CONSEIL DE L'atlantique NORD NORTH ATLANTIC COUNCIL NATO UNCLASSIFIED" PUBLIC DISCLOSE® EXEMPLAIRE 374 COPY ^ W IS* "ORIGINAL: ENGLISH ; 8Th February, 1957
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CONSEIL DE L'ATLANTIQUE NORD NORTH ATLANTIC COUNCIL NATO UNCLASSIFIED" PUBLIC DISCLOSE® EXEMPLAIRE 374 COPY ^ W IS* "ORIGINAL: ENGLISH ; 8th February, 1957. MMARY RECORD C"-R(57)7 - Summary Record of a meeting of the Council held at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, XVIe, on Wednesday, 6th.February, at 10.15" a."~m7 • PRESENT Chairman: The Lord Ismay BELGIUM GREECE • NORWAY Mr. A. de Staercke Mr. M. Melas Mr. K. Aars . CANADA ICELAND PORTUGAL Mr. L.D. Wilgress Mr. H. Andersen ' -Count de Tovar DENMARK • ITALY TURKEY Mr. M.A. Wassard Mr. M. Pinna Caboni Mr. Z. Kuneralp FRANCE LUXEMBOURG UNITED KINGDOM Mr. A. ParcTdi S Mr., A. Philippe Sir Christopher St'eel GERMANY I NETHERLANDS UNITED STATES t ' ' Mr. H. Blankenhorn Mr, G0 W. ' Pe rk i ns I Mr,. E.N. van Kleff ens Deputy Secretary GénéralINTERNATIONA: L BaroSTAFFn A. Bentinck Assistant Secretary General Mr. A. Casardi for-Political Affairs; •-•il Assistant Secretary General / \ for Economics and Finance: Mr. F.D. Gregh Acting Assistant Secretary General for Production- and Mr, A. F. Moreau DECLASSIFIED - PUBLIC DISCLOSURE / DÉCLASSIFIÉ - MISE EN LECTURE PUBLIQUE LECTURE EN - MISE / DÉCLASSIFIÉ DISCLOSURE - PUBLIC DECLASSIFIED Logistics: Executive Secretary: The Lord Coleridge - ALSO PRESENT Standing Group Representative General G.M. de Chassey • CONTENTS Item Subject . Page No. I. Military consequences of POL shortages 3 II. Allied Command Europe counter-surpirise military ' 6 alert system N III. Rules for engagement of unidentified aircraft "by 6 NATO fighters in peacetime • IV. Exercise "'Strikeback" ' 8 " V. Division of responsibilities in wartime between the national territorial commanders and the 9 major and subordinate NATO commanders VI.. Overall organization of the integrated NATO forces 9 VII. Meeting of Poreigh Ministers in Bonn: desirabil- 9 ity of holding a public session VIII. Political consultation'within the Council: list 10 of suggested topics IXf Committee of Economic Advisers: interpretative t 12 comments by the United States Delegation X. NATO scientific and technical conference: pro- 12 posais by the United States Delegation XI. Departure of Sir Christopher Steel 13 XII. Future meetings of the Council 13 DECLASSIFIED - PUBLIC DISCLOSURE / DÉCLASSIFIÉ - MISE EN LECTURE PUBLIQUE LECTURE EN - MISE / DÉCLASSIFIÉ DISCLOSURE - PUBLIC DECLASSIFIED NATO SECRET I. MILITARY CONSEQUENCES OF FOL SHORTAGES Previous reference: C-R(57)3 Document: C-M(57)7 1. Mr. STOCK (Chairman of the Petroleum Planning Committee) commented on the Committee's report on this subject, circulated under reference,C-M(57)7. The report stressed four points in particular: > ( a) With regard to minimum levels of stocks, referred to in paragraphs 8 and 9> the position was as follows.; on the basis of reported military stocks it appeared that the levels at Ist January, 1957? were not signi- ficantly different from those at 31st October, 1956, On the same basis, to obtain a minimum 30-days' level, it would be necessary to increase military stocks by ; a total of approximately a quarter of à million tons in the NATO European area. Of this deficit, up to 180 mille tons might have to be- imported. (b) Some countries had made arrangements for an all- purpose national emergency reserve, earmarked out o'f company-owned stocks. The Committee recommended that for planning purposes a distinction should be drawn V so that the military element of these general purpose reserves might be taken into account when member countries reported their military stocks to NATO. This point was dealt with in paragraph 7. ( c) Vln paragraph 6, the relationship of military stocks to other stocks was considered. It appeared to the Committee that, in some countries, after the company- owned stocks earmarked for military use were set on one-side, the stocks remaining were inadequate for the support of the civilian economy, There was thus a lack of balance in the figures submitted. The Council might wish to suggest that member countries > take this point into account to arrive at a more real- istic balance between military reserves and civilian ' . stocks. ( d) The Committee,. in paragraph 10, had rather diffidently considered the question of reserves for non-NATO:forces. The Committee had not been sure that this was a question really within their competence, but had wished to point out that it appeared from the figures before DECLASSIFIED - PUBLIC DISCLOSURE / DÉCLASSIFIÉ - MISE EN LECTURE PUBLIQUE LECTURE EN - MISE / DÉCLASSIFIÉ DISCLOSURE - PUBLIC DECLASSIFIED them that non-NATO forces in certain countries might have to draw on sources of supply at present ear- marked for NATO forces, - 2. The FRENCH REPRESENTATIVE, commenting on paragraph 9 of the report, said that he had gone into the figures in respect of French reserves. From the explanations he had received, he had come, to the conclusion