Review article Why the general said No

GEOFFREY WARNER*

Documents diplomatiques français 1961, vol. I, 1 janvier–20 juin: 1997, 1024pp. 1961, vol. II, 1 juillet–31 décembre: 1998, 823pp. 1962, vol. I, 1 janvier–30 juin: 1998, 717pp. 1962, vol. II, 1 juillet–31 décembre: 1999, 636pp. 1963, vol. I, 1 janvier–30 juin: 2000, 728pp. (All with index, published in Paris by the Imprimerie Nationale)

Readers of this journal will be accustomed to occasional review articles devoted º to the volumes of official documents published by the US State Department under the title Foreign relations of the United States. Not all may be aware, however, that other governments also publish similar documentary collections. They include Canada, Germany, Italy, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom—and France. Between 1963 and 1986 the last-named published a series of Documents diplomatiques français covering the 1930s, in volumes easily distinguishable on library shelves by their blue covers. In 1987 it began to publish a new series, in red covers, dealing with the period after the end of the Geneva conference of 1954; and it has recently launched yet another series to fill the ten-year gap between that year and the liberation of France at the end of the Second World War. All three series are published under the auspices of the French foreign ministry. A large and prestigious committee, composed of senior civil servants and academics, presides over the whole enterprise, and a much smaller team of around half a dozen persons, consisting of academics and archivists, is responsible for individual volumes. The five volumes under review have been produced by a more or less identical team operating under the overall supervision of Professor Maurice Vaïsse, one of the most distinguished of French international historians. Those accustomed to the Foreign relations of the United States will find important differences between it and the Documents diplomatiques français. Whereas the American publication is subdivided into volumes covering different regions and

* I should like to thank Martin Parker, whose computing skills, rescued this article from oblivion.

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topics, the French one includes everything in the same volume. The scale of the FRUS is much greater than that of the DDF. The period covered by the five volumes under review takes up no fewer than twenty-five in the FRUS—and this is not simply a consequence of the greater power and responsibilities of the United States. The DDF is much more selective than its American counterpart. Come what may, it seems, everything has to be squeezed into two volumes per year.1 The DDF is also much more reliant upon documentation from the archives of the French foreign ministry, whereas the FRUS, in recent years at any rate, has widened its net to include documents from the US presidential libraries, other government agencies (such as the Defense Department) and various private collections of papers. This does create problems for the historian, particularly after General de Gaulle’s return to power in 1958 and the establish- ment of the Fifth Republic, when foreign policy was declared to be part of the president’s domaine réservé, and not only de Gaulle himself but also such personal advisers as the African specialist Jacques Foccart often carried out their own policies independently of, and occasionally in opposition to, those of the Quai d’Orsay. Nevertheless, these documents do throw much light upon the foreign policy of both the Fourth and the Fifth Republics; and, since France was one of the three major Western powers during the period covered by them, this is often of considerable interest.

Nowhere is this truer, perhaps, than in the case of de Gaulle’s veto of the first British application to joint the European Economic Community.2 Acres, or perhaps one should say hectares, of print have already been expended on this subject, not least after the opening of the British archives under the thirty-year rule. The French side of the story, however, has not received anything like as much attention, at least not by British historians.3 The volumes under review permit everyone who is interested to reach at least a preliminary assessment of the French role in this important event. When, on 31 July 1961, the British prime minister announced in the House of Commons the United Kingdom’s intention to open negotiations with the six member states of the European Economic Community with a view to discovering whether a basis could be found on which the former could become a full member of the latter, his decision had already been largely

1 Some of the earlier volumes of the series had supplements which contained the minutes of bilateral or multilateral meetings (e.g. the Franco-American discussions of September and November 1954, and the conference of foreign ministers on Berlin in 1959), but this practice now seems to have been discontinued and all documentation of such meetings considered important by the editorial team is included in the two annual volumes. 2 The terms ‘European Economic Community’, ‘EEC’, ‘Common Market’, ‘Community’ and ‘the Six’ will be used more or less interchangeably in the course of this article. 3 An important exception to this generalization is Piers Ludlow’s Dealing with Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), which used French, as well as British, West German and European Community archives in what is by far the best study of the subject. However, Ludlow’s book was not concerned solely with French policy and he did not have access to the French minutes of the meetings between de Gaulle and Macmillan which are published for the first time in the volumes under review here.

