Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Western Europe, Volume VII, Part 2

336. Message From Prime Minister Macmillan to President Eisenhower⁰

London, January 2, 1958.

As I promised,¹ I have spent the few days of this Christmas holiday in brooding over the problem of how to handle the Russians, and at the same time—what is equally important—how to rally the maximum support we can in the free world as well as in the uncommitted countries.

There are two aspects—procedure and substance. Here are some very general ideas on both, which Selwyn and I have talked over. Up to now we have always proceeded in the disarmament discussions with a feeling in the back of our minds that the Russians would never really agree. In others words, they have unfortunately turned out to be largely propaganda exercises and not genuine negotiations on their part. We must, however, recognize and indeed hope that the Russians, for various reasons, may now or in the future be ready to conclude an agreement. We ought therefore to look again at what we might be willing to accept. If you and I agree on a policy, I think we ought to be able to sell it to the rest of our allies.

One course is to say that we stand on the four Power partial disarmament proposals, as set out by Stassen and Selwyn and the others last summer.² The Russians always refuse any advance we make, and then take it as a starting point for their next claim. We might decide to show up this technique and stand firmly on our proposals.

We may, on the other hand, be prepared to go further than the four Power proposals, although using them as a basis. In a sense, that is what we did in the Paris communiqué,³ when we said that we would consider other proposals, whatever their source. We might indicate our disappointment that the four Power proposals were not accepted, but repeat that we were quite willing to discuss modifications of them or new ideas on the same general theme. But in addition to this we must also have a view about the so-called policy of disengagement, for this is obviously an idea which is being much canvassed in both our countries. Although Foster has kindly told Harold Caccia in confidence what Adenauer said to him, I am still a little uncertain as to where Adenauer really stands.⁴ I feel that he would agree that it should be for SACEUR’s decision as to where I.R.B.M.s should be placed, but would hope, or at least accept, that in fact they would not be placed on his own territory. To exclude Western Germany as such would raise obvious political difficulties. On the other hand, the acceptance of the Polish proposal to exclude nuclear weapons from Western Germany in return for a similar exclusion in East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia offers certain advantages.⁵ For example, the three Communist countries concerned are more than twice the size of West Germany, and the introduction of inspection into this large area would be an obvious asset. From the standpoint of rocket attack, the distance to the East of England (where your strategic bomber bases and ours are situated) is about 450 miles from East Germany, whereas the nearest point in Russia is about 900 miles. I know that this would lead to the problem of tactical atomic weapons. I think it would be difficult to refuse these to forces in West Germany under N.A.T.O. Command. Nevertheless, is there not perhaps a balance of advantage for us in some measure of disengagement, remembering always that if this were agreed, we would have secured a considerable degree of effective inspection? We must, however, remember that we might be drawn into the wider problem of demilitarisation or neutralisation. Of course, Adenauer has already offered that East Germany should be demilitarised if it were reunited with West Germany. We must surely work out an agreed policy for our two countries on all these issues. This is important not only from the point of view of any initiative with the Russians; it is important that we should carry all the N.A.T.O. countries, especially Germany, with us in anything we propose.

Now I come to another question—nuclear tests. The Russians will undoubtedly press their proposal for the abolition of tests as a start. This, of course, attracts world public opinion. The Russians will also agree to inspection for this purpose, because they can do this without any of the disadvantages that would follow a whole system of inspection and control applied either to the manufacture of weapons or of fissile material. The tests inspectors would live in a desert and not range around the factories. What are we to say in reply? I think we shall be forced to a view.

I must be quite frank and say that from my own government’s point of view, we could not accept the abolition or suspension of tests in the present state of our knowledge. But if you thought that you had really got as far as you wanted (leaving out the refinements which scientists and military technicians will always want) and if you were prepared, after a revision of the Atomic Energy Act,⁶ to make your knowledge available to us, our position would be different. If, on this basis, you would accept the abolition or suspension of tests (and at least get some kind of inspection as a result and therefore the thin end of a wedge towards something better) we would accept this. But it would have to be after an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act and knowing that we would get the advantage of your knowledge. Whatever the technical disadvantages of stopping tests, and they may be very great, we would at least improve the chances of stopping the nightmare of all the other countries coming along with their tests, and therefore, in fact, prevent them from becoming nuclear powers.

