Office of the Historian

212. Memorandum of Conversation0

April 17, 1959.

SUBJECT

  • Discussion between Mr. Murphy and Mr. Spaak
[Page 458]

PARTICIPANTS

  • U.S. Side
    • Robert Murphy, Acting Secretary of State
    • W. Randolph Burgess, U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO
    • B.E.L. Timmons, Director EUR/RA
  • NATO Side
    • Paul-Henri Spaak, Secretary-General of NATO
    • Andre St.-Mleux, Directeur de Cabinet to the Secretary-General

Except for a few points, the full substance of Mr. Spaak’s talk with Mr. Murphy, which lasted about 45 minutes, is reproduced in Topol 34781 which was prepared and dispatched to Paris before a formal Memorandum of Conversation was written, since Spaak wished to have USRO convey the substance of the talk to the Acting Secretary-General of NATO, M. Casardi, as soon as possible.

The points made by Spaak and not reflected in Topol 3478 are as follows:

a)
In discussing General de Gaulle’s attitude toward NATO, and the difficulties that this has caused, Spaak said “Not only is De Gaulle himself not doing anything for NATO, he is preventing other members from making progress.”
b)
In speaking of De Gaulle’s evident desire for tripartite global strategic planning, Spaak said it was far easier to talk about such planning than it was actually to do it.
c)
In discussing the French withdrawal from NATO of their Mediterranean fleet, Spaak said frankly that he thought this was a French reaction against the U.S. vote on the Algerian question in the last UN General Assembly.
d)
In discussing the problem of creating an integrated air defense for NATO Europe, Spaak said he thought it would be very good if De Gaulle could come to the United States and hear the same briefing that he, Spaak, and the NATO Permanent Council had just received at NORAD, which demonstrated very clearly that under modern conditions individual countries could not provide an adequate air defense on a national basis.
e)
In discussing the problems of North Africa, Spaak said that it was perfectly clear that the French did not wish to discuss the problem of Algeria in the North Atlantic Council.

Mr. Murphy directed M. Spaak’s attention to the fact that the French had unilaterally extended the NATO area by an average of 100 kilometers to the South when they created the present 15 Departments of Algeria in the place of the former 3 Departments. Spaak said he had not been aware that the area covered by the present 15 Departments is larger than that covered by the old 3 Departments. There was also some discussion of the question as to the status vis-à-vis NATO of Hawaii after statehood is attained.2

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 110.13-MU/4–1759. Secret. Drafted by Timmons and initialed by Murphy.↩
  2. Document 211.↩
  3. See Document 230.↩