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anticipated in an anonymous memorandum written in the west European affairs division of the French foreign ministry on 9 June. The reasons for it were given as Britain’s economic stagnation, which contrasted sharply with the growth among the six Common Market countries; its balance of payments problems; and its loss of political influence, which was attributed to the emergence of the Paris– Bonn axis in western Europe and the coming to power of President John F. Kennedy in the United States. The author of the memorandum thought that the most serious economic problem to be overcome was Britain’s Commonwealth commitments. But even these were only a part of its worldwide economic and financial role. ‘Is it essential’, the memorandum asked, ‘to give up British sover- eignty in such important areas in order to safeguard the relatively small amount (15%) of Britain’s trade with the Common Market?’ On the political side, could Britain give up its mediatory role in the Commonwealth and the East–West conflict? Both major parties, it was pointed out, were divided on the issue of EEC membership, and it was likely that the Labour opposition would delay a final decision on its own attitude in order to exploit divisions on the government benches. The European question was therefore one of domestic as well as foreign policy. If negotiations did occur, the memorandum stated, they would be ‘long, difficult and risky’. There was a danger of the dilution of the EEC and disagree- ment among its members. Indeed, the latter’s ‘cohesion, and doubtless to a great extent the success of the negotiation, will ultimately depend upon the preservation and strengthening of the Franco-German entente’ (1961/I, no. 279). Both the background to the British application and the likely hazards ahead were accur- ately described in this memorandum, which illustrates, as do many others in the volumes under review, the perceptiveness of French diplomats in general. Such was the timing of the British decision to apply for membership of the EEC that it was autumn before the negotiations got under way. It is clear from the documents that the French were in no hurry. They wanted the British to submit a written document setting out their objectives prior to the opening of negotiations and, when their partners demurred, agreed to an oral presentation, but only on condition that it did not form part of the negotiating process itself. So it was that the leader of the British delegation to the negotiations, Edward Heath, made an opening speech on 10 October 1961, but negotiations did not begin until 8 November (1961/II, nos 103, 122). Another important procedural point was decided after Heath’s opening speech. The Benelux countries and West Germany proposed the Belgian foreign minister, Paul-Henri Spaak, as the permanent chairman of the conference dealing with the negotiations. For the French, however, this bore a suspicious resemblance to a recent suggestion put forward by the British. In a circular telegram of 11 October 1961, Maurice Couve de Murville, the French foreign minister, expressed the fear that ‘the freedom of action of governments—and of ours in particular—will be seriously reduced if such a proposal is adopted’ (1961/II, no. 133). It was not; instead, a rotating chairmanship was established. This, together with the acceptance of the French view that the Six should meet

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before each round in the negotiations to concert a common position, proved disadvantageous to the British.4 That these procedural matters were indicative of serious French reservations about the desirability of British entry into the Common Market emerges clearly from a memorandum of 13 October 1961 by François Valéry, an official in the economic and financial affairs division of the French foreign ministry. In a wide-ranging analysis of Heath’s speech on the 10th, Valéry argued that the conception behind it was opposed to that embodied in the Common Market and its African extension, and would lead almost inevitably to an arrangement with the United States, perhaps reflecting the notion of Atlantic union, to which Macmillan alluded from time to time, or, more likely, to some new version of the ‘three circles’ theory of British foreign policy.5 Valéry did not deny Britain’s sincerity in applying for EEC membership, but observed that its ‘intention is to force the system into a particular mould, to guide its spirit and to steer its application in a new direction and, while maintaining the essence of its links with the Commonwealth, to lead this brave new world [tout ce beau monde] towards new horizons where the three circles would strongly resemble three rainbows over Great Britain’ (1961/II, no. 140). Beneath the poetic imagery lies the clear implication that the British approach was inimical to French interests. Valéry was of course only an official; but on 16 November 1961 we find no less an authority than General de Gaulle himself expressing his doubts concerning British entry into the Common Market to the chairman of the EEC’s commis- sion, Walter Hallstein. ‘The English’, he said, ‘were asking for concessions which were incompatible with the very principles of the common [external] tariff.’ Moreover, their ambition to bring the entire Commonwealth in with them amounted to a complete transformation of the Community’s character, turning it from a European organization into a global one. ‘It would mean in fact something quite different.’ Hallstein agreed, adding that he shared the general’s view that ‘the negotiations were going to take a long time’ (1961/II, no. 179). Time, however, was a commodity of which Harold Macmillan felt he had relatively little. As he put it emphatically in a conversation with de Gaulle at his Sussex home, Birch Grove, on 25 November 1961, ‘English opinion is at a turning- point [and] if agreement is not reached during 1962, it will turn its back on Europe for good.’ As he had explained on the previous day, Churchill had been concerned with European unity, but had been put off by federalists like Robert Schuman. De Gaulle’s conception of a union of sovereign states, on the other hand, corresponded to British policy. It was imperative, therefore, to ‘build something solid’ while he, de Gaulle and Adenauer were still in power; after they had gone, no one could tell what would become of Germany or Europe.

