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September 13, 1968

The Hon. Mike Mansfield
United States Senator
Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. Mansfield:

I have been meaning for some time to write to you about your proposals for the
withdrawal of American troops from Europe. Events of recent months have over~
taken most of the argumenta on the subject, but things may change again, and

I wished to offer you some arguments that go beyond the expediencies of the
moment.

As you may see from the first of the articles that I enclose, I was until re~
cently an enthusiastic supporter of your proposal for a pull-back. The argu-
ments that relate to the deterrent value vis a vis the U.5S.S.R. of an American
presence in Germany seemed to me quite spurious, as they do te you, and they
still seem so. What has changed my mind has been a further consideration of
the events that would probably follow upon an American withdrawal. It hardly
needs to be pointed out that Germany is still highly vulnerable to ultra-
nationalistic impulses which drive a campaign for reunification that can have
only the most disastrous consequences in view of Russian fears about her
boundary with Germany. We may regard these fears as paranoid, but we have to
recall that the official policy of Germany, and one to which the United States
adheres to some extent, denies the recognition of the partition of Germany,
and this is very vehemently expressed in such symbolic acts as the failure to
recognize the German Democratic Republic. Certainly the normalization of this
situation ought to command a very high priority, but it seems to me that it
would be very foolish for us to withdraw American troops in any abrupt fashion
until other assurances for the security of the area have been developed and
perceived by the affected parties. A sudden American withdrawal now could
have no other consequence but to encourage the most ripht~wing elements in
Germany to create intolerable pressure on the German government for an ever
more militant policy with respect to reunification.

In a sense then, our army in Europe is still an army of occupation, although
few people would find it very palatable to describe it in these terms. There
is one aspect of foreign policy of Germany that it is in our vital interest

to continue to influence, and we dare not remove our troops until other methods
of assuring the peace of the area have been verified.

744 Sy W
The Hon. Mike Mansfield September 13, 1968
Page 2

I might even go so far as to speculate that one of the motives underlying the
Soviet invasion of Czecheslovakia waa to provoke the renewal of a unified

NATO response. This may seem paradoxical, but I think there is little doubt
that world stability is furthered much more by the maintenance of an effective
and responsible alliance than it would be by the re-emergence of independent
and conflicting national powers.

It takes some optimism to believe that the flimate can be softened againsto
the point where the question of an American pullback can even be seriously
discussed, but I hope that time will come, and when it does, you will give
some weight to the considerations I have just summarized.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics