Office of the Historian

108. Memorandum of Conversation0

April 23, 1959.

SUBJECT

  • U.S.-French Nuclear Submarine Cooperation

PARTICIPANTS

  • Secretary Herter1
  • Mr. McCone, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission
  • Mr. Merchant, EUR
  • Mr. Farley, S/AE

Mr. McCone said that renewal of negotiations on nuclear submarine cooperation with the French gave him great difficulty. In response to the Secretary’s reference to Congressional opposition, Mr. McCone said that the initial difficulty was the opposition within the Atomic Energy Commission. The majority of the Commissioners opposed any resumption of negotiations looking toward a classified reactor agreement, even though security in the French Ministry of Defense appeared to be adequate. A majority could be found, he believed, to support an agreement limited to provision of enriched fuel for a prototype submarine reactor.

The Secretary expressed the view that in any case it would not be appropriate to proceed at this time in view of the French action regarding withdrawal of the Mediterranean fleet from NATO. Mr. Merchant said that in talks with the French he had been careful to attribute delays in negotiation to bureaucratic and legal and security problems rather [Page 195] than to the French fleet action, though he was confident the French got the point. He believed it was now important to go ahead to at least some degree. Nuclear submarine cooperation was very important to General deGaulle, and the General believed that he had a commitment from Mr. Dulles on this point. Proceeding with the unclassified enriched fuel agreement would be a useful starting point and it would clearly be undesirable to have an adverse vote in the Atomic Energy Commission on the classified reactor agreement, so that this matter might best be held in abeyance for the time being. Mr. Farley pointed out that the French were awaiting the results of the recent security review of the Ministry of Defense, and would be pressing for resumption of negotiations once that hurdle was cleared.

The Secretary and Mr. McCone agreed that we would proceed promptly to conclude the unclassified agreement covering provision of enriched fuel.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 751.5621/4–2359. Secret. Drafted by Farley and approved by Calhoun on April 28.↩
  2. Secretary Dulles resigned for health reasons on April 15. Christian A. Herter became Secretary of State on April 22.↩