4 See the memoirs of one of the leading British negotiators, Sir Eric Roll: Crowded hours (London: Faber, 1985), p. 118. 5 The theory of the ‘three circles’ is associated with , who first referred to it in a speech in 1948. It described, in diagrammatic form, Britain’s unique position at the intersection of three foci of power: Europe, the Commonwealth and North America.

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De Gaulle’s references to the economic problems posed by Britain’s candi- dature, notably those relating to the Commonwealth, were brushed aside by Macmillan, who repeatedly stressed the political importance of British member- ship. ‘If the negotiations drag on or fail,’ he warned, ‘the idea of creating an entity in which France and England would be the leading partners in order to deal on an equal footing with the United States will have to be abandoned.’ De Gaulle professed to be ‘much impressed’ by what the British prime minister had said, but he was still worried about the Commonwealth. He understood Britain’s position, he said. It wanted to enter Europe, but did not want Canada and India to leave the Commonwealth. After all, where else would they go? France, however, did not want their entry into the Common Market to prevent the creation of Europe. Macmillan sought in vain to convince de Gaulle that it was not a matter of the Commonwealth entering Europe, only of it not simply being abandoned. In somewhat sybilline fashion, the general concluded ‘that if England enters Europe, it will certainly bring to it its own approach, which involves a much greater degree of flexibility than the method espoused by France or Germany’ (1961/II, no. 192). Macmillan’s reference in the Birch Grove conversations to a British prefer- ence for de Gaulle’s plans for a political union of western Europe must be seen in the context of the negotiations for such a union which were already taking place among the Six. First launched publicly at the general’s press conference on 5 September 1960, the idea was discussed both bilaterally and multilaterally among the members of the EEC and, at the Bonn ‘summit’ on 18 July 1961, it was agreed that the intergovernmental working party previously set up under the chairmanship of the Gaullist diplomat Christian Fouchet would draw up proposals which would give ‘statutory character’ to the union. No sooner had Britain applied for membership of the Common Market than its two most ‘federalist’ member states, Belgium and the Netherlands, paradoxically began arguing for British participation in the negotiations. As one French historian has explained, ‘as far as the [Dutch and Belgian foreign] ministers, Luns and Spaak, were concerned, there was a simple choice: if England joined the Community so creating a counterweight to the Franco-German combination, the two countries could give up supranational integration; but if England were excluded, they were determined to safeguard Community practices.’6 The Belgian and Dutch position was reinforced on 10 April 1962, when Edward Heath called for immediate British participation in the political negotiations, regardless of the state of play in those for British entry into the EEC. At a meeting of the Six on 17 April 1962 Spaak and Luns made it clear that their governments would not sign any treaty of political union before Britain joined the Common Market (1962/I, no. 132). The economic negotiations were not, in fact, going very well. As Piers Ludlow has justly remarked, on the eve of the ministerial meeting of 11–12 May 1962

6 Marie-Thérèse Bitsch, Histoire de la construction européenne (Brussels: Editions Complexes, 2001), p. 138.

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‘the atmosphere in Brussels was gloomy. Nine months after Britain’s desire to open talks with the Six had been announced, and six months into the negotiations themselves, both sides had set out their respective views in some detail, but no genuine bargaining had yet taken place.’7 Stung by a reported remark of Sir Eric Roll’s to the effect that Britain hoped to isolate France at the forthcoming meeting, one of the French negotiators, Olivier Wormser, wrote on 8 May 1962 that any attempt by Britain to accelerate the negotiations must be resisted. ‘Haste’, he said, ‘must not become an element in the negotiations.’ Referring to attempts to come up with a package deal on the part of the Germans, Belgians, Italians, the EEC Commission and Jean Monnet (whose Action Committee for a United Europe was exerting pressure from the outside), Wormser declared that ‘these initiatives must be nipped in the bud.’ While the device of a package deal was permissible in negotiations to set up a common market, it was not when it was a question of admitting a new member (1962/I, no. 144). Was there any way of breaking out of the impasse? When Macmillan first began to think seriously about Britain joining the Common Market, he realized that France could well prove the greatest obstacle; and when one of his Downing Street advisers, Frederick Bishop, suggested the possibility of smoothing the way forward by means of an Anglo-French deal over nuclear weapons, he was immediately attracted by it.8 Unfortunately, this would require the consent of the United States government, from which Britain had obtained much of its nuclear expertise, and when Macmillan formally approached the Kennedy administration in the spring of 1961, he was given the thumbs down by the new president.9 A year later, however, without apparently consulting the Americans, the prime minister returned to the charge. In his final meeting with the retiring French ambassador, Jean Chauvel, on 19 April 1962, Macmillan told the Frenchman that his great preoccupation of the moment was the construction of a solid bridge between Europe and the United States. It was necessary to build the foundations on the European side, which could be done only by means of a fundamental agreement between France and Britain, which should cover all areas of policy including that of defence, and, within the area of defence, nuclear matters. Because of separate agreements with Washington and American legislation on the subject, it was not possible to bring about a joint Anglo-French nuclear force, but there was nothing to prevent strategic and tactical cooperation between the two national forces, which would remain separate. He asked Chauvel to relay his thoughts to de Gaulle.10

