Both leaders spelled out their differences at the Washington Energy Conference on how the Western alliance should try to end the oil crisis in light of the previous months, which had been marked by rising tensions between France and the United States. Neither Jobert nor Kissinger was able to recognize his counterpart's attempt to mend relations between France and the United States. This thesis offers an examination of the bilateral relationship between France and the United States in the early 1970s, which was previously missing from the historical literature.
It follows the United States and France through arguably the most acute crisis in the history of their alliance. Indeed, after Jobert left the Quai d'Orsay in the spring of 1974, relations between France and the United States saw marked improvement. Missing in the literature is a clear definition of what came between France and the United States in 1973 or an attempt to balance the importance of different sources of tension.
France and the United States reconciled in part because the new French leaders revised Pompidou and Jobert's approach to foreigners. European criticism of US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War also angered the United States.
FRENCH PERSPECTIVES ON THE REASONS FOR DISCORD, APRIL 1973- NOVEMBER 1973
Members of Kissinger's audience familiar with alliance politics would have been quick to spot some problems with his presentation. Jobert dryly joked that the US must have believed that its relations with Europe were as utilitarian as the operation of a telephone: "Basically, someone calls and you answer!"9 The French resented Washington. The Treaty on the Prevention of Nuclear War, signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on June 22, 1973, heightened French fears of superpower collusion and colored Jobert and the Quai d'Orsay's interpretation of the ensuing crisis.45 Jobert writes that understood the Agreement which.
These were all classic examples of the USA and the USSR managing international crises between the two of them, just as France feared after the superpowers signed the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War. Because of their privileged cultural understanding and transactional history with Arab states, the French believed that their assessment of the Middle East was superior to that of the Americans. However, the success of the American airlift to Israel hurt France's chances of participating in postwar diplomacy.
Thus, Egypt and Syria decided that friendship with the United States was more valuable than that of France and agreed to leave the French out of the negotiations, even though they were sympathetic to Arab interests. Bad personal relations between the French and American secretaries of state acted as a further irritant in the alliance, on top of the strategic reasons for the conflict between France and the United States in 1973. Even more than the US State Department, the French diplomatic corps was expected to avoid personal ambitions and party politics and work for the good of the republic.
Whatever the source of his hostility, Jobert's distrust of America's chief communicator and director of foreign policy prevented France and the United States from communicating well or effectively resolving their differences during his tenure.
AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES ON THE REASONS FOR DISCORD, APRIL 1973- NOVEMBER 1973
In the following months, France appeared to deliberately mislead the United States by initially endorsing the Year of Europe and then isolating the US from the other allies in order to promote France within the EC. He visited de Gaulle in 1969 and invited Pompidou to visit the United States the following year.2 The French also showed signs that they wanted a better relationship with the US, and arranged this discreetly for Kissinger. In fact, Kissinger reflected that “the fateful Year of Europe was born in the office of the President of the French Republic.”17 This was somewhat of an exaggeration; nevertheless, during a meeting with Pompidou, Kissinger raised the idea of a project to revive Atlantic relations.
Kissinger has indicated at senior level meetings that he hopes to follow this formula in the Year of Europe negotiations. The US expected French support because it believed that the Year of Europe gave France almost everything it wanted: a decisive role in the negotiation process that would strengthen French leadership in Europe and an American recognition of Europe's status as an equal partner with the United States. Kissinger insisted that he was surprised that the Year of Europe had caused conflict with France.
Kissinger was surprised and disappointed – the Year of Europe was supposed to lead to sincere consultations to redefine the Alliance. At the meeting of heads of state, Pompidou was the favorite, but his complaints about the procedural difficulties of the Year of Europe did nothing to move the negotiations forward. His closing comments downplayed the importance of the Reykjavik summit: “The expectations we came to these meetings with have been met.
A week later, the French minister was even more adamant about the procedural issues of the European Year. The meeting resulted in a communique calling for both sides to immediately withdraw "to the positions they occupied on 22 October", followed by "the re-establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East using a Security Council resolution". Concurrent with the disagreements between the United States and France during the negotiations on the Flight of Europe and the October War, two events in American domestic politics exacerbated tensions between the two allies.
68 Gerald Ford, "Message to the Congress Transmitting Final Report on the Balance of Payments Deficit Curred Under the North Atlantic Treaty," The American Presidency Project, Public Papers of the President, Gerald R. The correct calculation of the presence of American troops in Europe was in interest of the USA, the French. Not only was Nixon now a "political liability," the scandal took a physical and psychological toll.
See also a conversation between Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft, his assistant in the NSC, in which Kissinger expressed the same belief that Watergate had destroyed the Year of Europe's chances. Europe to the American people; the need to support Israel and win the proxy war in the Middle East.
FORCED RECONCILIATION, DECEMBER 1973-JUNE 1974
12 Document 323: “Document Prepared in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Question Paper for the Minister's Report on. 33 Nichter, Richard Nixon and Europe, 144 and Rossbach, Nixon and the Rebirth of the Special Relationship, 33. Both Jobert and Kissinger recognized that security was central to the alliance between France and the United States, and more broadly between Europe and the United States. countries.
However, for the first part of the year, that is, from the Yom Kippur War until the conference in mid-February, the French policy of intransigence towards the United States continued to produce results. Europe by canceling the additional 5 percent production cut for the month of December.50 Feeling vindicated, Jobert berated the United States at the December 10 meeting of the North Atlantic Council with sharp criticism of detente and the US-Soviet agreement on the. The Declaration on European Identity was basically the antithesis of the US-EC declaration that motivated Kissinger's Year of Europe speech.
The clause on the United States reads: “The close ties between the United States and Europe of the Nine—we share values and aspirations based on a common heritage—. Problems were brewing, however, because the plans of France and the United States for dealing with the oil crisis were very different and were bound to come into conflict. Pompidou and Jobert strongly reject the energy conference and the American goal of coordination.
1974 was marked by growing unrest among the Europeans due to confrontation between the EC and the USA. Many in Europe believed that France had pushed the US away more than was wise in recent months and that the United States should be part of the solution to the Energy Crisis. At a press conference just after taking office, Sauvagnargues welcomed the Gymnich agreement and the regular consultations with the United States that would result from it.
The new foreign minister tried to sweep under the carpet the disagreements between France and the United States over consultations during the Year of Europe. However, it does not follow that Henry Kissinger navigated the year of Europe and the oil crisis without a misstep. Perhaps, given France's and the United States' separate visions for Europe, there was no way Kissinger could make the Year of Europe attractive to the French.
Not only did France's sharp criticism of the US invasion of Iraq resemble its 1973 decision to close its airspace to US planes bringing fresh supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur War, Friedman's language recalls Kissinger's reactions to French opposition to the Year of Europe and the airlift . . The Limits of Détente: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1969-1973.
