<--PREV Doc #143  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #145 Document #144; April 10, 1953 To Charles Erwin Wilson Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series ; Category: Secret and confidential The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953 Chapter 2: "A number of misunderstandings": Party and International Struggles   Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense. Subject: Military Organization in NATO: I address this memorandum to you, and I am sending a copy to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the expectation that the two of you will want to talk over the points I suggest herein. There is a movement on foot--a wise one, I think--to establish a central single command in Western Europe with Marshal Juin of France in charge.1 I have always believed that each of the several commands under SACEUR should be organized under a single authority, and it is logical that the central area should be under the command of a Frenchman. Marshal Juin is a capable professional, but his great difficulty is that the French Government insists upon giving him a half dozen different jobs. The commander of the central area will have to bear very heavy responsibilities, and those responsibilities cannot be discharged on the basis of "absentee landlordship." If you so choose, either one of you may quote me in your confidential discussions with others in NATO. I shall be unalterably opposed to giving exclusive command jurisdiction to Juin in the center if he is to retain his nationalistic posts in the French services. Juin is my friend. I admire him and like him and I am perfectly delighted to see him have this command, but provided that he gives it his exclusive attention and has his only duty that of supervising control and directing the defense of the great central sector of the NATO battleline.2 Another thought on the same organization: I believe that since Juin will have under him two army group commanders, one in the north and one in the south, that it would be totally unnecessary and unreasonably expensive to set up an intermediate "ground commander." It will be Juin's job to provide such coordination as is necessary between his two existing ground commanders--something that he will have to do in any event because only he can intervene with reinforcements from the general reserve or with the air power that might be necessary in any given set of circumstances. 1 Marshal Alphonse Pierre Juin, whose relationship with Eisenhower went back to World War II, had commanded NATO land forces in central Europe since September 1951. Juin originally had requested authority over central-region air forces, which U.S. General Lauris Norstad commanded; for many months French General Charles De Gaulle and his Rassemblement du Peuple Français (Rally of the People of France, RPF) party had demanded heavier responsibilities for Juin, senior French officer in the NATO command structure (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, nos. 16, 77, 115, 198, 710). 2 In July of 1953, Juin would be named Commander in Chief of the central region (see Ismay, NATO, p. 74). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Secret and confidential To Charles Erwin Wilson, 10 April 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 144. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/144.cfm <--PREV Doc #143  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #145

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