7 Ludlow, Dealing with Britain, p. 112. 8 Constantine A. Pagedas, Anglo-American strategic relations and the French problem 1960–1963: a troubled partnership (London: Cass, 2000), pp. 112–14. 9 Ian Clark, Nuclear diplomacy and the : Britain’s deterrent and America, 1957–1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 315. 10 Jean Chauvel, Commentaire, vol. III: De Berne à Paris (1952–1962) (Paris: Fayard, 1973), pp. 351–2. Surprisingly, perhaps, there is no allusion to this conversation in the documents under review. Chauvel’s memoirs, however, have a justified reputation for accuracy and there is, in any case, a British record of the meeting. See Pagedas, Anglo-American strategic relations and the French problem, p. 204.

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Macmillan reverted to the matter in a meeting with Chauvel’s successor, Geoffroy de Courcel, on 9 May 1962, where he again spoke of the need for reorganizing Europe on the basis of ‘a close Anglo-French understanding’—which, however, depended upon British entry into the EEC. As far as defence was concerned, the prime minister told de Courcel that Britain and France should ‘hold their nuclear power as trustees for Europe’, although he conceded, in answer to a question from the ambassador, that US consent would have to be sought, ‘as it was now quite impossible for Britain honestly to say what elements in her nuclear knowledge had been obtained by her own efforts and what from the Americans’.11 The question of Anglo-French nuclear cooperation came up for the third time in a conversation between General de Gaulle and the British ambassador in Paris (and official head of the British delegation in the EEC negotiations), Sir Pierson Dixon, on 22 May 1962. If there is a French record of this meeting, it is not printed in the relevant volume of these documents. There is, however, a French summary of Dixon’s report to London, in which de Gaulle is recorded as raising the question of an Anglo-French nuclear deal in exchange for British entry into the Common Market in connection with stories on the subject in the press. ‘There is nothing in it,’ de Gaulle is reported to have said that he had never envisaged making proposals of this kind to the British. Not only was he aware of Britain’s close links to the United States in the matter, which he assumed it did not wish to call into question, but it was also quite clear that a state had to have an independent nuclear deterrent to make its presence felt in the world, and France had no intention of giving up its own (1962/I, no. 160).12 De Gaulle’s attitude was not in the least surprising if one bears in mind what he said to Chauvel after hearing of Macmillan’s first approach. ‘After a very short period of reflection,’ Chauvel subsequently wrote, ‘the general told me that it [i.e. the British proposal] was simply a device by which to gain entry into our nuclear domain where the English would be able to observe and possibly intervene on behalf of the Americans.’13 As the general said to his information minister, Alain Peyrefitte, on 30 May 1962, ‘England has become a satellite of the United States. Churchill made this choice when the United States entered the war after Pearl Harbor … His successors carefully clung to this option, except for Eden when he carried out the Suez operation. Things turned out badly for him and Macmillan immediately fell back into line.’14 When Macmillan met de Gaulle at Champs on 2 June 1962, it was almost as if he had a copy of the latter’s remarks in front of him. Declaring that ‘Kipling’s England is dead’, he emphasized his readiness to accept the rules of the Common

11 Ibid., p. 204; Clark, Nuclear diplomacy, p. 397. Once again there is no French record of this conversation in the documents under review. 12 See also Pagedas, Anglo-American strategic relations and the French problem, p. 207; Clark, Nuclear diplomacy, p. 399. Both authors have used the original British record, from which it appears that Dixon and not de Gaulle raised the question. 13 Chauvel, De Berne à Paris, p. 352. 14 Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, vol. 1 (Paris: Fayard, 1994), p. 299.

