Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Western Europe, Volume VII, Part 2

118. Memorandum From Acting Secretary of State Dillon to President Eisenhower⁰

Undated.

SUBJECT

• Proposed Reply to General de Gaulle

General de Gaulle’s handwritten letter to you of May 25¹ is a further definition of his thinking. Once again he poses three basic demands: nuclear cooperation including a French role in decisions on the use of nuclear weapons, common strategy and policy for areas of special interest to France such as Africa, and the establishment of organized, tripartite political and strategic consultation on a global basis.

We are unwilling or unable to meet fully these requests, the outlines of which have been apparent since General deGaulle first wrote to you last September. We have made an effort to be partly responsive through a series of tripartite discussions in Washington at the Ambassadorial level on the Far East and Africa. It had been our hope to continue this operation without going too far in a direction which might make our relations with other allies and friendly nations awkward or compromise our basic interests. While the General’s letter does not put a stop to this process, it does oblige us to look again at his basic demands. It is quite doubtful that a letter could be written which the General would regard as an adequate reply to his requests. On the other hand, a refutation of them or a refusal to discuss could lead him to take drastic unilateral actions of a nature unfavorable to our interests.

To us it seems that the best tactic would be to acknowledge the letter briefly, to state that the subjects he has raised are of high importance, and to say that it might be best for you to discuss these matters frankly with him in Paris, should a Summit Conference be held in Europe (or in the United States, should the Summit be held here). Such an offer would be responsive to his invitation to you. It would, of course, be conditional on the conference being held and might, in fact, help set the stage for that conference.

It is suggested that you might wish to add to your reply to General de Gaulle a brief hand-written postscript acknowledging his thoughtful words about Secretary Dulles.

Secretary Herter concurs in this recommendation and with the enclosed suggested reply.²

Douglas Dillon

0. Source: Eisenhower Library, Project Clean Up. Secret.
1. Document 117.
2. Not printed. For Eisenhower’s reply to de Gaulle’s May 25 letter, which followed the Department of State draft verbatim except for the omission of two sentences about the possibility of a meeting between the two men in Washington, see Document 119.