The wave of shock caused by the assassination of President Kennedy in this country is beginning to subside and with it the fear of possible consequences. The fear was on the face of it exaggerated. To an extent that was unavoidable in view of the confidence that a sizable section of the British people had come to place in the late President after the Cuba crisis of last winter. It is, however, difficult to resist the view that a form of disguised, and probably unconscious, anti-Americanism was implicit in the reaction. President Kennedy was built up into a kind of “un-American hero restraining his irresponsible and violent fellow countrymen from giving way to their natural inclinations – a kind of one-man safeguard against the follies and vices of the American people and the American political system”.
This anti-American feeling produced here, as in other European countries, the unfounded conviction that President Kennedy was the victim of a carefully laid right-wing plot. The Soviet bloc and the West European including British interpretation of the event was strikingly similar. On both sides the general view was that Oswald was assassinated by Ruby with the purpose of silencing him. Here leading commentators said that MecCarthyism in America was not dead and buried and that it could revive. Even a generally sober person like Mr Denis Healey, Labour spokesman on defence, said that he feared “an attempt by the irrational right-wing in the United States to exploit the circumstances of Kennedy’s death in order to produce a new wave of McCarthyite hysteria”.
The Nightmare
The nightmare of the isolationist, Mr Goldwater, being borne into the White House on the crest of a new wave of McCarthyite hysteria has now passed away. Reports from America that his chances of being adopted as the Republican candidate have seriously declined because the Republicans now need a candidate who is capable of leading the nation and not just a bullheaded opponent of all that President Kennedy stood for have taken care of that nightmare. Only this development could well have been anticipated by discerning students of the American political scene. Also, the first speech by President Lyndon Johnson to Congress, which was televised live on both channels and heard by almost the whole adult population of this country, produced such a favourable impression that the BBC received protests for televising an earlier interview given by him as Vice President. The interview couched in the folksy language he is known for – it was originally intended for consumption in America alone – showed, the critics said, the President in an unfavourable light.
As reported last week, commentators here made a great deal of the possibility that Mr Khrushchev might want to test the nerves of the new President as he did in the case of President Kennedy at their fateful meeting in Vienna, in July 1961. This view paid little attention to Mr Khrushchev’s overall policies at home and abroad, the pressures under which he has been functioning and the obligation for him to stabilise the detente. When Soviet diplomats and correspondents here and other European capitals dropped hints about the desirability of a meeting between President Johnson and Mr Khrushchev they found an immediate and unthinking response here. It was even said that should the President and his advisers be unwilling Sir Alec Should fill the breach as an experienced “elder statesman” of the western alliance.
There is another way of looking at these confused reactions to President Kennedy’s death. These were an acknowledgement that the occupant of the White House has a more decisive influence on the country’s future than the occupant of 10 Downing Street. To be factual this fact has been acknowledged publicly in the past fortnight. It was graphically summed up in the newspaper comment: “He was our President as well”. The logical corollary is the need to co-ordinate policies. That is the crux of the problem.
Continuity
British leaders and commentators have derived considerable satisfaction from President Johnson’s affirmation that he would continue the foreign policy of his predecessor. Apparently he means what he says in the sense that there has been a remarkable continuity in the overall American policy from Roosevelt to Kennedy through Truman and Eisenhower. There are historic forces at work which no one man’s death can stem. But the details can change. President Kennedy’s grand design of Atlantic partnership had been wrecked in his lifetime. President de Gaulle’s veto over Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community tolled the bell for it last January. He was trying to rescue something out of the wreckage in the form of a multilateral nuclear force. The British leader will watch with keenness President Johnson’s next moves in this regard.
The weaknesses of the grand design have been discussed in this column previously. It will, however, bear mentioning that Britain’s entry into the Community for which American diplomacy spared no effort would have inevitably produced a political situation most unpalatable to the Americans. For one thing the British concept of political arrangements in Europe tallied with those of President de Gaulle in that they were opposed to a federation of the member states which was the American wish and dream. For another, it would have promoted the chances of British and French deterrents being pooled and thus perpetuated. The American opposition to independent deterrents is well known. The view that Britain’s membership would have automatically converted the Community into an outward looking body willing to liberalise imports was obviously not well thought out.
The weaknesses of the concept of the multilateral force is equally obvious. It does not promise to achieve what it was intended to achieve. France is not participating in the discussions and means to retain control of her own deterrent. Britain is participating in the discussions but the Conservatives have no intention of giving up their own deterrent even if they decide to join the proposed force. The Labour party’s position on this question is so equivocal that it can be interpreted to mean both the abandonment and the retention of the deterrent. The chances are that it will not give it up. West Germany which is expected to meet 40 per cent of the cost will have to accept American veto on the use of the force and it is difficult to see how long she will be satisfied with such a participation particularly when both Britain and France retain independent deterrents.
It is believed in some quarters here that President Kennedy was beginning to have second thoughts on the multilateral force on the one hand and his opposition to the French deterrent on the other. This opposition invited the charge of discrimination against France particularly after he agreed to supply Polaris missiles to Britain and thus helped her maintain an independent deterrent well into the ’seventies after the Vulcan and Victor bomber force becomes obsolete in the late ’sixties. Whether President Kennedy was about to revise his policy on this key issue or not there is no escape for his successor unless he is to be caught in the same impasse. Nuclear issues remain the heart of the problem.
The Deterrent
In Britain there exists a wide agreement how this problem should be dealt with. The Conservative position is stated in a recent pamphlet published by its political centre. It said: “If inter-dependence is to mean anything it implies the control over the NATO deterrent, now exercised by the United States, being embodied in a political executive sufficiently unified to impress the enemy and reassure its allies”. It recalled General Norstad’s suggestion of an executive body of three members of the NATO Council (America, Britain and France) to be presided by the Secretary-General as representative of the other members being empowered to act in an emergency according to guidelines laid in advance by the Council.
The Labour party’s position is summed up by its foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Patrick Gordon Walker. According to him Britain, France and Germany “should have a full say in the questions that determine, control and check the use of nuclear weapons… we should participate in the knowledge and the decisions that affect the deployment and targeting of nuclear weapons and formulation of doctrine concerning the relation of nuclear and conventional forces”.
While the Conservatives believe that it is possible to accommodate the British deterrent in the proposed arrangement, the Labour party is thinking in terms of bargaining with America and is willing to pay the price in the form of allowing the British deterrent to be run down. Whatever the answer, the proposed multilateral force is not it. Conservative members of the Western Union Assembly on Wednesday joined with Labour members in opposing successfully the formation of the force.
The Times of India, 7 December 1963