In any event, we are in a position where it is possible to make progress on that issue. The day of NATO is over and the attempt to keep organizations like NATO alive long after they served their original purpose only tends to confuse things and to retard agreements.

Almost any thing you can think of that reduces tension in Europe really does create problems for NATO. Military alliances live on tensions. They have to have an enemy. If you begin dealing with Eastern Europe not as an enemy, which I think we have to do, then it is pretty hard to go through the motions each year of keeping alive a military alliance.

I think the exact way in which NATO would evolve in an allEuropean structure depends on the nature of the agreements.

What I would like to see is that some day, and I hope not too long, there would be an all-European security system. This has been proposed by many different people over the years.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. Including Eastern Europe?

Mr. BARNET. Yes.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. Including the Soviet Union?

Mr. BARNET. Including the Soviet Union. This would be like a nonaggression pact between East and West, the basis of which has already been laid down by the nonaggression pact signed by the Federal Republic of Germany, and it would simply recognize that everyone in Europe would be committed to keep the peace. It would register what I think is the feeling that everybody has, that there is no imminent military danger from any source, particularly if forces are reduced and redeployed to make that very clear to everybody.

If in the future aggression should arise from whatever source, the people of Europe would unite to deal with it and also the United States.

I think that such an all-Europe organization in the context of a reduced military confrontation could really begin to exert considerable influence on Eastern Europe. The people of Eastern Europe are very much interested in participating with Western Europe in the solution of problems of a continental nature, pollution, exchange of technology, and many other related areas. The Soviet Union would have a very hard time keeping them from doing that, if, in fact, the military pressure from the West is reduced.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. People always raise the question, how can you reduce forces in NATO if the Warsaw Pact forces aren't reduced? Do you subscribe to the view that this has to be a mutual reduction? Mr. BARNET. My preference is that there be a mutual reduction, particularly since the Soviets have offered it. We should move fast to take them up on it. I would not, however, depend on it. I think from the point of view of the United States, our own military policy and certainly our economic policy, the balance of payments and the goldflow questions, it is in the interest of the United States, whatever the Soviet Union does, to substantially reduce our forces in Western Europe.

I would support the Mansfield resolution and go beyond it because the fact is that we have forces in Europe now which are insufficient militarily if there is a real Soviet attack. If the Soviets attack, the forces that are in Europe cannot defend Europe with conventional arms, and the use of nuclear weapons, so-called tactical nuclear wea

pons, as countless military exercises have shown, would leave Europe destroyed. You would destroy what you are trying to defend. That is no kind of defense.

By leaving the divisions and their families there, this administration has attempted to economize, as did the last one. The result is to impose hardships on our men there. There are cases-you probably have read about them recently in the paper-of serious shortages in Europe because of the desire to economize.

I believe that the only purpose that those troops have is a symbolic one and I would agree with what General Eisenhower said more than 10 years ago, that for that purpose one division is as good as six.

I think that we should bring those troops back, whatever the Soviets do. But I think the timing of it obviously depends on the nature of these bilateral negotiations.

It is far better if when we bring them back we get the Soviets to reduce their troops and get them out of Eastern Europe. They have made numerous offers. They offered this in 1947, 1952, 1954, 1955, again in 1955, 1957, 1958, and 1959 and in the early 1960's.

They have made a whole series of offers all through the years to do this on a mutual basis and I think that we should so time our troop withdrawals that it exerts the maximum incentive on them to reduce their forces.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. Is it your view that perhaps Secretary Rogers might have leaned a little heavier, if one could do that, on his colleagues at Lisbon to take the initiative rather than just to begin a series of discussions on the subject?

Mr. BARNET. Yes; I think most of the discussions of the United States with its allies on troop withdrawals in Europe have been charades. I have been in some of them.

The Europeans don't really think that the United States is serious. about any basic change in its posture in NATO.

Second, they are concerned about some precipitous deal that the United States would make with the Soviet Union without consulting them.

So, I think the question of consultation is separate from the question of results.

If there was a really frank exchange about what NATO can and cannot do, I think the European nations would go along with what is needed, provided it was done in such a way as not to leave them out of it, and we did not make deals at their expense. I have never seen a case, at least when I was in the Government, where there was any frank discussion of the real possibilities.

The preservation of NATO and the basic premise underlying it, which I tried to underline earlier, was always taken as given. Whether that has changed, I don't know. But I think it has to change. I think it takes a lot more candor about what NATO can do and what it can't do between the allies and the United States before you will get an agreement to make some basic changes.

I would say just minor changes, window-dressing agreements, are almost worse than useless because they don't really change the political frame of reference. The same agreement in the right framework can mean a great deal, even if it is an initial small step. If it is in the wrong framework or in no framework at all, it does not make much sense.

An example is the nuclear test ban. The nuclear test ban is justifiable on the grounds that it ended atmospheric tests and for that reason alone we were right in signing it but there was much talk at the time, you will recall, that this was a first step-I think President Kennedy said, "The first step in a thousand-mile journey."

Well, the other steps have not been taken. At least, if they have been. taken, the steps have been so short that nobody has really moved off the dime. The result is that in the period since the test ban there has been more testing and much greater technological development of nuclear weapons than in the whole period before the test ban.

So that, you now have a very dangerous new step in the arms race which I think could have been avoided had there been more courage and less caution in coming to grips with these issues at the time of the test ban.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. How should the SALT talks, and possibly other talks on arms limitations, be related to the proposals for a European security conference or commission?