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Market and proclaimed his European credentials. ‘We don’t want to be satellites of the Americans’, the prime minister said. ‘We see our future as being part of an organization of the free world which rests upon two pillars of strength: Europe and America.’ Russia was the danger at present, he went on, but ‘in fifty years the Europeans must be on a par with the Americans. That is my dream and if we don’t achieve it now, no one will achieve it after us.’ On the follow- ing day de Gaulle said that he was ‘impressed’ by the British prime minister’s determination concerning the construction of Europe, and stressed the need for European control of the use of the nuclear deterrent and European command in the battle for Europe. Macmillan said that if a European political union could be formed under the aegis of France, Britain and West Germany and in alliance with the United States, it should draw up a defence plan including the use of nuclear weapons. He even believed that such a Europe, ‘allied, on a basis of equality, with America’, could eventually negotiate a détente with the . De Gaulle replied that only Europe could implement such a policy. ‘As long as bilateral discussions continue between Russia and America, there will be no other outcome apart from war or a Russo-American condominium.’ Towards the end of their conversation the French president complimented Macmillan on the evolution of his policy. ‘But’, he added ominously, ‘you are not yet at the point of making it [i.e. Europe] because you remain attached to the world outside Europe and also because the idea of choosing between Europe and America is not yet ripe in your mind.’ While conceding the need to conciliate the Commonwealth, Macmillan contested de Gaulle’s view of Britain’s relations with the United States. At this point de Gaulle reverted to one of his favourite arguments: that Britain’s entry into the Common Market would transform the latter because other countries would follow it in. ‘The Europe we are discussing’, he said, ‘would be the size of the Roman empire, whereas the Europe of the Six is only the size of the Carolingian empire. Europe with you would constitute a more imposing unit in relation to the Soviet Union and the United States, but could it act in common?’ Thus far the discussions had been confined to the prime minister and the president. Later on 3 June there were two enlarged meetings including the foreign ministers. At the first of these de Gaulle took up Macmillan’s suggestion of a joint European defence plan. The only such plan which existed, he said, was within the framework of NATO, which was why France was keeping out of it. If Britain wanted military conversations on this subject, however, France would willingly agree to them. At the second enlarged meeting the French president enlarged upon his doubts concerning the ability of an enlarged Community to evolve a common foreign policy. He pointedly referred to the exploratory Russo- American negotiations over the status of Berlin, which the British had supported but the French had opposed. If the United States, Britain and France had stood firm at the outset, he said, there would have been no crisis (1962/I, no. 172).15

15 It will be recalled that the Berlin Wall had been erected in August 1961.

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It is clear from the contemporary diary entries which Macmillan included in his memoirs that he returned from Champs in a state of uncertainty as to whether France would let Britain into the Common Market or try to keep it out.16 This was precisely what the French foreign ministry official Olivier Wormser had hoped for in a memorandum drawn up on 1 June 1962. If Mac- millan returned to London convinced that the French would not obstruct British entry, Wormser wrote, the British prime minister would say so and the other five members of the EEC, whom the French had so far succeeded in keeping in line, would go their own separate ways and put forward compromises which were favourable to the British. On the other hand, if Macmillan had gained the impression that French opposition was total, the crisis would explode prematurely. France’s objective, argued Wormser, was not so much to keep Britain out as to prevent the Common Market from disintegrating as a result of the failure of the Brussels negotiations. It was possible, he concluded, that France’s position would improve over the coming months (1962/I, no. 168). Although General de Gaulle had succeeded in bringing the long, costly and divisive colonial war in Algeria to an end in April 1962, it is easy to forget how vulnerable he still was. He did not have a parliamentary majority; five of his ministers resigned in protest in May following his sarcastic remarks about a federal Europe at a press conference; and the extreme right-wing terrorist group, the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète, which was bitterly opposed to Algerian independence, was still active in France and came very close to assassinating the president at Petit-Clamart on 22 August 1962. Finally, on 5 October, the National Assembly passed a vote of censure on the government arising from de Gaulle’s proposal to change the method of electing the president from indirect to direct. He promptly retaliated by dissolving parliament and holding a referendum on the presidency on 28 October and new legislative elections on 18 November. He won both, although the majority in the former was smaller than usual. It was only towards the end of 1962, therefore, that he had more or less complete freedom of action. In the meantime the French had to tread very carefully. The prime minister, Georges Pompidou, summed up their position in a meeting of the cabinet committee on European affairs on 31 July 1962. ‘If the Common Market broke up,’ he said, ‘we would be, Italy apart, the greatest losers. Equally, we have an interest in the British affair not succeeding … It would [therefore] be better to try and let [the negotiations] run into the ground rather than be blamed for their breakdown.’17 Because of the size and relative backwardness of its agricultural sector, the future of the Common Market’s agricultural policy was particularly important to France. It had insisted that the negotiations on this policy should proceed among the Six independently of the British application to join the EEC, and they had been successfully concluded on 14 January 1962. There was no doubt, however, that the entry of Britain, with its completely different system of farm

16 Harold Macmillan, At the end of the day: 1961–63 (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 120–2. 17 Ludlow, Dealing with Britain, p. 158. There is no record of this meeting in the documents under review.

