166. Memorandum of Conference With President Eisenhower0
OTHERS PRESENT
- Secretary Herter
- Secretary Dillon
- Ambassador Houghton
- General Goodpaster
- Major Eisenhower
The primary purpose of this meeting was to discuss the positions which the President might take in his forthcoming discussions with President de Gaulle. Mr. Herter opened by describing de Gaulle’s views on disarmament. The French want to move toward destruction of all nuclear weapons and delivery systems. They have carried this position a long way in Geneva and it is expected that de Gaulle will continue with this line. Mr. Herter attributed this attitude to a complex resulting from the lack of possession of these weapons on the part of the French themselves. He said he had checked with Defense on this and their attitude is that they would go along with a rather complete disarmament if we kept our own air force powerful. The Russian position is likely to be, however, that the limitations will apply more to the air forces than to the ground forces.
[Page 341]The President admitted we would be better off if we could de-invent atomic weapons. Even if we did away with further research and development of nuclear weapons systems we would still be extremely powerful. He said that for the first time in its history the United States is now fearful, the reason being, of course, the existence of a surprise attack capability on the part of the Russians. As a practical matter, however, destruction of nuclear capabilities is a matter which would be extremely difficult to check on, and, therefore, would not present a truly realistic proposal. He plans to say so to de Gaulle. Mr. Herter pointed out that we have already offered (1) to cut down our nuclear stockpile on a megaton-for-megaton basis, vis-à-vis the Soviets, (2) to cut down proportionately on ground weapons, and (3) to prohibit nuclear testing in outer space. To all of these partial disarmament measures, the Russians have said no.
Mr. Herter then said he does not expect de Gaulle to bring up the question of nuclear sharing, since he wants to avoid the position of asking for something. The French are suspicious that we are trying to avoid this spread of atomic knowledge. They feel we could stretch our current law to permit sharing of atomic secrets with them. This is not our feeling, since it does not appear that the French have progressed far enough to have made “substantial progress” in nuclear weapons.
The President said we could, if we wanted, place our proposal to share nuclear secrets with France before Congress and let it sit there for its prescribed 60 days (General Goodpaster added here that the proposal must be acted on by the entire Congress rather than by the Joint Committee alone, as the President had previously believed.) Mr. Herter recommended against so doing unless the French would agree to place under NATO what capabilities they eventually develop. He reiterated his belief that de Gaulle will not raise this question, and Ambassador Houghton agreed. The President pointed out our difficulties in dealing on matters such as this, since we ourselves do not have our entire nuclear capabilities under command of NATO.
[Here follows discussion of unrelated matters.]
Mr. Herter then said that the subject of tripartite consultation, as proposed by de Gaulle in his letter of September 17, 1958, is still on his mind. The President said he had told de Gaulle that we should not set up a formal system, but that we could put in an extra man per Embassy with the sole responsibility for anticipating areas of possible conflict between our nations.1 These individuals would be relatively junior staff officers and would have no power except that of calling these possible [Page 342] trouble areas to the attention of Foreign Ministers. He pointed out examples of lack of coordination in government, including that which allegedly occurred between our government and the British at the time of the Suez operation. These he cited to show that things do not happen automatically and that someone must have the responsibility of thinking solely in terms of coordination. He expressed impatience on “formal” versus “informal” conferences. Mr. Herter and Ambassador Houghton recommended that the President point out the high degree of effectiveness attained by the present “informal” system of coordination. Mr. Herter mentioned a whole morning he had spent with Couve on the subject of North Africa.2 Couve had essentially informed us that France would take care of Africa’s problems, at least among nations comprising the French Community, to include budgeting, military protection, and development funds for newly independent States. This whole conversation could be cited to de Gaulle as an example of successful inter-governmental coordination, although he mentioned that the Africans would be most disturbed if they thought we were acting in concert with the French. Ambassador Houghton said that it is de Gaulle’s deep-seated desire to be in on high level consultations which has caused his insistence on this issue. The President said what is behind it all is de Gaulle’s resentment of our overpowering influence in NATO. This influence is not a product of our own choice. It is the result of the nationality of SACEUR, which came about from the inability of European nations to get together. This feeling on de Gaulle’s part shows up continually, as when he states that France as a member of NATO has no legal right to defend herself. De Gaulle has no idea of what the U.S. is really trying to do.
[Here follows discussion of unrelated matters.]
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Staff Secretary Records. Secret. Drafted by John S.D. Eisenhower on April 27.↩
- Regarding Eisenhower’s conversation with de Gaulle on December 20, 1959, when he made this proposal, see Document 151.↩
- This conversation has not been further identified.↩