Office of the Historian

106. Memorandum of Conversation0

USDel/MC/23
March 31, 1959, 11 a.m.

NATO MINISTERIAL MEETING

April 2–4, 1959

SUBJECT

  • Tripartite Talks1

PARTICIPANTS

  • U.S. Side
    • The Acting Secretary
    • Mr. Murphy, G
    • Mr. Merchant, EUR
    • Mr. McBride, WE
  • French Side
    • M. Couve de Murville, Foreign Minister
    • M. Alphand, French Ambassador
    • M. Lucet, French Minister
    • M. de Beaumarchais, Chief of Cabinet to the Foreign Minister

Couve then raised the question of tripartite talks and said he did not believe there was anything special to discuss on this matter. Mr. Murphy noted that the next talks were scheduled for April 15. Couve said that General de Gaulle’s principal objective was military more than political and that he was primarily interested in security matters and the defense of the West. He thought that the best possibility would be a discussion between the President and General de Gaulle of this matter. The Acting Secretary said that General de Gaulle had a standing invitation to visit the United States. Couve said that this was not possible now but that if a summit meeting were held undoubtedly a meeting could be arranged between President de Gaulle and President Eisenhower during such a conference.

Couve said that in the military field there were two principal problems in General de Gaulle’s mind. First, there was the question of tripartite coordination of defense arrangements in general throughout the world while, second, there was the reorganization of NATO. In the General’s mind the first comes first, the global problem should be settled and then the reorganization of NATO accomplished thereafter. It was [Page 193] for this reason that the French had not heretofore formulated clear ideas regarding the reorganization of NATO because they first wish to obtain an agreement on the general problem of a coordinated tripartite approach on a world-wide basis.

Couve said that he spoke on the above problem separately from the specific problem of the French fleet. With regard to the latter, he referred to General de Gaulle’s press conference on this subject2 and said that it was quite clear that France had not intended in any way to weaken NATO. He said that he believed discussions were now in progress on the fleet problem between the French and SHAPE in Paris and also with CINCAFMED in Malta. The Acting Secretary asked if Mr. Merchant would speak on one specific problem which we had. Mr. Merchant said that with regard to the Belleau Wood he hoped to be able to talk with the Ambassador in a few days. The French action regarding the fleet had presented us with a difficult legal problem on the status of this vessel, but he hoped to find means of getting around this difficulty.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1235. Confidential. Drafted by McBride and approved by Herter on April 20.↩

  2. This meeting was part of a series of meetings before the NATO Ministerial Meeting that were held in conjunction with more formal quadripartite and tripartite meetings to discuss preparations for the Foreign Ministers Meeting at Geneva. See Part 1, Document 208.

    Copies of separate memoranda of this conversation on negotiations with the Soviets on Germany and Berlin (USDel/MC/19), Spanish membership in NATO (USDel/MC/20), COCOM (USDel/MC/21), SEATO (USDel/MC/22), and representatives in the United States of the Algerian Front for National Liberation (USDel/MC/24) are in Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1235.

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  3. At de Gaulle’s first press conference as President of the French Republic at Paris, March 25, he asserted there was nothing in the change in the status of France’s fleet in the Mediterranean that might weaken the Alliance. See Statements, pp. 41–51.↩