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support and position as a large-scale importer of temperate agricultural produce from the Commonwealth, could easily cause considerable disruption in existing patterns of trade. If the agricultural problem was not solved to France’s satisfaction, de Gaulle told a cabinet meeting on 6 June 1962, ‘we can have another Algerian war on our own soil.’18 What Britain wanted above all else was ‘comparable outlets’ for the agricul- tural exports of the ‘old’ Commonwealth countries and particularly for New Zealand, whose economy was almost totally dependent upon the British market. Thanks mainly to French intransigence, the attempt to reach a general agree- ment on this issue failed at the conclusion of what was at that time ‘the longest continuous ministerial meeting in Community history’ on 5 August 1962.19 ‘The problem’, Couve de Murville told the French cabinet three days later, was ‘to bring Britain into the Common Market in conformity with Common Market conditions, not to adapt the Common Market to Commonwealth conditions.’20 If de Gaulle’s political position strengthened during the course of the autumn of 1962, Macmillan’s deteriorated. He survived the fierce criticisms levelled at his European policy at the Commonwealth prime ministers’ conference in September, but the French ambassador noted that there were two clouds on the horizon: the strength of pro-Commonwealth feeling in the Conservative party and the fact that the Labour party had finally come off the fence with regard to the Common Market and was now opposed to entry on the terms the govern- ment was advocating (1962/II, no. 85). The Common Market had indeed become ‘an apple of discord between the British political parties and will domin- ate the domestic political situation until the next election’ (1962/II, no. 105). Finally, on 9 November 1962, the Americans placed the British government on notice that they were about to cancel the Skybolt air-to-ground missile programme, the key to the extension of the life of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. In another of his pessimistic progress reports, Olivier Wormser noted on 12 December that ‘[s]ince 5 August 1962 … little progress has been achieved in Brussels.’ He listed the issues which remained to be solved: (a) British requests for a zero tariff on aluminium, lead, zinc and newsprint; (b) British agriculture; (c) the structure of financial support for the Common Market’s agriculture, the full acceptance of which by Britain was a condition of French agreement to a special regime for agricultural imports from New Zealand, Australia and Canada; (d) the problem of Britain’s relations with the European Free Trade Association (originally established in 1959 as a rival to the EEC), which, the French argued, were for the British and not the Six to sort out before Britain’s entry into the Community; (e) institutional problems; and (f) ‘a series of important but not crucial problems’, such as Greece’s association with the Common Market, capital

18 Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, p. 302. 19 Ludlow, Dealing with Britain, p. 151. 20 Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, p. 303. When the negotiations resumed in October, Couve specifically dis sociated himself from the suggestion that France had accepted even the principle of special treatment for New Zealand (1962/II, no. 128).

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movements and manufactured food products from the Commonwealth (1962/ II, no. 191). In view of this summary, it is somewhat surprising to discover that Macmillan told de Gaulle four days later that only matters of detail remained to be settled in Brussels. Much else, of course, was on the British prime minister’s mind when he met General de Gaulle at Rambouillet on 15 and 16 , notably the cancellation of Skybolt and its implications for Britain’s defence and European policies. Skybolt’s cancellation, Macmillan told the French president at their first meeting on the 15th, had been ‘very embarrassing’ and he was determined to seek a replacement from the Americans. Although the French record of the conversation does not refer specifically to the submarine-launched Polaris missile, it is clear from Macmillan’s reference to the fact that Britain had sub- marines but not missiles for them that this was what he had in mind.21 Macmillan admitted that, in the nuclear field, ‘we are unfortunately not completely independent of the United States, which is a bad thing for Europe.’22 But, he went on, once the fundamental issue of Britain’s entry into the Common Market was settled, the establishment of a European strategic command could be examined. The British prime minister then launched into a flight of pure Gaullist fancy. ‘Great Britain’, he said, ‘intends to play its own role, not one with the Soviet Union or with the United States. We must arrive at a European entity, for the old world must not be balkanized between the two giants. In wealth, population and military strength this European union could be the equal of the two superpowers. That does not mean that the eight or nine countries which would comprise it would have to disappear as such.’ De Gaulle was unimpressed. It all depended, he replied, on the extent to which the countries of Europe were determined to become masters of their own destiny, and there was little sign of that. ‘When one talks to the Chancellor [Adenauer] or to Mr Macmillan about doing something European, nothing happens because both constantly check with the United States and find them- selves back in NATO.’ Trying another tack, Macmillan complained about the delays in the Brussels negotiations. De Gaulle replied that ‘the slowness of the negotiations isn’t due to any obstinacy on the part of ministers or officials, but to the very uniqueness of Great Britain.’ It was on the following day, however, that the general dropped his bombshell. After complaining about the Six’s failure to reach agreement on political union, he said that Britain’s entry into the Common Market risked jeopardizing the pro- gress which had been made in implementing the economic aspects of the Treaty of Rome. ‘It is true’, he continued, ‘that the agreements reached among the Six are strict and reflect continental conditions. But does Mr Macmillan believe that

