THE NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY 1964-1974 Introduction by Geoffrey de Freitas Member of Parliament Published in English and French by The British Atlantic Committee 36 Craven Street, London WC2N 5NG THE NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY 1964-19 74 Introduction by Geoffrey de Freitas Member of Parliament Published in English and French by The British Atlantic Committee 36 Craven Street, London WC2N 5NG THE NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY 1964-1974 by Fraser CAMERON "The world we, in the West, build may depend less on technical discus• sions than on common dreams". Henry KISSINGER "We must show that the North Atlantic Assembly is not merely a club or a glorified debating society". President Kasim GULEK PREFACE The North Atlantic Assembly - until 1966 known as the NATO Parliamentarians' Conference — celebrates its twentieth anniversary in 1974. The only forum where parliamentarians from both sides of the Atlantic meet regularly to discuss issues of common interest, the North Atlantic Assembly has made considerable progress since its foundation in the mid 1950s. On the initiative of distinguished parliamentarians from both Europe and North America, arrangements were made to hold a conference of members of Parliaments from the fifteen member countries of the Atlantic Alliance. This conference met in Paris, at the Palais de Chaillot, from 18-23 July, 1955. Although an unofficial body with no statutory powers, the Conference served from 1955 onwards as an important platform for discussions between parlia• mentary delegates from all NATO countries. During its first ten years of existence, the Conference held regular annual meetings, established a comprehensive committee system, arranged military tours for delegates and moved its Secretariat from London in order to be close to NATO headquarters in Paris. The conference was also instrumental in helping to arrange the Atlantic Congress in London (1959), sponsoring the Atlantic Institute in Paris (1961), and organising the Atlantic Convention of NATO countries in Paris (1962).* The present pamphlet deals with the activities of the North Atlantic Assembly throughout its second decade (1964-74). During this period, a sustained attempt was made to institutionalise the Assembly, the Secretariat was transferred from Paris to Brussels and the whole scope and range of the Assembly's activities multiplied. •For the history of the first decade of the NATO Parliamentarians' Conference, see the two pamphlets published by the Hansard Society which cover the years 1955-59 and 1960-64 respectively. The intro• ductions to these two pamphlets are reproduced in Appendix One. INTRODUCTION by The Rt. Hon. Sir Geoffrey de Freitas KCMG, Member of Parliament (United Kingdom) One of the founders of the Assembly, a member of the Standing Committee, Leader of the British delegation Like the earlier pamphlets referred to in Appendix 1, this pamphlet does not pretend to be a study of the develop• ment of the North Atlantic Assembly. They are all merely records of work done. I hope that the British Atlantic Committee will persuade Fraser Cameron* to write a real study of the Assembly. Dr. Cameron is a young Scot who follows the work of international parliamentary institutions with the considerable advantage of speaking and writing both French and German. The development of the Assembly has disappointed many of us. We had hoped that by now it would have become an official parliamentary body standing in relation to the North Atlantic Alliance as the Consultative Assembly does to the Council of Europe. This has not happened. There have been many reasons for this. First, the Assembly moves round from country to country for its annual meeting. This prevents it being regarded as an organ of the Alliance which has its headquarters in Brussels. To many Atlantic parlia• mentarians it thus becomes little more than an annual meeting on the level of the Inter Parliamentary Union. Second, The President has had only one year in office and therefore little opportunity of making any impression on the members of the North Atlantic *Dr. Cameron, who is lecturer in Modern History at the University of Kent at Canterbury, was educated at St. Andrews and Cambridge Universities and Europa Kolleg, Hamburg. 6 THE NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY Council and on the Presidents of other parliamentary assemblies who usually have three years in office. (The new rules of procedure make it possible to have a wider choice of candidate and a longer tenure of office.) Third, the Assembly does not yet have the budgetary system found in other international institutions such as the Council of Europe. When such a system is adopted it will be easier to have the Assembly recognised by the North Atlantic Council as an official body. The new rules of procedure have already enhanced the reputation of the Assembly by ensuring that Committee resolutions coming before the Assembly are not only more concise but are directed to asking some body (usually the North Atlantic Council) to follow some particular course of action. Too often in the past the Assembly had adopted