Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 42. (1992)

BISCHOF, Günter: The Anglo-American Powers and Austrian Neutrality, 1953–1955

Günter Bischof

fortunately not acknowledging the growing body of important Austrian historiography on the State Treaty in their work-have largely ignored both the importance of bilateral Austrian-Soviet diplomacy from 1952 to 1955 and Raab’s and Kreisky’s crucial roles in bringing about the State Treaty by way of the „neutral option“13). Audrey Rurth Cronin, like Rathkolb and Rauchensteiner, has also noted the pressure from the Pentagon in 1953 to avoid a military „neutralization“ of Austria for strategical-geopolitical reasons. But while the State Department was „ambiguous“ over Austrian neutrality at the Berlin Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) in 1954, Eisenhower and Dulles were „flexible“14). But she has little to say about Western views on the final rounds of Austro-Soviet negotations since the 1955 records were not yet open when she did her research. For political scientist Deborah Welch Larsen, it seems, a State Treaty would have been concluded in spite of an Austrian Government; in her view the Austrian case seems to have been merely an experiment to test abstract models for „crisis prevention“ such as „tit for tat“ and „GRIT“15).

II.

For the rest of this paper then, based on the newly available British and American sources, I will briefly try to present the views of policy makers in London and Washington - usually expressed behind the scenes - about a possible „neutralization“ of Austria16). I will try to show in more

Von der Besatzung zur Neutralität: Österreich in den aussenpolitischen Strategien des Nationalen Sicherheitsrates unter Truman und Eisenhower in Die Bevormundete Nation, ed. by Bischof/Leidenfrost, pp. 390-99.

13) Audrey Kurth Cronin, based on new State Department documents, has treated the Austrian approach to the Kremlin via India in June 1933 as „independent, bilateral negotiations with the Russians,“ see Great Power Politics and the Struggle over Austria 125-7. Mastny, on the other hand, based on the Austrian literature and Schilcher’s documentary collection, has stressed the Austrian „initiatives“ vis-ä-vis the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death, Kremlin Politics 3Iff.

14) Kurth Cronin Great Power Politics 122, 134; and Rathkolb Von der Besatzung zur Neutralität 393—94; Rauchensteiner Die Zwei 218.

15) Deborah Welch Larson Crisis Prevention and the Austrian Slate Treaty in International Organization 41 (1987) 27-60.

16) Based on the newly opened PRO-fiies, I have presented a first summary of the British anxieties over Austrian-Soviet bilateral negotiations in 1955 in „Infiltration statt Okkupation: Britischs Ängste anno 1955“ in Die Furche (14 February 1986) 4-5. In the meantime I have presented in more detail the Western fears over a „neutralization“ of Austria in the unpublished papers „’Austria and Moscow’s Wiles’: The Western Powers, Neutrality and the Austrian State Treaty,“ presented at Harvard University, December 1987, Charles Warren Center Conference: The United States and West European Security, 1950-1955-, and John Foster Dulles and Austrian Neutrality, presented at Princeton University, February 1988, John Foster Dulles Centennial Conference (now part of the unpu372