My comments are directed toward doing things prematurely. I would certainly recognize in a democratic system that not only should we require-it is not actually a requirement-but it is desirable to discuss these things in public and to get public support and expression of the public will.

But from an allied standpoint sometimes you find strange things. You find a momentary confluence of two conflicting currents. I will not mention the names of the countries but they are major countries. We found that two of them were just raising each other up, pushing each other up for reassessment, when it was quite clear that they had completely opposite ideas as to what should be done.

In that case, because of the power and influence of the two working together a great weight was thrown on the side of assessment. There was a question: one was pulling to the right and one was pulling to the left. Had this been worked out and the position been established a little bit better before, this could have been avoided. Senator MUNDT. Thank you very much.

Senator JACKSON. Thank you, Senator Mundt.

We have several new members on the subcommittee this year. First I want to welcome Senator Pell.

Senator Pell served in the State Department. In fact, I think he is the first Foreign Service officer to serve in the Senate. Senator Pell. Senator PELL. Thank you, Senator Jackson.

Speaking as a new member, if today's testimony is any precursor of what will come forth in the next couple of years, we are very lucky indeed.

I was much struck by General Norstad's reference to Stimson's words where he emphasized that, "I have lived with the reality of war but the hope of honorable, faithful peace is a greater thing and I have lived with that, too."

I was also much struck with General Norstad's enunciation of the idea of the pause, a couple of years ago. I was wondering if you thought of any opportunity in order to prevent war by escalation or accident of having direct contacts of an overt nature of one sort or another between your former organization and the Warsaw Pact?

I realize that sounds perhaps foolish on the surface but in this cold war time when we are not engaged in actual hostilility I was wondering if ever the thought went through your mind it would be possible to draw out certain agreed boundaries of action or activity to prevent the possibility of a flareup?

General NORSTAD. I would not exclude the possibility, but I think this is something, the relationship is something, that would have to be carefully defined and this relationship would have to sit very clearly in a well-established context. There are some problems, as you know as well as I. In the first place it is pretty hard to equate NATO, a free association of free people, with the Warsaw Pact.

I do not know how you do that. Equating the two is a fiction to start with. So this has an influence on the relationship.

Second, I think there is another question involved here. This type of thing has a tendency to make people say we are getting along very well. A few years ago it would have been ridiculous to even contemplate the idea of NATO having a contact with the Warsaw Pact. Now we have a point of contact. Now unless this was a part

that was clearly established and well defined people might read in this something that did not exist and this could be extremely danger

ous.

This is one of the reasons I am so concerned about many of the disengagement proposals in a little different sense. The people would read into this some real contribution to the cause of creating a basis for peace when it does not do this. But if we develop some systemwhich has not been developed so far to my knowledge—whereby a contact of some kind serves a mechanical purpose, then I would not exclude the possibility. It is not clear to me that it would be useful. I would be afraid of it because it would certainly convey by itself an impression that would not be well based in my opinion.

Senator PELL. Also, in connection with NATO it would seem to me as a layman that when the pressures are on, then it pulls together but as we do better, and this I read in your remarks, the devisive forces become more apparent.

Do you see any way of preventing this from happening? As the pressures lessen, how we can keep the cohesiveness?

General NORSTAD. In an alliance we all do things precisely as individuals do them and the standards of conduct, standards of intelligence, for instance, of a body are even more applicable to an individual.

An individual may do things because they are the right things to do, sensible and sound. But frequently an alliance does things because it is compelled to do them. We came together in the first instance under the compulsion of fear. If we had not been scared to death, there is a question whether we would have taken this very, very important constructive step.

This is the record of countries in their relationship with other countries. You have a combination of national interest, national independence, preservation of independent sovereignty, and you have the economic question.

Most of them tend to cause some division or apparent division when things are going well. People say, well now, we can give a little bit more attention to our narrow interest because things are going better. We argue among ourselves whether we want to argue with Mr. Khrushchev.

