WILTON PARK SPEECH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003700200001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 10, 1976
• Content Type: SPEECH

10 DEC 7 6
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WILTON PARK SPEECH
May I welcome you and invite you to introduce our session; An
Atlantic Approach, which is deliberately a broad title which allows you
to say whatever you like.
Thank yu. Feeling as a part of the group rather than an outside
speaker, and if you will permit, I will sit and discourse with you
rather than stand and talk at you.
isn't a problem--that there isn't a problem of a soft underbelly--but
you today. If I recall Mr. Hibbard's thesis, it was that: "The Mediterranean
The question that was raised so cogently yesterday morning by Mr.
Hibbard was "Is the Mediterranean an Atlantic problem?", and I thought
he presented a very interesting set of cases. I was sorry that I could
not stay for all of his discussion because I disagreed with some of his
points and would like to have debated them. But, on the other hand, I
was pleased that I had to leave or I'd have had nothing left to say to
the Mediterranean is a series of problems which are not particularly
connected to each other; the problems in which the Atlantic community,
or Europe, does have an interest but not a vital interest; that the soft
underbelly of Europe is not critical to the center of Europe, because
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Europe is not likely to be invaded from the South; that NATO could
survive; could survive without its Southern Flank because the Southern
Flank is not the primary line of contact between NATO and the Warsaw
Pact." Now, if that is his thesis as I understood it, I must this
morning disagree with it. I would think that the analogy would be that
here is a Britain who is saying that he can retreat behind fortress
Germany and the analogy would be for an American to say we can retreat
behind the barrier of the Atlantic Ocean. Its a sociological phenomenon
of self-interest, I think. That a Britain has come to you--a man from
a nation with a long history of great involvement; a history of finding
incidents around the world in tens of thousands of miles from London
that became cause celebres' and national problems; and is yet saying
that today Britain can retreat into a fortress Central Europe. And yet,
today you have an American coming to you who comes from a nation of a
history of isolationism, a history of awakening far to late in 1914 and
1939 to recognize finally--to agree its national interests were involved
with those of Europe.
I would contend to you this morning that the world has become
multi-national in its security concerns. The Western World, the world
of both of us who represent a sense of independence for our nations, a
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sense of freedom for the individual, as we generally define it in the
Western World. I think that we members of this western community perhaps
do not recognize the change that has taken place in the past thirty
years in terms of the internationalizing--the placing of a multi-national
basis of our security interests (and let me hasten to assure I'm not
speaking of military security here). I'm talking about the political
sense of security that permits our nations to pursue their independent
courses and our economic sense of freedom that permits our nations and
our individuals to pursue their economic destiny within reasonable
bounds of independence; and, of course, around ..those economic and
political senses of security we unfortunately, perhaps, find it necessary
still in this world to have a military sense of security to protect
them. Well, let me give an example of how multi-national this sense of
security has become.
First, on the military side. In my present capacity I am strictly
a NATO official. I'm responsible to General Haig in Brussels, who is
the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. I'm responsible for the Southern
part of NATO but I report not to any American authorities. I report
only to NATO authorities. In time of war, I would command forces from
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Turkey, Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and
happily, France. It's a very multi-national effort and yesterday we
talked a great deal here about the European Economic Community, which is
our principal multi-national effort on the economic security side. Mr.
Hibbard pointed out that while the community is nine, it has relations
with the other members of the southern side of NATO: Portugal, Spain,
Greece, Turkey - who are not actual members and, in fact, negotiations
are going on with all of them for various degrees of membership within
the EEC. But, Mr. Hibbard was concerned that the possible extension of
the EEC to these nations would involve the Northern members of the EEC
in events they might not want to get involved in and would produce
strains within the community. I would suggest to you that is inevitable,
that is necessary, that is desirable. It is desirable that the northern
tier of EEC nations be drawn into the problems, the relationships that
exist in the southern tier of nations that are related to the economic
community by that same sense of freedom of economic endeavor. Why? The
one reason is that although we are all in the habit of thinking primarily
in terms of an east-west economic axis, we are being forced more and
more today to think in terms of a north-south economic axis.
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Perhaps its too facile to talk only about the oil from the Middle
East or the problem of recycling the petro dollars from the Middle East.