21 After first telling Chancellor Adenauer that Macmillan had never said anything about Polaris at Rambouillet, he later conceded that the British prime minister had ‘let it be understood’ that this was what he wanted from the Americans (1963/I, no. 38). 22 Paradoxically, he went on to deny that the purchase of some items from the Americans necessarily meant that the British deterrent was any less independent, citing what was, in the light of subsequent events, the unfortunate example of the Argentine navy’s possession of warships built on the Clyde.

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if England does not join at once, the opportunity will be lost for ever?’ He recognized, he said, the British prime minister’s ‘huge personal merit’ in having chosen Europe in principle and acknowledged that ‘things will doubtless sort themselves out’ as a result of the setting up of a new Common Market. However, ‘the latter will be completely different from the one which exists at present.’ Macmillan replied that he was ‘stunned and deeply hurt’ by de Gaulle’s remarks. At Champs the general had expressed doubts as to Britain’s Europeanness and he (Macmillan) had picked up the gauntlet, making enormous efforts to convince both Britain and the Commonwealth of the rightness of his policy. ‘Now you tell me, at one and the same time, that the Fouchet plan [for a European political union] has failed and that Great Britain cannot enter the Common Market. This is a very grave disappointment for me and all our efforts will have been in vain.’ The British prime minister desperately sought to convince de Gaulle that, if Britain were allowed into the Common Market, the deadlock over political union would be quickly resolved. It was a question of the balance of power inside Europe, he argued. For centuries Europe had been under the domination of France or Germany, and the smaller countries did not want a return to that situation. But once Britain came in, they would find the idea of political union more attractive. De Gaulle disagreed, asking Macmillan whether he really thought a common policy could be worked out among Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, let alone Norway, Ireland, Denmark and others. When Macmillan said it was a tragedy that Europe had not pursued a common policy towards the crisis in the former Belgian Congo, de Gaulle could only agree, but did not fail to point out that Britain and France had themselves followed different paths in dealing with those events. When de Gaulle summed up his position at the concluding, enlarged meeting on 16 December, he turned Macmillan’s argument about Britain restoring the balance to a united Europe on its head. ‘Inside the Common Market,’ he stressed, ‘France’s weight is considerable. If Britain came in, soon to be followed by the Norwegians, Danes and Irish, no one can say what would become of the Common Market and of Europe itself. Isn’t it natural to hesitate before con- sidering this possibility?’ Macmillan responded angrily. ‘If this is the case,’ he demanded, ‘what is the point of having pursued the negotiations in Brussels for months?’ According to the French record, his question remained unanswered (1962/II, no. 200). Three days after the end of the Rambouillet meetings de Gaulle told his information minister of his intention to hold a press conference on 14 January 1963. ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘I’m going to finish with this business of England’s entry into the Common Market … I will say why England is unable to join the Common Market until things have changed. This isn’t because we don’t want it. It is because it is not yet ready to accept the obligations of the treaty.’23 If this account is to be believed—and it is apparently based upon a contemporary

23 Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, p. 334. (Emphasis in original.)