a series of resounding declarations addressed to all the world - and to its collective wastepaper basket. The Assembly has frequently recorded its wish for official status within the Atlantic Alliance and its wishes are more likely to be met today than at any other time in its life. The Assembly is now recognised under Belgian law as an international organisation and in recent years it has been treated by governments with courtesy and by Secre• taries-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation with both consideration and courtesy. Within the last few months the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who was once a delegate in Paris, has commended the Assembly in the House of Commons and at a meeting of the Heads of Government of the Alliance. All international organisations depend for their efficiency on their permanent staff. However, an organisation in which the membership of its directing committee changes frequently and which has a different President each year must rely almost entirely on the qualities of the head of the secretariat. Fortunately we have an outstanding Secretary- General in Philippe Deshormes and a first rate staff. The period since the Assembly followed NATO to Brussels and THE NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY 7 Mr. Deshormes took up his appointment have been the most significant years in the development of the Assembly. In the introduction to the first pamphlet I asked whether the Assembly was in any sense a Parliament in embryo and if so whether its role was to learn from authority as did our Tudor parliaments or to question authority as did our Jacobean parliaments. Today the Assembly is twenty years old and it does not fall into either category. However, it is an established international assembly of Members of Parliament and under wise direction from the Standing Committee and Mr. Deshormes it has shown itself capable of being a forum for debating new problems which it was impossible even to imagine twenty years ago. Then the major factor was the overwhelming strength of the Atlantic Community and especially of the United States of America. In the last twelve months all that has changed and we have entirely different political and economic difficulties. Our Governments discuss them. As elected representatives of our people it is our duty to debate them not only in our national parliaments but in this international forum. Never before has our Assembly had greater importance and a greater opportunity. October 1974 Geoffrey de Freitas House of Commons, London SW1A OAA 8 THE NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY THE YEAR 1964 The principal questions dominating the Alliance in 1964 were the proposal for a multi-lateral nuclear force (MLF) within NATO, the Cyprus dispute and the repercussions following the successful testing of the Chinese A-bomb and the change of leadership in the Soviet Union. Paris was the venue of the spring round of Assembly committee meetings.* The discussions in the Political and Military Committees both centred on the problem of control of nuclear weapons in NATO. The Scientific and Technical Committee heard experts talk on current research in the fields of quantum electronics and molecular biology whilst the Education, Cultural Affairs and Information Committee examined the range of information activities within NATO. In its discussions, the Economic Committee considered the progress of the Kennedy-Round negotiations and relations between the industrialised countries and the Third World. In September, a group of thirty Canadian and European delegates took part in a ten-day tour of American military bases. The parliamentarians visited the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, the Strategic Air Command (SAC), NATO's Atlantic headquarters (SACLANT) at Norfolk in Virginia as well as various bases in Florida including Cape Kennedy. On their return to Washington, the group had a working lunch with Mr. Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State, and were received by President Johnson in the White House. THE TENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE: PARIS Held at NATO headquarters in Paris from 16-21 November, the Assembly heard speeches from Mr. Couve de Murville, the French Foreign Minister; Mr. Manlio Brosio, Secretary-General of NATO; General Lemnitzer, SACEUR; and Professor Richard Lowenthal of the Free University of Berlin. The dominant theme evoked by the speakers reflected the main concern of Western political leaders during 1964 — namely the control and management of the NATO nuclear *See the organisational note in Appendix Two THE NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY 9 arsenal. Touching on this point, Mr. Couve de Murville stressed the need for an equitable solution by unanimous agreement. He felt that the Conference provided the ideal platform for confronting different viewpoints, but warned against the illusion that there were ready-made solutions to all Alliance problems. In their speeches to the Conference, Mr. Brosio surveyed the principal political issues affecting the Alliance whilst General Lemnitzer outlined recent military developments.