We should also remember the growing crest of the underdeveloped or
lesser developed nations of the world for the manufactured goods of the
more developed nations. And,.in turn, the requirements of the more
developed nations for the raw materials--the increasing requirements for
raw materials--from lesser developed countries. How many times today do
we hear the cacophony of command from lesser developed countries for a
reallocation of the world's economic resources? Of these problems--
these problems of assuring a flow of energy to the world; of assuring a
proper recycling of these excess petro dollars; of grappling with the
moral as well as economic problems of the distribution of wealth between
the poorer and the richer nations of the world--there is no way these
can be handled on anything but a multi-national basis. They are bigger
problems than anyone of the members of the EEC or even just the nine
full members of the EEC can grapple with. These members of the EEC
particularly need the Southern nations of Europe to help them handle
those problems because it is the Southern Flank of NATO that is the
window; the bridge for the rest of the Atlantic community into the
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Middle East and into North Africa. The Mediterranean Sea is the conduit
by which much of this increasing intercourse between the north and the
south, particularly between the European North and the Middle Eastern
and African South, takes place. It is the Southern Flank of NATO based
on Turkey, Greece, and Italy that provides the military security for
that conduit because without those three countries, there is no way we
can ensure that that conduit will always be open for this increasing
trade. I am getting ahead of myself onto the military side of things,
but there is a growing threat to that conduit in the form of the increasing
Soviet naval presence in the Mediterranean. A presence which is not
related to this increasing economic access between the north and the
south, and is not related to legitimate needs of the Soviet Union for
the use of this sea line of communication. But, that sea line--whether
you believe what I'm saying about the north-south trend in economic
affairs or not--the facts are that that sea line is of growing importance
every day to all of the NATO and Atlantic communities.
The commerce that is carried in the Mediterranean is increasing
regularly. There are fifteen hundred merchant ships afloat there today,
twelve hundred of them belong to NATO nations and twenty percent of the
energy that comes to Northern Europe touches the Mediterranean, in one
form or another, from the pipelines in the Middle East or from
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North Africa. And that is likely to increase with continued expansion
of the Suez Canal in sight and with the opening before long, if I'm not
incorrect--Mr. Tassan--of the new pipeline from Iraq across Southern
Turkey to near Iskenderun. But from a purely economic standpoint, the
southern side of NATO, the Southern Flank, is becoming more integral,
more critical, to all the members of the Atlantic community today.
Now, I said to Mr. Hibbard yesterday, that since he had talked a
lot in military terms I'd probably talk in economic and political ones.
Let me now move to my own sphere because I think the same thing prevails
in the military side. It is true that an invasion of Central Europe
through the soft underbelly is an unlikely event. We, of course, think
that any form of war in the European theater is an improbable and unlikely
event. We certainly hope so and that is why we maintain NATO's military
forces--to deter. But, we want to be able to stand up and be counted.
We must be able to stand up and feel confident. While I don't want to
sound like a cold warrior, we must remind ourselves that the purely
military threat posed against all of the Atlantic community today is
?
considerable. I don't know why the Soviet Union continues to invest 13
to 15% of its gross national product in military forces when the United
States invests less than 6% and Europe, on the average, 3%. I would
suggest that the threat is greater than any one of our nations--be
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it the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany, or the Netherlands--
can stand up to and face the Soviet Union on its own. It must be faced
and it can be faced on a multi-national basis. That is why we have our
Alliance. But, there is the temptation that we heard yesterday from Mr.
Hibbard to believe that the Center and the North of NATO, in association
with the United States, can go it alone and that that would be an adequate
multi-national basis.
I would like to take two examples of the problems we have on the
Southern Region of NATO today and discuss them with you to show why I
think they bring out the. fact that you can't go it alone in the Center
and North--that we have one fabric of which the Southern hem is an
integral part and holds it together. Two examples are delicate ones.
They are: the situation in Italy (and I hope my Italian friends will
forebear with me if I speak of their country and its problems with its
partito communista); and then there are the problems between Greece and
Turkey on the Eastern extremity (and I hope again our Greek and Turkish
friends will forebear if I am forthright--but, I hope balanced--in my
views of that problem). Looking at the Italian situation and its
implications for the rest of the Atlantic community - I am not in a
position to judge what Eurocommunism means and whether the Italian
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Communists are sincere or how much you have to have participation of the
Italian Communist Party in order to govern Italy today. However, I do
have two legitimate military concerns - the first of which is the
security of NATO's classified information.
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