This leads me to the next point. There are suggestions that we ought to aim at total nuclear disarmament. I think there would be great dangers if this idea were canvassed. It may perhaps be the purpose of the Russians to achieve total nuclear disarmament leaving themselves with the immense superiority of numbers and the great advances they have made in conventional weapons. They have built up a fleet of surface ships and submarines and large numbers of bombers which they are still continuing to construct. My feeling is that while we might contemplate agreements about the stationing of these weapons, or their limitation in numbers, or a cut-off of any future production of fissile material for weapons purposes or even perhaps any future production of weapons (all this under proper inspection and control), the total abolition of all stocks of nuclear weapons would be very dangerous unless it was accompanied by a reduction of conventional arms far beyond anything we have so far envisaged—in other words, to levels adequate for internal security purposes only.

After all, we have kept the peace—or rather your great power has done so—for ten years; first, because of your superiority, and now because of the more or less equal balance of forces on both sides. The Russians know this and know they cannot gain from war, and so now pose as a peaceful power. If the deterrent power of nuclear retaliation were abolished, might not the balance be fatally thrown out, leaving the European countries to be absorbed one by one into the Communist orbit, as Hitler did before the war with Austria and Czechoslovakia?

I think we ought to clear our minds about these fundamental problems, because we are now approaching a point when it may not be possible to rely any longer on throwing the blame upon the Russians for the breakdown of negotiations. I find it, for instance, rather embarrassing that they have proposed the abolition of tests with—in theory at least—control and inspection; that they have, through the Polish proposals, proposed the nuclear demilitarisation of large areas of Europe with—also in theory—control and inspection. There may now at last be some real hope of breaking the deadlock. We cannot as yet tell. But I am sure that we ought to enter the next round of discussions with the intention of reaching agreement if the Russian approach is genuine, or of exposing their insincerity if it is not.

When you and Foster said in Paris that an attack on one is an attack on all, that was a very far-reaching statement.⁷ Its implications are hardly yet understood. But I would frankly fear a situation in which the Russians kept great armies and a huge submarine fleet easily mobilized and the West was deprived of our real defense, the nuclear deterrent. You know as well as I do that neither the new world, nor the old, could permanently keep arms of a conventional kind to meet this kind of attack, without the destruction of our way of life and of our economies.

As to procedure, my own feeling is that we should be flexible. The only thing I would very much dislike is a special meeting of the Assembly of the United Nations because they would be sure to carry a lot of foolish separate resolutions, any of which we might be willing to agree to if they were part of a whole, but none of which would, by themselves, be in our interests, e.g. the prohibition of nuclear tests. Nor would we be able in that forum to get any really effective system of inspection and control, since the Assembly would accept the most airy and woolly promises.

But if the Russians will not co-operate in the new disarmament commission of the United Nations, we ought to renew our offer to talk direct.⁸ We should repeat the offer that the Foreign Ministers will meet the Russian Foreign Minister for general discussions to try to “break the deadlock”. We could also add that, if real business is to be done, a preliminary meeting of the Ambassadors of all the countries who were to take part should be held to try to settle the agenda. I think in the circumstances, we might conceivably agree that this meeting should take place in Moscow, for there may be more of us than of them. Now comes the question, which Foreign Ministers? United States certainly; United Kingdom and France, presumably. Canada might well prefer to drop out at this stage though we should of course, have to ask Diefenbaker for confirmation of this. That might also make it easier for Italy not to demand representation. If we had three or four on our side, I am rather attracted by the idea of letting them have any three or four they like. The difficulty is that they would no doubt include China which, I assume, you would not like. A way round this might be to have a tacit understanding with the Soviets that the Ministers would be drawn from N.A.T.O. and Warsaw Pact countries respectively, but would not be regarded as “representing each Pact”. If West Germany came with us, the West Germans would have to be asked if they would like to come at the risk of a member of the East German Government coming too. If they preferred not to face this, then West Germany would not come in our team, but would be in close touch throughout, behind the scenes.

