Date

Aug 12, 1957

Description

Heisenberg's anti-nuclear weapons commitments were sturdy, but Adenauer's confidence in U.S. security guarantees was wavering and he became interested in finding ways to circumvent the 1954 declaration, mainly by working with the French. During the summer of 1957, diplomats in London and Washington were becoming uneasy as they learned that France and West Germany were setting up formal arrangements to cooperate in the development of advanced weapons systems. According to the British, the "real danger for NATO would arise in another ten years when the Germans would have weapons resulting from Franco-German research and development thus getting around the WEU prohibition to Germany of developing its own ABC weapons." U.S. diplomats in Paris, however, saw "little likelihood" of such a development: "they had no indications that the French had or would contemplate assisting the Germans to produce atomic weapons." That, however, did not touch on the point of whether the French would work with the Germans bilaterally in a project that did not take place on West German soil.

Source

RG 59, Records of the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Atomic Energy and Outer Space, Records Relating to Atomic Energy Matters, 1948-1962, box 491, Z1.33 Country File France P. Weapons, 1957

Document published in following posting(s):

Preoccupations with West Germany’s Nuclear Weapons Potential Shaped Kennedy-Era Diplomacy

Feb 2, 2018