Office of the Historian

337. Memorandum From President Eisenhower to Secretary of State Dulles0

January 3, 1958.

MEMORANDUM ON LETTER OF PRIME MINISTER MACMILLAN DATED 1/2/58

I have noted certain specific suggestions of possible action that Harold has discussed in his long cable.1 They are quoted in order:

1.
“One course is to say that we stand on the four Power partial disagreement [disarmament] proposals.”
2.
“We may, on the other hand, be prepared to go further than the four Power proposals.”
3.
“In addition to this, we must also have a view about the so-called policy of disengagement.”
4.
“We must remember that we might be drawn into the wider problem of demilitarization or neutralization.”
5.
“We (ourselves) must surely work out an agreed policy for our two countries on all these issues.”
6.
“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.”
7.
“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. . . . If you were prepared, after a revision of the Atomic Energy Act to make your knowledge available to us, our position would be different. . . . We would at least improve the chances of stopping the nightmare of all the other countries coming along with their tests.”2
8.
“There are suggestions that we ought to aim at total nuclear disarmament. I think there would be great dangers if this idea were canvassed.”
9.
“We ought to clear our minds about these fundamental proposals because we are now approaching a point when it may not be possible [Page 801] to rely any longer on throwing the blame upon the Russians for the breakdown of negotiations.” (This is a suggestion directed toward psychological factors and propaganda efforts.)
10.
“The only thing I would very much dislike is a special meeting of the Assembly of the United Nations.”
11.
“If the Russians will not cooperate in the new disarmament commission of the United Nations, we ought to renew our offer to talk direct.” (Harold suggests first a meeting by Ambassadors to discuss an agenda, then a Foreign Ministers meeting, and finally, if necessary, a Summit meeting.) On balance, Harold believes that the “Ministers would be drawn from the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, but would not be regarded as “representing each Pact.”
12.
“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.”
13.
“What it comes to is, are we prepared from the moral and political point of view to say: disarmament, to be fair and honest, must keep the balance?”
14.
“We must, of course, produce an interim reply to Bulganin to keep things quiet.”

I have these other general comments:

A.
When speaking about “total nuclear disarmament,” Harold ignores our conviction that this kind of disarmament cannot be achieved with certainty. In other words, both the Russians and ourselves have publicly stated that bombs already manufactured can be so concealed that no known inspectional system could uncover them.
B.

I think he is quite right in his implied conclusion that if our countries—all the Western Nations—should stand irrevocably on the “four Power partial disarmament proposal” we will be weakening our position in the cold war. As Harold points out, we have already indicated, in the NATO meeting, that we are ready to study other proposals.

He is obviously toying with the possibility of a series of meetings, one of which might finally become a “Summit meeting.” I think this subject will probably require more study on our part than almost any other. It is easy to get entangled in such a proposition but not so easy to get out of it.

C.
These two facts put upon us quite a burden of developing some new ideas—if we are both to become “flexible” in the study of other proposals and at the same time gain a propaganda advantage by being first in the field.
D.
In some instances, I am not quite certain what Harold really means—for example, at the bottom of page two when he says “I am still a little uncertain as to where Adenauer really stands.” At another point [Page 802] he says “test inspectors would live in a desert.” My own feeling is that test inspectors would have to be in a number of places with all of their equipment of every kind, if we are to determine that no tests have in fact taken place.
E.

I think that the policy of “disengagement” would lead to some very great difficulties even though I recognize that the idea, in the abstract, appeals to me. In my talk with Chancellor Adenauer he seemed most emphatic in his continued opposition to any thought of general neutralization or demilitarization.4 However, assuming that we do not mean demilitarization of Germany, it would certainly be most difficult for SACEUR to establish an area in which his troops were armed in one fashion and another area employing different weapons. There is of course some sense to what Harold says about a possible “balance of advantage” in some measure of disengagement, if for no other reason than we would have secured a considerable degree of effective inspection.

In any event, my immediate reaction is that the disengagement theory should not be part of any new proposals that we might advance.

F.
You and I recently spoke about nuclear tests with the renewed recommendation against their elimination.5 This one I think we should look at very carefully and for my part I should like to see us get a law that would permit the British to have access to whatever weapons information that was necessary (a possible exception would be to give them certain weapons on the theory that these would substitute for any required information).
G.
The subject that we have promptly to study more intensively than any other is that of procedure.

DDE6
  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Dulles–Herter Series. Secret. Transmitted to Dulles under cover of a note from Eisenhower, January 3, that reads in part: “The attached memorandum is nothing more than some extracts that I made of Harold’s notes and then began making on them some comments to myself. I doubt that it has any slightest value, but I send you a copy anyhow. I suggest you find a nearby wastebasket.” (Ibid.)↩
  2. Document 336.↩
  3. Ellipses in the source text.↩
  4. Presumably reference is to a meeting between Eisenhower and Adenauer on December 17, 1957, during the NATO Heads of Government meeting in Paris December 16–19.↩
  5. This conversation is not further identified.↩
  6. Printed from a copy that bears these typed initials.↩