133. Memorandum of Conversation0
PRESENT
- The President
- The President of France
- Mr. Labelle
- Lt. Col. Vernon A. Walters
General de Gaulle opened the conversation by saying there was something he wished to say to the President in great confidence because he felt it would be helpful to him in judging French attitudes. France had been a great and wealthy country; it was now no longer great nor wealthy, and this knowledge was sometimes difficult for the French to bear. If occasionally sharp words were spoken or strident voices were raised, he would hope the President would understand the context in which these occurred. This is particularly true where African matters were concerned. The President replied that he understood what General de Gaulle was referring to and that he would assure him that no bitter word would ever be spoken by him or by his Administration. He could not answer for Congress, of course, because he could not control what was said. But as far as the Administration was concerned they would [Page 272] certainly say or do nothing to block General de Gaulle’s efforts to renew France.
[Here follows discussion of North Africa.]
The President then spoke of the International Development Agency as an adjunct to the World Bank. He explained to General de Gaulle the functioning of this body and how it would be used under conditions which the World Bank could not meet at the present time. It would work closely with the World Bank and be able to use the very large engineering organization which the World Bank had set up in order to be able to judge whether projects were economically feasible and would assist in the development of the countries. General de Gaulle said that he knew Mr. Black and certainly had nothing against him or the World Bank, which he felt operated effectively. The President said that if we had such a world agency it would prevent these countries from playing one of us off against the other and would permit us to help these countries on a sound basis. General de Gaulle said he had no objection to this in principle but he did feel that in the cases of countries which were truly independent, like Egypt, this might work effectively; but in other cases, like the states in the French Community, the level of development and the understanding of the leaders was not such that they could properly judge what they needed. The President said that he understood this and he felt where states belonged to a large group that such loans should be secured through the group. Certainly if Puerto Rico requests assistance the United States would be the channel through which they would go. General de Gaulle said one of the difficulties was that the Soviets were offering these countries large credits. He had previously mentioned Emperor Haile Selassie’s forty billion francs and now Mr. Touré has sent his number two man to Moscow and the latter has returned with a credit of some 22 billion francs, which was a lot of money for a small country. The Soviets would give them twenty years to pay it back and charge only two percent interest. The President said that this enabled the Soviets to give away surpluses which they wanted to get rid of anyway. He felt it was vital that the Western nations operate together without competing with one another. If, for example, there was a project to be undertaken in Egypt, the Soviets went in as a single bloc whereas the French, the Germans, the British, the Americans and Italians might be competing with one another. He felt that this International Development Agency would go a long way towards obtaining the type of Western co-operation which he felt to be essential.
At this point other members of the staffs of both Presidents entered and a further conversation took place, which is reported separately.1
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, International Meetings. Top Secret. Presumably drafted by Lieutenant Colonel Walters. The conversation was held at the Chateau de Rambouillet.↩
- For text, see vol. XIII, pp. 612–614.↩