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written record—the general had made up his mind to say no before the con- clusion of the Nassau meeting between Macmillan and President Kennedy, in which the latter agreed to supply Britain with Polaris missiles on condition that they would be committed, together with their submarines, to a multilateral NATO force, ‘except where Her Majesty’s Government may decide that supreme national interests are at stake’.24 Nassau simply confirmed the French president in his belief that Britain was hopelessly dependent upon the United States.25 Until de Gaulle’s press conference the British government clung to the hope that there was still some chance of the Brussels negotiations succeeding, if only because the French might hesitate to antagonize the other members of the Com- munity.26 As the anonymous French foreign ministry official cited at the begin- ning of this review article had observed, however, much depended upon the solidity of the Franco-German axis. Despite his disparaging remarks about Aden- auer to Macmillan at Rambouillet, General de Gaulle had seized every opportunity to reinforce the octogenarian chancellor’s suspicions of British motives in a succession of private conversations (1961/I, no. 59; 1961/II, no. 211; 1962/I, no. 55; 1962/II, nos 4, 67).27 He had also responded positively to Adenauer’s proposal for a Franco-German treaty, which could serve as a temporary substitute for and future nucleus of a European political union on Gaullist lines. This treaty was signed when Adenauer visited Paris one week after de Gaulle had held his press conference in which he publicly announced his opposition to British entry into the Common Market and condemned the . By the time of the German chancellor’s arrival the French had already made a formal request, on 18 January 1963, for the adjournment of the negotiations for British entry into the Common Market. The British had objected and it was decided to consider the matter again towards the end of the month. On 23 January de Gaulle asked Adenauer point blank what the attitude of the German delegation would be on that occasion. Adenauer said that he thought that the EEC Commission and the Council of Ministers should decide whether they wanted more members, and whether Britain alone or others as well. What did they think, for example, of Britain’s claim that it would need 1,600 British nationals in the Community’s bureaucracy? He felt that this was much more important than continuing discussions on the price of chickens and eggs. While the situation was examined objectively, the atmosphere would calm down, a situation from which both France and Germany would profit. Taking the hint, de Gaulle replied that France would support Germany on this. The best solu- tion was to gain time (1963/I, no. 38).

24 Macmillan, At the end of the day, p. 555. 25 ‘Vassalisé’ was the French word he used: ibid., p. 361. 26 See the entry in Macmillan’s diary for 16 December 1962, reproduced in Macmillan, At the end of the day, p. 354. An unpublished entry in the diary, dated 6 January 1963, reads in part: ‘Talks with Ted Heath all morning about Europe. He is still hopeful of a successful outcome to the negotiations.’ Macmillan MSS, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 27 Adenauer’s suspicions were not, of course, confined to Britain’s attitude towards the Common Market. He was equally, if not more, concerned about its perceived ‘softness’ on the question of Berlin.

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When it was submitted to the Six on 28 January 1963, however, the German proposal, which was put forward by the much more pro-British foreign minister, Gerhard Schröder, did not go as far as the French wanted. It called for a technical assessment by the Commission of the conditions for a renewal of the negotiations; but, speaking on behalf of France, Couve de Murville emphasized the need for a much broader remit which would examine the impact of the entry of new members upon the Community’s structure and development. Since France’s partners would not accept this, the Six had to agree to disagree. This was tantamount to the complete breakdown of the negotiations (1963/I, no. 47). It seems clear from the above that the French, and General de Gaulle, never wanted Britain in the European Economic Community. The documents show that economic reasons were important, particularly the desire to protect French agriculture. However, political considerations were much more significant. The entry of Britain, to say nothing of other countries, would dilute the Community. Any European foreign policy, let alone one which accorded with the general’s wishes, would be even more difficult to formulate, and France’s position of pre- dominance would be challenged by the presence of another power with nuclear weapons, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and global interests. Was there anything which the British could have done to change de Gaulle’s mind? Probably not, although one episode raises at least a possibility. At Champs de Gaulle had told Macmillan that if the British wanted to negotiate over a joint European defence plan, France would be willing to reciprocate. It cannot, surely, have been a coincidence that only a few days later, on 6 June 1962, the French defence minister, Pierre Messmer, raised the possibility of Anglo-French collaboration over a missile-firing nuclear submarine force in a conversation with his British opposite number, . The latter wished to pursue the matter, but the , Lord Home, was opposed on the grounds that such collaboration would breach Britain’s agreements with the United States.28 Shortly afterwards Watkinson lost his job in Macmillan’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’ and no more was heard of the idea. Typically, perhaps, there is no reference to this incident in the documents under review. Messmer alludes to it briefly in his memoirs, although he wrongly states that his proposal was a victim of the Nassau agreement. ‘In the 1960s, and for a long time afterwards,’ he writes, ‘the west winds from America prevailed in England.’29 Some would argue they still do.

28 Clark, Nuclear diplomacy, pp. 400–1. 29 Pierre Messmer, Après tant de batailles: mémoires (Paris: Albin Michel, 1992), p. 293.

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