Mr. BARNET. I think that once there is a basic agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union on a halt to the strategic arms race, that is, an agreement which would both halt ABM and MIRV, with substantial reductions as a next step, then I think it is possible to move the negotiations for balance and control of forces throughout Europe in a European commission.

In fact, a European commission in which the United States ought to participate would take the initiative in setting military strengths across the Continent. I could see such a commission also having an inspection role and also combining nonmilitary functions, as well.

So that, you begin to develop an organization made up of both east and west which has a strong interest in preserving the new status quo in Europe. This won't work, obviously, unless there is interest on both sides in achieving this new status quo with much less confrontation. If that will does not exist, then you are not going to accomplish anything.

I believe that such a will does exist. I think there is strong evidence. now, particularly the German-Soviet rapprochement, that these things are now possible. It is very, very important to move fast on it because just as the technological developments like MIRV and ABM greatly complicate the technical problems for arms control, events are also moving politically, not only in Europe but elsewhere, where other countries are going to be under pressure to get nuclear weapons.

I see a European agreement involving two great European powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, as an essential way of preventing nuclear proliferation. Without it, I think in 5 years we are going to see a nuclear India and probably a nuclear Japan.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. On that very unpleasant note, we conclude this session.

Thank you for your very significant and important testimony. The subcommittee stands adjourned until 10 o'clock Monday morning.

(Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at 10 a.m., Monday, June 14, 1971.)

THE COLD WAR: ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTS

European Perspectives on the Cold War

MONDAY, JUNE 14, 1971

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE,
Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Benjamin S. Rosenthal (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. The subcommittee will be in order.

We are very honored this morning to have three distinguished European journalists with us. We want to thank all of you for participating in our hearing. We know you will bring very important content and substance to our hearing this morning.

We are continuing our hearings of the origins and substances of the cold war. We are extremely interested in getting not only an American point of view, but a European viewpoint also. In that regard, we are very grateful to all of you for participating with us.

Our first witness this morning is Mr. Edmund G. Lachman.

Mr. Lachman, you have a prepared statement. We would be pleased to hear it.

STATEMENT OF EDMUND G. LACHMAN, CORRESPONDENT OF NIEUWE ROTTERDAMSE COURANT AND ALGEMEEN HANDELSBLAD (OF NETHERLANDS)

Mr. LACHMAN. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. (1) At the outset it seems useful to tell you that I speak here as a citizen of my country who happens to be a foreign correspondent, not as a representative of anybody but myself. And, on top of that, I speak with limited knowledge of attitudes in the Netherlands, particularly as I have been a foreign correspondent for the last 20 years for my paper in Holland, first in Bonn, then roving in the Near East and Africa, then for 10 years in France and the last 5 years in this country.

A third reservation: It is general knowledge that the serious discussion of foreign policy in my country, even more than in yours, is limited to a rather small layer of specialists and opinionmakers only very recently joined by sections of the academic world-which does not preclude that the basic foreign policy choices in our parliamentary democracy are reflections of the basic sentiments of a large majority. There are very few great debates about foreign policy in the Netherlands.

(2) Revisionist thinking about the origins of the cold war has not been prevalent or even known in the Netherlands. Having learnt the lesson during the Second World War that neutrality cannot prevent murder, a whole generation was brought up to the belief in the need for collective security, preferably with the biggest brother in your camp. Even if Stalin's Russia was less threatening than we thought at the time, a devastated and neutral Europe would have been a void that would have attracted Russian power whether Moscow wanted it or not.

Your brilliant crocodile of a diplomat, Averell Harriman, gave the revisionists a good answer in his book "America and Russia in a Changing World." When, in 1945, in Potsdam, he walked up to Stalin to congratulate him on how far Russia had come after so much suffering, Stalin mused: "Tsar Alexander got to Paris."

(3) Despite the natural, underlying and deep, because also historic and cultural, bonds that bind the Netherlands to this country, especially via the North Atlantic Alliance, there has been some dualism in the Dutch attitude: How strong an Atlantic bond would be possible without losing sight of the emerging European bonds? And as these European bonds emerged that dualism continued into the new embrace. We wanted England to join Europe whether she wanted it or not: As a symbol of Europe's bonds to the Western seapowers; as a counterweight against dominance in the club of three big Europeans, Italy, France and Germany, who in their recent history had nothing to recommend them as to their political stability or wisdom; and as a guarantee for an economically open community.

But, concurrently, we insisted on a democratic and integrated Europe. That is to say, we were afraid of dominance by the big three in a confederation or loose club of sovereign nations. We preferred some kind of federation in which part of the national sovereignties would be taken over by a democratically elected European parliament. But that was a condition that was incompatible with British entry as we very well knew. The result is that the wish for political integration had to fade and that now all we can look forward to is at most a European political concert of doubtful harmony in which the big drums try to drown each other out as well as the smaller players. (4) I think that the underlying preference for the greater security and familiarity of transatlantic bonds prevailed until the mid-sixties. Despite popular idealism for Europe, and all the speeches, despite the great economic advantages, it was felt, I think, that the development of European unity was only to be furthered insofar as it did not weaken transatlantic solidarity. The high point of this attitudepopular as well as governmental-was reached when De Gaulle vetoed British entry to Europe, threw out NATO, encouraged European distrust in the guarantees of America which he called our daughter and tried to form Europe into a political bloc of sovereign states around France as a backdrop to what seemed a French race to Moscow. We were appalled. Although in the meantime, a small left wing party had been advocating Europe as a third force, the majority found this idea dangerous.

(5) Officially the situation in my country has barely changed since the mid-sixties. As did all Socialist governments since the war, all the big parties affirm the need for NATO, at least until there is some