Office of the Historian

761.5611/8–2453

Memorandum by the Deputy Director of the Office of Western European Affairs (Knight) to the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant)1

confidential
[Washington,] August 24, 1953.
  • Subject:
  • Effect on the French of Soviet possession of the H Bomb

In my judgment the public knowledge that the Soviets are in possession of the H-bomb does not (repeat not) add a new factor of any significance to either the state of mind of the French public and Government or to French policies.

I believe, in view of the horror of the atom bomb which the imagination of the average Frenchman portrays as absolute, that the additional horror represented in the H-bomb has no effectiveness.

Furthermore and most important, I am reasonably sure that the average Frenchman believes the Soviet bombs, be they A-bombs or H-bombs, are largely reserved for US targets and only very secondarily for target in Western Europe. He feels that the Soviets in their own interest would wish to avoid unnecessary destruction on [Page 1189] the continent. Unfortunately, the average Frenchman is equally positive that the American A-bombs and H-bombs would be extensively dropped in Western Europe—perhaps in larger numbers than on the USSR. Being very unsure as to where the holding line in Western Europe may be, he rather expects that many of these American bombs would fall on French territory. Therefore, I very much fear and actually believe that the average Frenchman in his thinking and reaction is more concerned with American H-bombs than he is with Soviet H-bombs.

I have checked the above opinion from the European point of view with the senior officers now on duty in WE and they generally concur.

  1. A marginal notation by Merchant on the source text indicates agreement with the substance of this memorandum.↩