65. Memorandum of Conversation0
SUBJECT
- De Gaulle Letter
PARTICIPANTS
- The Secretary
- Sir Harold Caccia, British Ambassador
- Lord Hood, British Minister
- Mr. Jandrey, Acting Assistant Secretary—EUR
The Secretary referred to his conversation Saturday afternoon with Ambassador Alphand who had suggested the talks begin either on a bilateral or trilateral basis.1 The Secretary indicated to Ambassador Alphand that he favored bilateral talks in order to see if we could agree on the public positions which would be taken during trilateral talks. He also told the Ambassador that he had no objection to bilateral talks taking place between the British and French at the same time.
The Secretary indicated that he expected talks with Ambassador Alphand to begin this week in order to determine how the matter could be handled with respect to both NATO and the Afro-Asian area outside the NATO framework. The Secretary said that he had mentioned this latter aspect as the one giving him the greatest concern. The Secretary expressed his belief that both Ambassador Alphand and Couve de Murville were aware of this aspect of the matter and would try to mitigate the effect of it.
The Secretary told Ambassador Caccia that he wanted to add one other thought: He knew of the concern of the United Kingdom with the free trade area and hoped that this problem and the de Gaulle letter would not get mixed up. Ambassador Caccia said that the British view was that this was not a good time to step on General de Gaulle’s toes having in mind the free trade problem. He replied to the Secretary’s suggestion that he would not want to see a “deal” worked out involving these two problems, that he had never seen a vestige of a sign of a deal. The Secretary told the Ambassador that he did not want this situation to develop in such a way as to jeopardize our excellent bilateral arrangements which could be ruined by any formalization of tripartite arrangements.
Ambassador Caccia mentioned having seen Alphand over the weekend and that Alphand had said the Secretary had asked two [Page 112] questions with respect to the de Gaulle suggestions: (1) was it the French idea that the tripartite arrangement would be imposed on the Afro-Asians? (2) Was it clear that there was no intention of exercising tripartite control so far as NATO was concerned?
The Secretary said that these were matters to be discussed bilaterally. He added that if tripartite talks took place, they would become known and this would raise the danger of the contents of the de Gaulle letter also becoming publicly known.
The Ambassador gave the Secretary for perusal a copy of a telegram from British Ambassador Jebb covering his talk with Couve de Murville on the two questions which the British had raised with de Gaulle. (The substance of this telegram is being transmitted to the Department by Ambassador Caccia and will be attached to this memo.)2
- Source: Department of State, WE Files: Lot 72 D 144, de Gaulle Letters. Secret. Drafted by Jandrey.↩
- See Document 64.↩
- Not found.↩