NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 1949 UNITED STATES SENATE, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to adjournment on April 28, 1949, at 10:30 a. m. in room 318 Senate Office Building, Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the committee, presiding. Present: Senators Connally (chairman), George, Thomas of Utah, Tydings, Green, Vandenberg, Wiley, Smith of New Jersey, and Hickenlooper. Also present: Senators Donnell and Watkins. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. This is the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate, holding hearings on what is popularly known as the North Atlantic Pact. We have the pleasure and honor today of having before us Mr. Harriman, who is the Chief of the European Branch of the ECA. His office is in Paris and he is well equipped to testify regarding European matters, both with regard to ECA and the pending treaty. We are very glad indeed to have you, Mr. Ambassador, and we will be glad to have a formal statement if you have one prepared, and after you have had the pleasure of reading that you will be subjected to questioning by members of the committee if they so desired. Is that agreeable to you? Ambassador HARRIMAN. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Very well; you may proceed. STATEMENT OF HON. W. AVERELL HARRIMAN, UNITED STATES SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE IN EUROPE, ECONOMIC COOPERATION ADMINISTRATION Ambassador HARRIMAN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am grateful for this opportunity to express to you what I feel to be the meaning of the North Atlantic Treaty to our European partners, namely the governments and people of the participating countries, and how it relates to the European recovery program. Testimony has already been given on other aspects of the treaty, including its relation to the United Nations. I speak from my own experience during the past year as United States Special Representative in Europe for the Economic Cooperation Administration and from those of our missions in the different countries. I also speak from my earlier experience during the past 8 years much of which I have spent in different parts of Europe. 90614-49-pt. 1- -13 189 EUROPEAN RECOVERY UNDER ERP Early in February, I testified before this committee at the hearings on the Economic Cooperation Act and gave certain information and figures on the strides that have been made toward economic recovery in western Europe. I explained, however, that progress could not be measured alone in terms of food, industry and trade. I stated (and I quote from my testimony): No one who has had occasion, as I have had, to see Europe in the summer of 1947 and to see it again today, can fail to be struck by the deeper progress in the things of the human spirit. Hope, and the will to resist tyranny, were ebbing in Europe in 1947. They are flowing again today. It is this-the will to live as freemen and to go forward toward a future which, while it cannot be precisely foreseen, can yet be believed in-that is, to my mind, the most heartening and significant development in Europe since the Marshall proposal and the measures to give it effect. It is this which has made possible the increased efforts of the ordinary men and women visible throughout Europe today. It is this which has made it possible for the governments of the participating countries to face up to the rigorous measures which are needed. And it is this which has arrested the spread of reactionary Communist aggression. Without this revival, the Communists might well have succeeded in their design to get control of Italy, which was frustrated in the elections of April 1948; nor could the Communists have been kept out of the Government of France. FEAR IN EUROPE Progress until recently has thus been based on hope, but there still have been disrupting influences. In February, in my testimony, I stated: It is my conviction that the USSR regards the fear of war as an instrument to be used in the course of its scheme of moral and psychological disruption. The fear of war tends to kill hope for the future, and with it initiative, enterprise and investment, all essential to the recovery of Europe. GROWING CONFIDENCE IN EUROPE In the intervening months, I have traveled in many of the participating countries during the period when the North Atlantic Treaty has been under consideration. I can testify that a new factor has developed, a growth of confidence, based on the belief that through the North Atlantic Pact security from external aggression can be attained. Fear is a contagious and frustrating emotion. But confidence, too, is contagious, and is a constructive and creative human emotion. Confidence is essential for the eventual success of the recovery program and the maintenance of determination to resist internal and external aggression. EUROPEAN DISCUSSION OF ATLANTIC PACT We are dealing with some 200,000,000 people facing varying problems, but all with a tradition of liberty and freedom. Discussions in these different countries leading up to the decision to sign the Atlantic Pact were sober and searching. This decision was based on the acceptance of the principle that neither appeasement nor neutrality could be relied upon, that it was only through unity of purpose and action of freemen that there could be hope for future peace and security. This was a momentous decision. The decision was based on the two principal articles of the pact, namely, article 5 and article 3, first means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid to resist armed attack. In the European mind, these two concepts