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

36. Memorandum of Conversation⁰

Paris, July 5, 1958.

SUBJECT

• The Secretary’s Talks with the French Foreign Minister, Paris, July 5—East-West Relations

PARTICIPANTS

• French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville
• French Ambassador Hervé Alphand
• Mr. Louis Joxe, Secretary General of the French Foreign Office
• M. Jean Daridan
• M. Jean Laloy
• M. Pierre Sebilleau
• M. Jacques Baraduc
• The Secretary
• Ambassador Amory Houghton
• Mr. Cecil Lyon
• Mr. C. Burke Elbrick
• Mr. Andrew Berding
• Mr. Philip Farley
• Mr. Randolph Kidder
• Mr. John Tuthill
• Mr. Russell Fessenden
• Mr. Matthew Looram

The French Foreign Minister raised the question of the current Geneva technical talks and the latest Khrushchev letter.¹ He was concerned, he said, that the Soviets were putting a great deal of political emphasis on the Geneva discussions rather than confining them to technical matters.

The Secretary replied that he shared this concern. On the whole the meeting today, he had been informed, had gone off fairly well, although we had perhaps been premature in accepting the agenda which had a political coloration. The Secretary stated that we must be particularly careful on this score. He suspected that if a gap developed between the Western and Soviet positions, the Soviets would pull out before this crystallized.

The Foreign Minister agreed and stated we must also be careful as to how this matter was handled in the UN. He suspected that the Soviets would take advantage of the recent report of the UN Radiation Committee.² The Secretary agreed that certain aspects of the report lent themselves to unfavorable propaganda.

M. Couve de Murville stated that what worried the French Government was that the Geneva technical talks and the last Khrushchev letter indicated that the Soviets were trying first to reach a partial agreement on disarmament to stop tests and second to obtain the neutralization of Central Europe. If they succeeded in these respects it would be very serious indeed.

The Secretary agreed that we would hardly be willing to go to a summit conference if the result of such a conference would permit the Soviet Union to obtain two such significant political successes. The Secretary asked what the French position was on the surprise attack zones of inspection.

The Foreign Minister replied that he favored a study by experts on this matter, providing that there were no commitments as to the areas, that it would be a technical and not political study and that agreement to such a technical conference would not imply agreement to a summit meeting. We must be very careful, he said, with regard to the area concerned. The Soviets’ present plan of an area extending 800 kilometers both east and west from the Elbe would extend only to the Soviet borders on the east, but to the Atlantic, even including the UK, on the west.

The Secretary stated that the Soviets had based their objection to the Arctic Zone of inspection on the fact that it included Soviet territory but no part of the United States. This argument might now be countered by the recent inclusion of Alaska as a federal state. In any event the Soviets wanted to include Western Europe in an inspection area, but no part of the Soviet Union.

The Soviets’ big problem, the Secretary said, was how to handle the Eastern European satellites and one of their principal objectives was to get Western ratification of the political status quo in Eastern Europe. Last fall, the Secretary said, he had told Gromyko that we did not wish to surround the Soviets with a cordon of hostile states.³ He had told him that the Soviet Union should let the Eastern European States have their independence on the basis of close and friendly relations with the Soviet Union. The present Soviet policy would only result in the Soviet Union being surrounded by hostile states. Mr. Gromyko had replied that the Soviet Union did not need any lessons from him. Nevertheless, the Secretary said, given past Soviet policies it was obvious that if the satellites were accorded liberty now, there would be a strong trend in these countries against the Soviet Union. For this reason the Soviets in order to maintain their position in the area were constrained to continue to exercise a repressive policy. This situation constituted a very serious danger, as it could possibly develop into a war some day.

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.51/7–558. Secret. Drafted by Looram and initialed by Elbrick.
1. See footnote 4, Document 34.
2. Reference is to the 228-page Report of the U.N. Scientific Committee on Effects of Atomic Radiation adopted by the 15-member Committee at its fifth session held June 9–13, 1958. (U.N. doc. A/3838)
3. Gromyko and Dulles met in Washington on October 5, 1957.