparation of an actual draft treaty, and additional progress in unifying the West European military planning and command.

The November 2 national elections in the United States not only resulted in President Truman's re-election but the return of a Democratic majority in Congress. The outcome worked in favor of the ongoing efforts to conclude an Atlantic alliance. The President had campaigned on a platform of bipartisan foreign policy, and the Republican leadership in the Senate continued to support the negotiations begun in Washington. President Truman approved on November 6 the Washington conference paper of September 9, setting the stage for accelerated treaty negotiations.

During October and November the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department prepared status reports for the NSC on the military and diplomatic aspects of the negotiations. The October 19 JCS report indicated that the U.S. military was satisfied with the course of the military talks but cautioned that much time and effort would be needed to provide Western Europe with its minimum defense requirements. The State Department for its part stressed that the alliance was more a political weapon than a military one. Under Secretary Lovett explained to the NSC on December 2 that the military value of the alliance was secondary to its political symbolism of Western unity. The alliance would be mainly a consultative body. It could make recommendations, but only Congress could declare war for the United States. Moreover, specific commitments and obligations could only be undertaken within the constitutional processes of each member state, and the United States would remain free, as would every other member state, to take whatever measures it deemed fitting to halt Soviet aggression. 40

By the end of October, the Brussels Pact nations had also accepted the September 9 paper and had approached the Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Portuguese, Irish, and Swedish Governments about association with the alliance. All but Ireland agreed to join in the treaty-making process. Under Secretary Lovett and the U.S. negotiating team also pressed on the Brussels Pact representatives the importance of including Italy and possibly other nations not actually bordering on the Atlantic. Emphasizing the strategic importance of Italy and its ongoing struggle against communist subversion and takeover, the U.S. negotiators sought agreement on a formula under which the alliance could be expanded to include Italy and other countries in the future. Secretary Marshall, who spent much of September and October at the UN General Assembly session in Paris, closely monitored the alliance progress and personally interviewed the Norwegian and Swedish Foreign Ministers about participation. The Swedish efforts to organize a neutral Nordic Pact posed serious problems for Norway. Marshall questioned Sweden's claim to a tradition of neutrality. Sweden was not invited to join in the negotiations for an alliance. 41

While State Department officials were meeting with Brussels Pact diplomats in Washington during the summer, U.S. military planners held a series of discussions with Pact military leaders regarding alliance planning and the leadership of the prospective alliance. Agreement was reached to defend Western Europe at the Rhine, and various command possibilities were weighed until it was decided in early October that British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery would become commander in chief of Western European Union forces. Secretary Marshall, who opposed earlier suggestions that such a commander be an American, recommended and President Truman accepted the designation of Montgomery. 42

Under Secretary Lovett and the representatives of the Brussels Pact powers resumed their discussions of the alliance in early December even as an ambassadorial working group began drafting an actual text of a treaty. By December 24 the draft treaty was forwarded to the governments for review. The draft obliged the signatories to consider an attack against any of them as an attack against all and to take whatever action was necessary to assure security of the North Atlantic. The parties also were to consult with one another on perceived threats to the territory, security, or political independence of each other; strengthen their capacity to resist aggression; and create a council to facilitate the implementation of the treaty. The working group was unable to agree on inclusion of French North Africa in the treaty and whether to invite Italy to become a member. Two definitions of the North Atlantic area were included in the December 24 draft: one would include northwestern Africa and the western Mediterranean in the alliance area, and both definitions specified the Tropic of Cancer as the southern limit of the alliance. 43

Even as the negotiators struggled to agree on the substance of the treaty, Canada sought to include economic and social unity in language proposed for Article 2. The Canadian representative argued that there was need for ideological unity among the North Atlantic powers. Secretary Acheson opposed strong language proposed by Canada and warned of the danger of alienating the U.S. Senate. Eventually Canadian Prime Minister St. Laurent gained support directly from President Truman for a compromise Article 2 that encouraged economic collaboration among the member states. 44

On January 5, 1949, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a memorandum to Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, reaffirmed their approval of the idea of collective defense with the proviso that the treaty offer only a "broad general basis" for implementation of military matters. On January 20 Truman, in his inaugural address, publicly outlined administration policy to "make it sufficiently clear, in advance, that any armed attack affecting our national security would be met with overwhelming force," and announced that he would send to the Senate a Treaty respecting the North Atlantic Security plan. In addition, we will provide military advice and equipment to free nations which will cooperate with us in the maintenance of peace and security. 45

We sincerely hope we can avoid strife, but we cannot avoid striving for what is right. We devoutly hope we can have genuine peace, but we cannot be complacent about the present uneasy and troubled peace. A secure and stable peace is not a goal we can reach all at once and for all time. It is a dynamic state, produced by effort and faith, with justice and courage. The struggle is continuous and hard. The prize is never irrevocably ours. To have this genuine peace we must constantly work for it. But we must do even more. We must make it clear that armed attack will be met by collective defense, prompt and effective. That is the meaning of the North Atlantic pact. Secretary Acheson      Address to the nation, March 18, 1949

Dean Acheson, Secretary of State, January 1949-January 1953. (Department of State photo)

Next: Consultations With Congress, January-March 1949

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