number 1 - Centre d'études et de recherches européennes Robert ...

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Wolfram Kaiser
the decisive question was thus whether Britain and France would be able to reach
an informal understanding about a mutually advantageous division of political leadership
within Western Europe as well as about the future direction of European
integration and the Community's role in the world.
Most interpretations of de Gaulle's foreign and European policy which emphasize
its ideological nature 4 have stressed the basic incompatibility between British
membership of the EEC and de Gaulle's aim of establishing the Community,
strengthened by the envisaged political cooperation between its members, as an
economically and politically cohesive organisation led by France which would
eventually be capable of acting as a third force on the same level as the United States
and the Soviet Union. This would suggest that the successful conclusion of the
entry negotiations between 1961 and 1963 was at least unlikely, but perhaps even
impossible, whatever concessions the British decided to make. More recently,
however, it has been argued that while de Gaulle's policies may have been influenced
to some extent by une certaine idée not just of France but also of Europe's role
in world affairs, the French President was essentially pragmatic and may have been
prepared to contemplate British membership of the EEC in exchange for a British
offer for close Anglo-French cooperation in security matters including a "nuclear
condominium". 5 Much has been made in this context of the failure by Macmillan
and de Gaulle to come to an agreement during their encounter at Rambouillet in
December 1962 6 and of the subsequent Anglo-American summit meeting at Nassau
at which, after the cancellation of the Skybolt project, Macmillan successfully
persuaded Kennedy to supply Britain with Polaris missiles instead.
This analysis of Anglo-French relations during the entry negotiations is not primarily
concerned with the ongoing historiographical debate about de Gaulle's political
philosophy and European policy. Instead, in the light of the British
government records now available a fresh look will be taken at the bilateral relationship
up until the Rambouillet meeting by analysing the evolution of the British
perception of de Gaulle's aims and policies, the development of British thinking on
a possible package deal with the French President involving either the inclusion of
France into a trilateral special relationship with the US or the formation of an
Anglo-French deterrent, and finally whether any such arrangement was ever
overtly or implicitly offered. It is hoped that this may help to explain why a broader
European settlement was not arrived at in 1962/63 and British accession to the
EEC delayed by almost ten years.
4. See, for example, Ph.G. CERNY, The politics of grandeur. Ideological aspects of de Gaulle's foreign
policy, Cambridge 1980.
5. Cf. W. LOTH, "De Gaulle und die europäische Einigung", in: W. LOTH and R. PICHT (eds.), De
Gaulle, Deutschland und Europa, Opladen 1991, pp. 45-60; W. LOTH, "De Gaulle und Europa.
Eine Revision", in: Historische Zeitschrift 253/3 (1991), pp. 629-660.
6. For the Rambouillet talks cf. PRO PREM 11/4230 (15-16 December 1962).