have been, I feel, inseparable. The first is that unity of purpose among the free nations would be a powerful deterrent to any aggressor, and the second that through self-help and mutual aid, effective military establishments can be developed as an assurance of defense. IMPORTANCE OF UNITED STATES PARTICIPATION IN ATLANTIC PACT The participation of the United States in the pact is of course the factor which is basic to the development of confidence. The Brussels Pact, entered into a year ago between Britain, France, and the Benelux countries, was a search for common security measures. Yet the Europeans know that without the United States, no association among the free peoples of western Europe would be effective. The strength of the United States gives strength and meaning to the pact. The proposal for military aid from the United States gives vitality and meaning to the concept of effective self-help and mutual aid to resist armed attack. The Europeans have confidence in us, have confidence that in any war we would eventually be victorious. But they recognize only too well that as things stand today, they would be overrun, and when their countries were again liberated, the life of their people would be irreparably destroyed. Thus article 5 of the pact cannot stand by itself in the development of the confidence essential in making this association effective in serving the needs of the people of Europe and of the people of the United States. For the pact to have real meaning, I am convinced there must be a willingness to implement promptly article 3. European nations are prepared, I believe, to contribute their share in self-help and mutual aid. They cannot, however, develop an effective military establishment alone. They need military equipment and raw materials from us to supplement what they can do for themselves. Assistance from us is vital to the growth of mutual confidence. It will be concrete evidence that we have real concern for their problems of self-defense. BENEFITS TO UNITED STATES FROM TREATY From our standpoint, I feel that our security can be immeasurably increased as time goes on and as the military forces of the western European countries are strengthened. I think we should look at the productive capacity of the signatories of the Atlantic Pact. For example, between us we have four times the coal and four times the steel production of the Soviet Union and its satellites, and a labor force substantially greater. The productivity of our mutual labor force is vastly greater than that of the backward countries of the East, on a man-by-man basis. The western European participants alone have greater industrial productive capacity than the countries behind the iron curtain. It does not seem unreasonable to me to have confidence that in time an effective defensive force can be developed which would provide a real sense of security. It is well always to bear in mind that no one has any thought of an armament program for aggression. The only thought in anyone's mind is the thought of defense. A defensive force is relatively small and cannot be a threat of aggres sion. In looking at the world today, I feel we need strong and vigorous partners, of like mind and intent. The North Atlantic Treaty gives us this association with like-minded people. They are vigorous people but they need help in rebuilding their strength. Of prime importance is the European recovery program. All agree that nothing should be permitted to interfere with that. But alongside of it, earnestly believe we should help our associates, and it is very much in our own interest to help our associates, in their own efforts to build up means to defend themselves. If the United States consistently pursues the policies which have been adopted in supporting the European recovery program, if we will now enter the Atlantic Pact and honestly implement article 3, we can look forward to the time when we ourselves can feel confident in our search for peace and security. The North Atlantic Pact is one of the great concepts of history. If we join it with enthusiasm and implement it with American determination, we will contribute to the confidence and will of freemen the world over. GROWING CONFIDENCE IN EUROPE In western Europe today, there is a growing wave of confidence, confidence instilled by the concept of the North Atlantic Treaty, that freemen will stand together in common defense of their liberty and freedom. Should we turn aside at this moment, I doubt whether we can ever again recapture that spirit. To succeed in what I earnestly believe is our winning struggle in Europe for freedom and peace, America must be resolute and steadfast. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ambassador, you have in your capacity as representative of the ECA in Europe, had opportunity, of course, to contact a great many countries and to visit in those countries; is that true? Ambassador HARRIMAN. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. You have said there is a marked improvement industrially and commercially and so on among these countries; is that true? Ambassador HARRIMAN. Yes, sir. IMPROVEMENT IN EUROPEAN MORALE The CHAIRMAN. Now, my question is, To what extent has that improvement lifted their morale? Have the operations of the ECA given strength to the revival of the spirit? Ambassador HARRIMAN. As I said briefly in my testimony, I feel that the spirit of Europe is completely different from what it was in the summer of 1947, when the Marshall proposal was put forward. The recovery program has changed the whole feeling of the people of Europe, hope has been inspired, with the results that have been ob |