147. Letter From President de Gaulle to President Eisenhower0
Dear Mr. President: What you were good enough to write to me in connection with the possible advisability of holding a summit conference, in due time, corresponds to my way of thinking.1 I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the matter with you thoroughly next month.2
I should deeply regret it if what I said to the press on November 10 regarding the reasons for France’s plans to equip itself with atomic weapons has displeased you. Rest assured that my words expressed no misgivings with respect to the United States and its government, as constituted at the present time. I am entirely convinced that you personally and your country are, to quote your comforting phrase, “deeply attached to your commitments in Europe.”
However, France’s effort to become a nuclear power—which our country must ensure by its own resources since its Allies do not place sufficient trust in it to help it become such a power—will extend over a long period of time. It is patently impossible to predict with certainty what the evolution of world policy will be throughout such a period, particularly with respect to future relations between [the United States [Page 314] of]3 America and Russia, their respective r[gimes, and new elements that the development of the other continents now in progress may one day bring.
Moreover, how can one assert that the policy adopted by you at the present time in the event of a world conflict, which policy calls for close solidarity between the United States and Western Europe, would always remain unchanged? The United States, for reasons of its own that were undoubtedly very justified, did not participate in the First World War until 1917. During the Second World War it entered the conflict after France had been occupied by the enemy for eighteen months. You, who know how vulnerable my country is, will certainly agree that in the basic concept and preparation of its national defense it must take into account any unknown elements the future may hold in store for it together with the experience of the past, without however doubting the sincerity and resolution of its American allies.
Accept, Mr. President, the assurances of my sincere friendship.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, International File. Secret. The source text is a Department of State translation. Under cover of a November 27 memorandum to Goodpaster, Calhoun transmitted the signed French original of this letter, which had been delivered to the Department of State by the French Embassy that day, and this translation. Calhoun’s memorandum bears Eisenhower’s initials. (Ibid.)↩
- Reference is to Eisenhower’s letters to de Gaulle of October 9, 16, 21, and 28; see Document 143.↩
- See Document 151.↩
- Brackets in the source text.↩
- Printed from the English translation that indicates that de Gaulle signed the original French-language copy.↩