At the same time we have some political problems in supporting our budget. The biggest item in our budget is the national defense, and almost any country can say this. So, because things are going very well, we will do as much as we intend to do but we won't do it quite as fast.

So we have been playing since 1949 on an up and down basis. I think we grow wiser or there is a certain amount of inertia which has been established as the big wheel is turning, so we cannot slow down as fast as we did in the past. I think the Council itself and its work prevents us from going into extremes of position. I admit that the events of January and February would belie this but I think they were probably due to come up anyway.

I cannot offer a specific proposal, a specific solution to this question of quarreling among ourselves, thus creating weaknesses at times when we do not have to quarrel directly with Mr. Khrushchev.

Senator PELL. Finally, General, in connection with Germany, I was wondering if you had any thought you would care to advance at this time as to how the temperature could be reduced there in any way or how we can get out of the quandary we are now in whereby we cannot deal with the East Germans because of our policy vis-a-vis their regime, and at the same time this extends itself to the thought we more or less insist that the Soviets remain there in order to deal with somebody.

How do we get out of this box?

General NORSTAD. As you know from your own studies, your own travels, from your own inquiries on the spot, this does present pretty certainly the most complicated problem of our time. I think that for me to offer any quick solution to this problem would be to publicly brand myself as being stupid.

So, I will avoid that. I know that all the governments are working on this subject. I think considerable progress has been made within the period of the last 5 years. I think progress has been made, certainly since 1956, in this field.

I think progress has been made since 1957. You will remember at that time there was the disarmament group of the United Nations in London. If some of the more fundamental problems can be settled, the purpose and directions established, then I think the mechanics of relationship will fall into order, in the proper order.

I think some of the fundamental direction has to be established first. I do not think it would be useful for me to publicly at this point get into details on this when the governments are working on it. Senator PELL. Thank you very much, General.

Senator JACKSON. Thank you, Senator Pell.

We are also happy to welcome Senator Miller who has taken a very keen interest in the affairs of the subcommittee. Senator Miller.

Senator MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say how happy I am to be a member of this fine subcommittee and to have the privilege of hearing General Norstad before our committee this morning.

I might point out, Mr. Chairman, that I was especially going to welcome the general because in his precadet days he spent several days in Jewel, Iowa.

The first question I want to ask you is this. In yesterday's Washington Post an article entitled, "New Treaty Held Needed for NATO Fleet," and Mr. Chairman, I would ask that this article be placed in the record at this point.

Senator JACKSON. It will be included in the record at this point and the Chair also would like to suggest that at the conclusion of General Norstad's remarks here today we include his recent excellent talk to the Atlantic Council. It is quite pertinent to the subject matter of this hearing.

If there is no objection that speech will be included at the conclusion of the remarks of the General today.

(The above referred to article follows:)

[From the Washington Post, Mar. 10, 1963]

NEW TREATY HELD NEEDED FOR A-FLEET

(By Sterling Slappey)

BONN, March 9.-Establishment of a NATO Polaris surface-ship fleet would take 5 years or more and would require a new treaty and major changes in basic U.S. laws, an informed source said today.

When the fleet is at sea it would actually be a separate oceangoing country all of its own. The 6,500 to 8,000 sailors in the 25-ship fleet would wear distinctive uniforms, sail under a separate flag, and be governed by laws and customs that have not yet been decided upon.

Although the highly ranked source did not say so, these complexities-and hundreds of others-make the eventual launching of the proposed fleet doubtful. Eight NATO member countries have expressed some interest in the plan, which is sponsored by the Kennedy administration. The eight are the United States, Britain, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, Greece, and the Netherlands. President Charles de Gaulle and other French leaders have ridiculed the fleet

idea.

MORE INTEREST IN BONN

During 3 days of talks with German officials here this week, President Kennedy's special emissary, Livingston Merchant, discovered more interest in the fleet than he found anywhere else in Europe.

Although Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was not enthusiastic, West Germany reaffirmed its agreement in principle to participate if good progress is made in planning.

