32. Memorandum of Conference With President Eisenhower0
OTHERS PRESENT
- Secretary Dulles
- Mr. Gerard Smith
- Mr. Elbrick
- Mr. Farley
- Mr. Allen Dulles
- Deputy Secretary Quarles
- General Goodpaster
Secretary Dulles said the group was meeting to review some of the problems he foresaw in his meeting in Paris with de Gaulle. As a general policy, he felt we should assist de Gaulle. There is some reason to think that he is all that stands between France and chaos, or a popular front at least. He thought we should give some public sense that we are supporting de Gaulle. However, it is clear we must limit our support in two respects which touch on de Gaulle’s pride and sense of French grandeur. This was shown clearly during Macmillan’s talk with de Gaulle.1 The first is our attitude toward France as a nuclear power and the second is to his proposal for a US–UK–France triumvirate to run the world. [12–1/2 lines of source text not declassified]
[6–1/2 lines of source text not declassified] He did not know if he could obtain de Gaulle’s agreement to this, since there are ample indications that what De Gaulle wants is a Western atomic “standing group” consisting of the US, UK, and France.
Mr. Quarles said he thought we should consider where we would go if forced beyond the stand outlined by Mr. Dulles. The President stated strongly that he has always personally favored giving our allies information as to these weapons. [8 lines of source text not declassified]
The Secretary then summarized other matters likely to arise: our respective evaluation of the Soviet threat; European security plans (De Gaulle was initially drawn to the Rapacki plan); disarmament (De Gaulle has linked cessation of testing to cutoff of weapons production); attitudes toward a Summit meeting; the French nuclear weapons program; command structure in Europe (Mr. Dulles will leave this to the military people); IRBMs (this depends on what is done regarding nuclear weapons); European integration moves (here the British are asking us to help them in their “free trade area” pitch to de Gaulle, but we will not get far into this); Lebanon (the French want to avoid military intervention since they can’t take part, and wouldn’t want to be omitted); Nasser; Israel (De Gaulle will probably dilute this relationship [Page 52] somewhat); Algeria (De Gaulle may not talk about this, but if he does, Mr. Dulles will simply listen); trade with Communist China.
There was agreement that any idea of a US–UK–French triumvirate along the lines mentioned was completely unrealistic and to be avoided.
In concluding, the President said he thought the nuclear question should be attacked by laying out very frankly with De Gaulle what we would be in a position to do, and expressing readiness to explore beyond this to see what could be done by liberal interpretation of existing authority.
Brigadier General, USA
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries, Top Secret. Drafted by Goodpaster. The meeting took place after the National Security Council meeting.↩
- In a June 30 letter to Dulles, Viscount Hood, Minister of the British Embassy, stated that the June 29 talks between de Gaulle and Macmillan were extremely friendly. He reported that de Gaulle agreed with the United States and the United Kingdom on many of the major issues, particularly in his attitude toward the Russians, but was unyielding about the need for France to become an atomic power. In a July 2 letter to Dulles, Hood enclosed a brief summary of the talks. He stated that Macmillan and Lloyd hoped Dulles could help them on the Free Trade Area question. Hood wrote: ‘The General still regards this as an economic matter and has not yet realised that it is primarily political. If he would only give the word for this plan to go forward, ways and means can be found of meeting practical points involved. If, however, he does not give that word, the political dangers for Europe are very great. Would you please try to press this point home?” (Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204)↩