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ABSTRACT
The Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR), General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, was an unlikely hero who rose to the challenge of France’s expulsion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from its territory in 1966. President de Gaulle’s action forced the Alliance to locate its new headquarters in another NATO country and move 800,000 tons of military equipment out of France in less than a year’s time. How to achieve this goal without irrevocably fracturing relations with France was the charge given to the Supreme Allied Commander, a man of equable temperament and – from the perspective of some of his peers – of modest talents. He lacked the authority of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the intellect of General Alfred M. Gruenther Gruenther, and the imperious temperament of General Lauris Norstad. But against the odds he succeeded in opening Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) headquarters in Belgium on 1 April 1967. This essay seeks to examine his long relationship with NATO and judge how successful he was in his leadership as Supreme Allied Commander in the 1960s.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 This background is drawn from biographer L. James Binder, Lemnitzer: A Soldier for His Time (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997).
2 Lawrence S. Kaplan, NATO 1948: The Birth of the Transatlantic Alliance (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 67.
3 Alfred Goldberg and Samuel A. Tucker, “Interview with General Lemnitzer”, 21 March 1974, 3–4, Historian’s Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense files, Pentagon, Washington, DC.
4 Daily Express, 23 July 1948, 1, recorded in US Delegation to the Western Union (hereafter cited as DELWU), National Archives and Records Administration (hereater cited as NARA); Lemnitzer to Lieutenant General Albert C. Wedemeyer, JCS, 4, 23 July 1948, DELWU, NARA.
5 Lemnitzer to Wedemeyer, 23 July 1948, DELWU 4; NARA; Steven L. Rearden, The Formative Years, 1947-1950, I, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Washington. DC: Historical Office, OSD, 1984), 468-9.
6 DELWU to Wedemeyer, 26 July 1948, CCS 092, RG 218, NARA.
7 Wedemeyer to DELWU, 26 July 1948, CCS 092, RG 218, NARA.
8 DELWU 9, 31 July 1948, CCS 092, RG 218, NARA.
9 Lawrence S. Kaplan, A Community of Interests: NATO and the Military Assistance Program (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office), 23.
10 Goldberg and Tucker, “Interview”, 21 March 1974, 10.
11 Maurice Matloff, “Interview with General Lemnitzer”, 19 January 1984, 38, Historian’s Office, Office of the Seceretary of Defense files, Pentagon, Washington, DC.
12 Goldberg and Tucker, “Interview,” 21 March 1974, 10.
13 Ibid., 10–12.
14 Binder, Lemnitzer, 176; Goldberg and Tucker, “Interview”, 14–15.
15 Binder, Lemnitzer, 248.
16 Ibid., 279.
17 Ibid., 277.
18 Lemnitzer was officially retired in 1961, and then reappointed, creating pension problems later.
19 Robert S. Jordan, Norstad: Cold War NATO Supreme Commander (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 221–2.
20 Binder, Lemnitzer, 292–3.
21 Jordan, Norstad, 6–7.
22 De Gaulle to Lemnitzer, 7 February 1967, box 48, Lemnitzer Papers, National Defense University Library, Fort McNair, Washington, DC (hereafter cited as NDUL).
23 New York Times, 24 July 1962, 5.
24 Le Monde, 22–23 July 1962, 1.
25 25 July 1962, Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1962 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1963), 574.
26 Jack Raymond, Power at the Pentagon (New York: Harper & Row), 287; and see also Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 200.
27 Matloff, “Interview”, 24 January 1974, 10.
28 Hanson Baldwin, Strategy for Tomorrow (New York: Harper, 1970), 141.
29 Binder, Lemnitzer, 323–4.
30 Ibid., 324.
31 New York Times, 17 March 1965, 3.
32 Frederic Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: de Gaulle, the United States, and the Atlantic Alliance (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).
33 Lemnitzer to Admiral Harry W. Hill, 22 June 1965, box 42, Lemnitzer Papers, NDUL.
34 George W. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs(New York: Norton, 1973), 334.
35 New York Times, 30 July 1962.
36 Lemnitzer to Lydia and Bill Lemnitzer, 20 March 1967, box 66; Lemnitzer Papers, NDUL.
37 Lemnitzer to President Barksdale Hamlett, Norwich University, 7 February 1966, box 44, NDUL.
38 Harlan Cleveland, NATO: The Transatlantic Bargain (New York: Harper, 1970), 106.
39 Charles Bohlen, Witness to History 1929–69 (New York: Norton, 1973), 507–8.
40 Lemnitzer to General Charles Ailleret, 19 May 1966, box 44, NDUL.
41 NATO Letter, 14 May 1966, 22–3.
42 Lemnitzer to Robert B. Anderson, 11 July 1966, box 44, NDUL.
43 Lemnitzer to General Gruenther, 23 April 1966, box 43, NDUL.
44 Lemnitzer to General James Collins, 29 August 1966, box 45, NDUL.
45 Lemnitzer to Major H. E. Simpson Jr., 26 September 1966, Family Papers, box 66, NDUL.
46 Air Marshal MacBrien memorandum to Lord Coleridge, 26 July 1966, ‘Broad Outline of the SHAPE Requirement When Relocated in Belgium’, box 44, NDUL.
47 de Kerchove to Lemnitzer, 16 August 1966, box 44, NDUL.
48 Lemnitzer to Norstad, 8 July 1966, box 44, NDUL.
49 Pourquoi Pas, 11 August 1963, box 163; Lemnitzer to Norstad, 8 July 1966, box 44, NDUL; Lemnitzer to James Gerrity Jr., 2 August 1967, box 45, NDUL.
50 Lemnitzer to General Gruenther, 23 April 1966, box 44, NDUL.
51 McNamara statement, “The North Atlantic Alliance”, Hearings before the Subcommittee on National Security and International Operations of the Committee on Government Operation, US Senate, 89th Cong., 2nd, sess, part 6, 21 June 1966, 187.
52 New York Times, 3 May 1967, 35.
53 NATO Letter, 16 January 1968, 4.
54 Lemnitzer to Harry Darby, 13 January 1967, box 46, NDUL.
55 Lemnitzer to James Gerrity, Jr., 2 August 1967, box 45, NDUL.
56 Binder, 330.
57 Lemnitzer to Lieutenant General August Schomburg, 11 February 1967, box 44, NDUL.
58 Ibid.
59 Lemnitzer to Brigadier General Randolph T. Pendleton, 17 May 1968, box 50; quoted in Edward J. Drea, McNamara, Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965–1969, VI, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Washington, DC: Historical Office, 2011), 509.
60 Matloff, “Interview”, 24 January 1974, 34–5.
61 Ibid.
62 US Embassy in Moscow to Secretary of State, 21 August 1968, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, vol. 17, 247.
63 News Release, No. 67–22, SHAPE, Belgium, 27 November 1967.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lawrence S. Kaplan
Lawrence S. Kaplan was Director of the Lyman L. Lemnitzer Center for NATO Studies, Kent State University (1979–92) and Professorial Lecturer in American History (1993–2015) at Georgetown University. The author’s thanks to the contribution of Dr Kathleen A. Kellner, a former doctoral student at Kent State University.