Merchant also found here that the West Germans--who would be expected to put up something like one-eighth of the $5 billion fleet cost-were insisting on this country having a say in deciding the biggest political question involved in the fleet.

This is: In the event of a Russian attack, who would be the man to say when to fire the first of the 200 nuclear-tipped missiles?

At present only the President of the United States can order a retaliatory nuclear attack with an American missile, which the Polaris would be.

Everywhere Merchant has gone-Paris, Rome, Brussels, and Bonn-he has heard Europeans insist that if they pay the bulk of the money for the fleet, a new Joint chain of firing command must be set up.

GERMAN STAND

The German proposal has been to let every country have a veto over firing a nuclear missile during the buildup stage. After the fleet is ready, a vote would be taken among participating nations with a majority vote deciding the new command.

Such an arrangement would run afoul of the McMahon Act.

The well-informed source said today-almost in acknowledgement that the United States cannot hold out forever on the exclusive right to order the firingthat if the fleet ever becomes a reality, a new treaty would be needed between the United States and other participating nations. Amendments to existing laws would be needed.

During his stop here, it was learned that Merchant and West Germany's Defense Minister, Kai-Uwe von Hassel, reached agreement on several technical aspects of the fleet, such as who would man the vessels, numbers of ships, missiles, and even some of the new laws that would govern supranational sailors at sea.

The cost figure was left unsettled, but estimates are that it would be $5 billion over 10 years. No estimates were available on how much each country would pay.

Merchant went to London today for talks with the British, who are not overly enthusiastic. The British point out they are planning a fleet of much more effective Polaris submarines.

Senator MILLER. The article said among other things:

Establishment of a NATO Polaris subsurface ship fleet will take 5 years or more and would require new treaty and major changes in basic U.S. laws, an informed source said today.

Datelined Bonn:

When the fleet is at sea it would actually be a separate oceangoing country all its own. The sailors in the fleet would wear distinguishing uniforms, sail under a separate flag, and be governed by laws not decided upon. These complexities and hundreds of others make the eventual launching of the proposed fleet doubtful.

Do you believe such a fleet is feasible?

General NORSTAD. I believe, as I stated before, that the defense of Europe requires atomic weapons. Some of those weapons will have to be in the intermediate range category. Some part of that intermediate range requirement can be met by surface craft or undersea craft.

Certainly undersea craft have an advantage in security, mobility, and perhaps surface craft still have some advantage from the standpoint of mobility. There have been considerable suggestions when we talk about multilateral manning of breaking it down into units of say, five, six, seven, eight nationalities, or even more.

This certainly involves very serious administrative difficulties. I would think that among the difficulties would be the question of control and authority and how to exercise it. This becomes a political matter. I think as it is looked into more it will become more important from the political standpoint. It sounds very easy and very good in principle, but I think purely administrative difficulties will complicate it very much. I do not say it cannot be done.

I do not say I take a position against it. I would like to see it studied and I think this is something that the technical experts of all the countries will have to get together on and work out the details to see if they believe that it will be workable.

It is complex, it is difficult, it presents some very major problems. Now the multilateral force need not be multilaterally manned in that sense. You could have units, for instance, that were American, British, French and so and so with some system of control, remote control for instance that would take care of it.

This is another application of this principle of multilateral force. I believe in multilateral authority and responsibility. I believe to some extent in the multilateral force idea. I think it should be examined whether integration at the man-to-man level does not involve more complexity than it is worth.

I know I have talked to many admirals about this and in general they have some reservations not simply from the policy standpoint, not from the standpoint of principle at all, but just on the practical application of it.

I have had little or no experience living on small ships. So, I yield to the admirals' judgment on this particular point.

Senator MILLER. Thank you, General.

In your comment just now you suggest a policy along the line of control, that is perhaps dividing the line between medium range and long range. I am wondering in this matter of evolving a multilateral control system if there are any possibilities, at least in the beginning stages, of breaking down this control according to tactical and strategic nuclear weapons?

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