If our two governments could reach clear and agreed views on all these subjects, I myself would not shrink from what is called a summit meeting, at the right moment. The world seems to expect it. But we must insist on the necessary preparation, both on the diplomatic and Foreign Minister levels.

But I would not like us to enter any of these talks without having a very clear picture of exactly what we want. What this comes to is, are we prepared from a moral and political point of view to say: disarmament, to be fair and honest, must keep the balance? The present balance now at least prevents war. Do not let us have the kind of disarmament that may encourage war. In other words, are we ready to stand firm on partial disarmament, conventional and unconventional? Would we face total nuclear disarmament? Or would the world be safer if there was a certain amount of nuclear arms, although limited and controlled, in the possession of both sides, combined with a thinning out of military positions, together with widespread ground and air inspection?

How it will end up, I do not know, except this: that until we have reached some clear picture we cannot really play our hand confidently. We must, of course, produce an interim reply to Bulganin to keep things quiet.⁹ We can play the first round or two on the basis we reached at N.A.T.O., but we cannot play it through unless we know exactly what we want or are prepared to accept. I apologise for this long message. As you will see, I have posed a lot of questions. It is always easy to do this. I do not want you to deduce from the way I have put them that I have formed a view about any of the answers. The only thing I am sure of is that we must keep together.

0. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204. Top Secret. Transmitted to Secretary of State Dulles by Ambassador Caccia under cover of a message from Foreign Secretary Lloyd dated January 2.
1. Apparent reference to a statement made by the Prime Minister in his Christmas 1957 letter to President Eisenhower. (Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, International File)
2. On March 18, 1957, the five-member subcommittee of the U.N. Disarmament Commission convened in London. Representatives of Canada, France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States discussed various aspects of the disarmament question, including nuclear tests, reduction of conventional and nuclear armaments, and international inspection. At subcommittee sessions between June 20 and July 5, 1957, Harold Stassen, the President’s Special Assistant, outlined Western four-power proposals for a step-by-step arms reduction procedure. Valerian Zorin, the Soviet representative on the subcommittee, rejected these proposals in July.
3. For text of the communiqué issued at the conclusion of the meeting of the Heads of Government of the NATO countries in Paris December 16–19, 1957, see Department of State Bulletin, January 6, 1958, pp. 12–15. For documentation on the meeting, see Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, vol. V, pp. 218–259.
4. Secretary Dulles talked with Chancellor Adenauer in Paris on December 14, 1957, prior to the NATO Heads of Government meeting.
5. Reference is to a proposal which was formally presented by Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki to American Ambassador Jacob Beam in Warsaw on February 14, 1958, concerning the establishment of a denuclearized zone in Central Europe. The texts of Rapacki’s note and the U.S. response of May 3 are in Department of State Bulletin, May 19, 1958, pp. 821–823.
6. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Public Law 83–703; 68 Stat. 919.
7. Reference is to President Eisenhower’s December 16, 1957, statement at the opening session of the meeting of Heads of Government of NATO countries. For text of this statement, see Department of State Bulletin, January 6, 1958, pp. 6–8.
8. Paragraph 17 of the communiqué issued at the conclusion of the December NATO meeting stated: “Should the Soviet government refuse to participate in the work of the new Disarmament Commission, we would welcome a meeting at Foreign Ministers’ level to resolve the deadlock.” For text of the communiqué, see ibid., pp. 12–15.
9. In his reply to Premier Bulganin’s letter of December 10, 1957, President Eisenhower wrote on January 12, 1958, that he was prepared to meet with Soviet leaders and other heads of government, providing that groundwork for such a summit meeting was established in a preliminary meeting of Foreign Ministers. For texts of Bulganin’s letter and Eisenhower’s response, see ibid., January 27, 1958, pp. 122–130.