that the only serious shortage was in respect of' diesel fuel. Even that shortage could be overcome through the trans- fer of stocks held in the country. He was therefore not particularly worried by the figures quoted, as far as France was concerned. Withr -U- regard to the point made by Mr. Stock In connection with reserves for non-NATO forces, he thought that this was a question which the , Council should certainly consider at some stage. Finally, he • t'hpught that the Council should also at a later stage examine the question of the vulnerability of stocks, dealt with in paragraph 11 of the report, 3. The GREEK REPRESENTATIVE said that when thef Suez, crisis had developed at the beginning of November, POL stocks held in Greece happened to be exceptionally low, largely because certain orders already placed had not been filled. Further orders had been placed subsequently, and those too had not yet, in many cases, been filled. His authorities believed that if NATO could help to get orders already placed filled in the near future, the position in Greece would be reasonably satisfactory. • It would mean that at least 40,000 out of the 50,000 tons recommended for Greece would be available. He proposed to discuss this particular aspect of the problem with the Chairman of the Petroleum Planning Committee, U. • The NORWEGIAN REPRESENTATIVE urged that all government- , owned stocks, irrespective of whether they covered more than 30-daya' military wartime requirements or not., should be excluded from the returns submitted to OEEC. If government-owned stocks were not suf- ficient to cover the first 30 days' military requirements, the balance if possible, should.be made up from company-owned stocks,, earmarked for this purpose, and withdrawn from the .OEEC figures. This would put all NATO countries on the same basis. It should,however,be borne in mind that the earmarking of certain commercial stocks to meet; the . military requirements for the first 30 days could only be done If there was a proper balance between the military coverage and the- civilian coverage for wartime needs. For instance, if 30-days' , coverage had been obtained for military requirements by wholly or partly earmarking commercial stocks, and the remaining commercial stocks were only sufficient to cover up to five or ten days' civilian requirements, the position was obviously out of balance. 5, He agreed with the points made in paragraphs 9 (i) and:(ii) of the report. However,-he underlined the possible difficulties, of getting non-NATO members of OEEC to agree to military stockpiling* under present conditions. It seemed to him an open question whe.ther the ceiling should be fixed-at the 30-day level or higher. He believed it was more realistic to fix the ceiling at 30-days', at least for the present. -. 6, Finally, a few countries had had the foresight to obtain government-owned reserves well in excess of 30-days'and he did not believe they should be penalised for this action.- It should be left to their discretion to decide whether they were justified in drawing on government-owned stocks, at least to a certain extent, to minimise the effect on the- civilian economy during the: present oil shortage, DECLASSIFIED - PUBLIC DISCLOSURE / DÉCLASSIFIÉ - MISE EN LECTURE PUBLIQUE LECTURE EN - MISE / DÉCLASSIFIÉ DISCLOSURE - PUBLIC DECLASSIFIED 7, The TURKISH REPRESENTATIVE thought the suggestions made by the 'Committee in paragraph 9 (i) would present no difficulty for- his Government, as far as physical/facilities for storage were concerned, Hov/ever, the financing of the oil needed to make up the deficit was a more serious problem. 8, The BELGIAN REPRESENTATIVE said that he had been trying to clear -with his authorities the question of unbalance between stocks earmarked for military purposes on the -one hand and civilian use on the other,' From the information'given him, he believed that the Belgian Ministry of Defence had stocks earmarked for 82½ days for national military purposes. Por civilian purposes there was a 5^ day reserve,, which, he was informed, would not lead to any diffi- culties . ; 9. The UNITED KINGDOM REPRESENTATIVE felt that the relationship between civilian and military stocks had never been seriously con- sidered in most countries. Movement of-stocks In wartime would be extremely difficult. Moreover, the 30-days' stocks referred to : should be held in depots'which, were not vulnerable. This was seldom the case at present, since most company-owned stocks were held in largè ports which were likely to be the first bombing objective in wartime. 10. Mr. STOCK pointed out that a preliminary-report on the question of vulnerability had" been examined by the Petroleum Planning Committee and by the Senior Civil Emergency Planning Committee, and would form the subject of a report to the Council. Briefly, the-; report indicated that, on the basis of reasonable , assumptions with regard to the effect of bombing in the early days of thermonuclear war, only four out of the ten NATO countries in the European area would have enough POL to last for 30 days of war.