MUTUAL SECURITY ACT OF 1959

THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1959

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 10:10 a.m. in room G-3, U.S. Capitol, Hon. Thomas E. Morgan (chairman) presiding.

Chairman MORGAN. The committee will come to order.

We meet in executive session, continuing our hearings on mutual security for fiscal year 1960.

We are honored this morning to have General Norstad back again before the committee.

General Norstad, is this your third appearance before the committee?

General NORSTAD. The third or the fourth.

Chairman MORGAN. You may proceed, General.

STATEMENT OF GEN. LAURIS NORSTAD, SUPREME COMMANDER, ALLIED POWERS, EUROPE

General NORSTAD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. This year NATO is celebrating 10 years of security and of peace. The North Atlantic Treaty, signed here in Washington on April 4, 1949, has become reality. NATO, which it brought into being, is the central bastion in the defenses of the free world.

Although I know that you are familiar with the treaty, I feel it useful to recall the provisions of the preamble, in which the parties proclaim their determination "to safeguard the freedom, common heritage, and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law" and in which they affirm their resolve "to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security."

These are simple words which simply state the aim of the member states. In furtherance of this aim, our strategy has as its first purposes the prevention of war and the defense of the peoples and territories of the alliance. Our military plans, and the organizations responsible for carrying them out, have been defensive; and it has been clear to all, from the 4th day of April, 1949, to the present, that we would fight only if we were attacked-only if our primary effort to prevent war should fail.

All of the military forces of NATO have, therefore, been developed, organized, directed, and coordinated to deter war and to achieve a proper degree of security for the Atlantic community. All operations are conducted with that fact uppermost in our minds.