The Gallic Bomb

Of all the differences that beset Franco-American relations, nothing angers Charles de Gaulle more than the U.S.'s refusal to help him build his atom bomb. Time after time, French officials have shown up in Washington with shopping lists for nuclear equipment and other gadgetry needed by De Gaulle's proposed force de frappe (striking force), only to be turned away. Last week, President Kennedy publicly, and emphatically, gave the French another no.

Occasion for the latest turndown was last month's visit to the Pentagon by General Gaston Lavaud, chief of procurement for the French Defense Ministry. He brought with him a reply to repeated Washington appeals that NATO nations do more of their military purchasing from American firms to help the U.S.'s gold drain. "You need dollars. Here is what will get you dollars,'' said Lavaud, handing U.S. officers a list of things that France would like to buy. It included equipment for a gaseous diffusion plant to make enriched uranium, plans for nuclear submarines, propulsion and guidance gear for rocket missiles.

The Blackball. Sympathetic Pentagon officials recommended White House approval; even General Maxwell D. Taylor. Kennedy's personal military adviser, came back from his European tour urging that the restrictions against France be relaxed. The soldier's argument: concessions to De Gaulle might soften his three-year-old ban on stationing of U.S. nuclear warheads in France, might induce him to put returning troops from Algeria under NATO command. But the State Department's advice --and Kennedy's own inclination--was to refuse. Let De Gaulle first make good his old NATO promises, they argued; moreover, including France in the small "nuclear club" would only bring additional claimants like the West Germans running to demand the Bomb for themselves as well. As Kennedy put it last week, the U.S. is "very reluctant to see the proliferation of nuclear weapons."

But the French are grimly determined, with or without outside help, to go ahead with their atomic striking force. De Gaulle has conducted four atomic test explosions in the Sahara wastes, is close to building a modest bomb small enough to be delivered by an airplane. At the big Dassault factories, work is under way on the Mirage IV bomber, a two-seat jet that can reach Mach 2.4 (1,590 m.p.h.) over a 2,000-mile range. Fifty of these, combined with the smaller, slower Mirage III, will make a considerable new foe for the Communists along about 1965. The first French-made A-bombs may well be installed in a few Mirage IVs next year.

Good Memories. Since the force de frappe is inevitable, why, ask the French, should the U.S. not help make De Gaulle's task easier and cheaper? One reason is the McMahon Act, the law that forbids giving U.S. nuclear secrets to any nation not already in possession of the bomb.* But France argues that Kennedy's officials go far beyond the McMahon Act's intentions; often, say the French bitterly, the U.S. has blandly used the simple administrative device of refusing export licenses on some commodities that have nothing to do with nuclear secrets, such as missile hardware.

The French resent suggestions that the force de frappe is merely a device to enhance France's sense of grandeur. On the contrary, they insist, the motive is an instinct for survival. Charles de Gaulle fears that the Kennedy Administration is edging toward atomic disengagement in Europe, tends more and more toward a defense posture depending on Polaris submarine missiles and long-range rockets fired from U.S. soil. Thus, argues De Gaulle, France and Europe need atomic weapons of their own.

White House pressure on Europeans to concentrate on conventional ground and air forces only fortifies De Gaulle's suspicion. In the eyes of one of France's top soldiers, the idea of conventional warfare "is totally stupid. Spain in the 13th century built the world's best sword, and continued to use the sword, refusing the new invention of artillery. That finished Spain. You cannot reject technology in war."

* So far only Britain qualifies for such help, which arouses French ire at the "Anglo-Saxon conspiracy" they are constantly decrying.

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