1st Session Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Operations 78-587 O U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1967 DEPOSITED BY THE UNITED STATES OF AME UNITED STA FOREWORD In their study of the Atlantic Alliance, subcommittee members thought it would be useful to have in convenient form (1) the recent speech by Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev before the Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of Europe, held in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, April 24-26, and (2) the final statement by participants in that conference. We believe a reading of these materials will contribute to greater understanding of the depth of Moscow's involvement in political and diplomatic maneuvers in Western Europe, directed particularly to reducing the influence of the United States in Europe to the point where NATO will break up. Mr. Brezhnev's speech includes a clear call to European communist parties and to West European socialist and social democratic parties to try to disrupt the NATO Alliance by 1969. Brezhnev puts the matter this way: in two years the governments of the NATO countries will have to decide whether NATO is to be extended or not. In our opinion, it is quite correct that communists and all progressive forces should try to use this circumstance to develop still more widely the struggle against the preservation of this aggressive bloc. The same point is emphasized in the final statement of the conference in these terms: The 20-year period of the validity of the Atlantic pact expires in 1969, and this makes possible a clear alternative: a Europe without military blocs. This alternative must be put on the agenda with all earnestness. No effort should be spared in order to develop a broad movement of the peace-loving forces of our continent against the extension or any modification of the Atlantic pact. (Actually the North Atlantic Treaty has no specified duration and continues in force for an indefinite period. Article 13 simply provides that after twenty years that is, in 1969-"any Party may cease to be a party one year after its notice of denunciation.") Mr. Brezhnev's speech and the conference statement follow the themes of "Europe for the Europeans" and "European settlements for European problems"; suggesting that alleged United States hegemony is responsible for most of the continent's ills, and that European communists and "all progressive forces" should struggle together to remove all facets of American influence from European affairs. Mr. Brezhnev emphasizes that "the time has come to demand the complete withdrawal of the U.S. Sixth Fleet from the Mediter ranean.' The Conference of European Communists at Karlovy Vary was not regionally representative since the communist parties of Albania, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Rumania, and Yugoslavia did not attend, and Sweden's party sent only an observer. The gathering came about only after the misgivings of several other parties were overcome by assurances in advance of the meeting that it would avoid "controversial issues" such as the status of China in the communist world. The Soviets undoubtedly regard the conference as having been useful in promoting cohesion among European communists and in keeping current both the notion that NATO is outmoded and the idea that Russia is willing to join in the creation of a "system of European security." The Soviets have found the broad and vague appeal of "European security" useful in maintaining a sense of expectation and in sustaining the fluidity they have helped to foster in West European politics. We are reprinting these materials in this publication because we believe that they are revealing evidence of current Soviet and European communist approaches to NATO and to problems of security in Europe. MAY 8, 1967. HENRY M. JACKSON, Chairman, Subcommittee on National Security |