Archival Description by NATO Archives

Archival Descriptive Entry

Title: Future Tasks of the Alliance

Outside Dates: 1966 December – 1967 December

Extent: 0.3 m.

Administrative History:

In late 1966, the approaching 20th anniversary of NATO and the changes made necessary by the French decision to withdraw from the integrated military structure prompted the North Atlantic Alliance to re-examine its relevance and adaptation to the existing political context.

At the December 1966 NATO Meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers, Pierre Harmel, Belgium’s Foreign Minister, tabled a proposal calling for a joint analysis of the major events of the past twenty years. He recommended the study be used to determine the effect of events on the objectives and methods of the Alliance and to decide whether it was necessary to improve consultation within it. The Foreign Affairs Ministers responded favourably to Harmel’s proposal and empowered Manlio Brosio, NATO Secretary General, and the Permanent Representatives to the North Atlantic Council (NAC) with a comprehensive mandate to develop procedures for the study and to determine its scope.

In February 1967, the NAC decided to constitute an open-ended special group of representatives designated by governments, under the Chairmanship of the Secretary General. The NAC gave the Special Group on the Future Tasks of the Alliance (also known under the reference AC/261) the task of studying: “(a) the development of political events as it affects the purposes of the Alliance;” and “(b) the consequent future tasks of the Alliance.” The Special Group was to establish such special procedures, sub-groups and rapporteurs, and request such staff work from the NATO International Staff, as it deemed necessary.” (See reference C-M(67)11.)

During the month of March 1967 the Special Group met on five occasions in private session to encourage wide ranging discussions. It was during these meetings that they decided on the framework for the conduct of the study. The Special Group created four sub-groups, each working on a broad subject of interest to the Alliance and under the guidance of a rapporteur of repute. The sub-groups and rapporteurs were as follows:

Sub-Group One, East/West Relations: Mr. K.Schütz, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Germany and Mr. J.H.A. Watson , Assistant Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, United Kingdom;
Sub-Group Two, Inter-allied Relations: Mr. Paul-Henri Spaak, Minister of State, Belgium;
Sub-Group Three, General Defence Policy : Mr. Foy Kohler, Deputy Under Secretary of State, United States;
Sub-Group Four, Relations with other Countries: Dr. C.L. Patijn, Professor of International Relations, University of Utrecht, Netherlands.

The NATO International Staff provided secretarial support and was tasked with gathering background material for the sub-groups.

The sub-groups met several times to prepare a draft interim report which was approved by the NAC in late May 1966. (See reference C-M(67)33.) Following some amendments it was noted by the Foreign Ministers at their meeting of 13-14 June in Luxembourg.

Following this initial phase, the sub-groups began to address the substantive issues. Although the reports were prepared under the responsibility of each rapporteur, a meeting of all the sub-groups took place in July to harmonise the work and avoid duplication. After having gone through several stages, the reports were reviewed and their findings compared during a last meeting in October at Ditchley Park (UK). The following month, the Special Group held a high-level meeting over two days during which the substance of the Report was discussed. The Secretary General circulated a draft Report which was discussed and amended by the Special Group on 22 November 1967.
The Report on the Future Tasks of the Alliance was presented at the NATO Ministerial Session and after some further amendments was approved by Foreign Affairs Ministers on 14 December 1967 and subsequently released to the press. (See reference C-M(67)74(2nd revised) and M4(67)3, respectively.)

 

Scope and Content:

This series of files consists of the records created or received by the NATO International Staff and related to the study on the Future Tasks of the Alliance between December 1966 and December1967. It includes formal and informal documents of the Special Group and of its four Sub-groups as well as documents from the Council, the Secretary General, summary records of private meetings of Permanent Representatives, internal notes and national contributions.

It should be noted that the meetings of the Special Group and of its sub-groups were held in private session. No official minutes of the meetings were issued under the reference AC/261.

 

Custodial Note:

The nine file volumes in this series are not organic, in that they have been assembled by the International Staff Archives Unit from files initially created by the Political Affairs, Defence Planning and Policy Sub-registries of the International Staff and the Private Office of the Secretary General. This compilation was part of a process which was developed following a NATO management survey in 1971 which had recommended that a programme be established by which subject files would be withdrawn from divisional sub-registries, weeded of duplications and unimportant papers and rationalised into one system of historical files. It was felt at the time that these procedures would lead to a reduction of the total documentation and storage space required, as well as easier access to important historical records.

In some cases the outside dates of the files differ from those of the documents created or accumulated during the Harmel Report Exercise (1966 –1967). Instances of this are found in volume 4/10/3, documents dated 1959, 1961 and 1963 were reissued to the sub-groups as background information; volume 4/10/5 contains documents dated 1992 which were added to the file to shed light on the absence of a corrigendum to AC/261 –N/13 (Revised); and volume 4/10/ includes a document dated February 1968 “Note à l’intention des conférenciers” SN/1 which was used to brief groups of visitors at NATO Headquarters.

At the time of their compilation, the Archives Unit divided the volumes into sections, with each heading summarising the main decisions or events recorded in the documents. Within each file, items have been indexed in the language of the document.

 

Arrangement Note:

The documents are arranged chronologically. Most of the formal documents exist both in English and in French. The informal documents and national contributions exist in the language in which they were drafted.

 

Conditions of Access and Use:

The documents in this series have been declassified and approved for public disclosure under the NATO Public Disclosure Programme.

The documents have been made available for research purposes only, Copyright is retained by NATO and any non-research use of the documents requires the written permission of NATO.