Taking the Pledge: Oliver Franks and the Negotiation of the North Atlantic Treaty

Abstract

In March 1949, with its text published and its signature imminent, the North Atlantic Treaty and the relationships it implied gave rise to an official State Department joke. It was the story of Anna Pauker, Communist foreign minister of Romania, who ventured out with an umbrella overhead on a beautiful day in Bucharest. "But Anna," one of her friends protested, "it isn't raining." "It is in Moscow," she replied. There followed, for the uninitiated, an official State Department explanation. "The United States, like Russia, has emerged from the war in a position of world leadership. One important difference, however, is the fact that we do not expect the French foreign minister to walk with an umbrella in the Paris sunshine because it is raining in Washington."1 Not the least remarkable aspect of the strange and wonderful process by which the North Atlantic Treaty was negotiated was its capacity to amuse. Some of this was unintentional. The initial phase of the negotiations was coyly camouflaged as the Washington Exploratory Talks on Security. Under this threadbare cover the ambassadors of Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the Benelux countries found themselves locked in seemingly interminable negotiations with the American secretary of state from 6 July 1948 until the business was finally concluded on 4 April 1949. The transcripts of these meetings are preserved in the archives. They are irresistibly ironic, purporting to be unedited even as they mark, straightfaced, the regular interludes in which the participants go literally off the record.2 The fundamental American concern about the nature of the U.S. commitment to a collective defense is described, rather presciently one might think, as atomic not automatic. The mysterious Mr. Cannon at some of the early meetings turns out to be that well-known contortionist George Kennan, who proceeded, as if in defiance of this sobriquet, to dispute the relevance of a military alliance and dissent from full U.S. membership in it.