152. Memorandum of Conversation0
MEETING OF HEADS OF GOVERNMENT
Paris, December 19–21, 1959
PARTICIPANTS
- The Secretary
- President de Gaulle
SUBJECT
- Algeria, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, EEC
As the President was departing with Chancellor Adenauer, Prime Minister Macmillan, and their parties, General de Gaulle asked me if I would mind waiting behind to have a short talk with him deux. I spent about 15 minutes with him alone.
The General said that he was anxious to cover with me the same general ground which had been gone over with the President the day before.1
On Algeria, General de Gaulle said that he had appreciated the support for his position which had been promptly accorded by both the President and the Secretary of State. He regretted that we had abstained on the final vote on the resolution in the U.N., but this had not affected the final outcome and could be considered a relatively unimportant incident.2
Insofar as NATO was concerned, the General said that things in the alliance should remain as they were. France would neither add nor subtract from its present effort and attitude. Once French troops were back in Europe from Algeria, then there would be time enough to consider possible command rearrangements but for the time being the situation should remain as it is.
I raised the question of unified air defense and told the General that this was a matter on which we felt strongly. I pointed out that, with troops from a number of Allies in Germany and no unified command, we were faced with a hopelessly confused and militarily inadequate situation if trouble were to break out. The General dismissed the seriousness of the problem. He said that he had been talked to about the [Page 321] question of the radar system and communications and that we could proceed with this on a coordinated basis. I told him that the essential thing was a unified command which, in the event of trouble, could move with the necessary speed. The General repeated that matters were to be left as they were.
The General then said that by mid-March they would have their atomic explosion but that they would not have by then much capability in this field. He intimated that he assumed following the explosion the United States would be in a position to cooperate with France. I replied that the United States Government operated in this general area under stringent statutory limits. I said that France would not be automatically entitled to intimate collaboration with the United States on atomic matters following the explosion of their first bomb and that in point of fact what we might be able to do with France in this general area would be determined in the last analysis by the general impression of our Congress concerning the extent to which France was playing a cooperative role in NATO. I said that recent actions by France had created an unfortunate impression on our Congress. The General did not pursue this point.
I then brought up the question of the stockpile of nuclear weapons in France. The General acted aggrieved and asked how this could be considered if such weapons were not exclusively under French control if they would be stored on French soil. In consequence of his attitude I got nowhere with him on this point.
The General then returned to the British attitude concerning the European Economic Community. He said that he considered them to be unnecessarily concerned. They had had in the early days an opportunity to join the Community but had attached impossible conditions, particularly in connection with their economic relations with the other members of the Commonwealth. In general he showed a lack of sympathy and even suspicion as far as British motivations were concerned. When I mentioned the communiqué which had been agreed to that afternoon dealing with future economic discussions and expressed my belief that this was a very helpful move in the right direction, the General just shrugged his shoulders.
General de Gaulle said there had been agreement that morning that there should be continuing consultations between France, Great Britain and United States on a very discreet basis.3
Our talk then broke. Throughout it, the General’s attitude was entirely friendly. There was, however, no indication of any prospective change in his position on the matters at issue in NATO.
- Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 64 D 199. Secret; Limit Distribution. Presumably drafted by Herter and approved by the Office of the Secretary on December 22.↩
- See Document 150.↩
- See footnote 3, Document 150.↩
- See Document 151.↩