Office of the Historian

238. Memorandum of Conversation0

MVW USDEL MC/14
Camp David, March 21, 1959, 9:30 a.m.

SUBJECT

  • Tactics at Foreign Ministers Meeting with Soviets

PARTICIPANTS

  • US
    • The President
    • The Acting Secretary
    • Mr. Murphy
    • Ambassador Whitney
    • Mr. Merchant
    • Mr. Reinhardt
    • Mr. Irwin
    • General Goodpaster
    • Major Eisenhower
  • UK
    • The Prime Minister
    • Mr. Lloyd
    • Sir Frederick Hoyer-Millar
    • Sir Patrick Dean
    • Sir Anthony Rumbold
    • Sir Harold Caccia
    • Sir Norman Brook
    • Mr. Bishop

The group turned at once to the question of the reply to the Soviet note on which agreement had not been reached at the close of the discussion the previous evening.1 The Prime Minister started by saying that he felt we were close together on a formula for a Summit meeting. There was a difference of opinion as to the effect on the possibility of accomplishment at a Foreign Ministers meeting which would result from a concurrent acceptance of a Summit meeting in the summer. The British wanted to agree to such a Summit meeting and set a date for it in the present reply. They understood, however, our point of view.

The President said that he would repeat to the Prime Minister his past expression of a willingness to look hard for any progress at all at the Foreign Ministers meeting which would justify thereafter holding a Summit conference but that he absolutely refused to promise unconditionally at this point to go to a Summit meeting “come hell or high water.”

The Prime Minister then put forward new compromise language for this passage in the note. The President also gave the language which we had considered overnight.2 Agreement was finally reached on the [Page 523] form of words which was later in the morning telegraphed to our working group representatives in Paris3 The British accepted our formulation of the agenda item. They also confirmed their acceptance of our phraseology for handling participation by the Czechs and the Poles. There was some further general discussion subsequent to this by the President of the actual text of our note which will vary in its preambular and non-operative passages from the British text. A clean draft of the US note reflecting the President’s changes and approval was also forwarded to Paris for our representative on the working group.4 Sir Anthony Rumbold and Mr. Merchant then retired to draft parallel instructions with respect to the handling of the note to our Embassy in Bonn and Paris, it having been agreed that our permanent NATO representatives would be the members of the Four Power working group to handle in Paris the final concerting of our replies with the Germans and the French and thereafter with the NATO Council.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1214. Secret. Drafted by Merchant. The meeting was held at Aspen Lodge. For Macmillan’s account of this conversation and the two that follow, see Riding the Storm, pp. 646–647; for Eisenhower’s account, see Waging Peace, p. 355.↩
  2. See Document 237.↩
  3. Neither Macmillan’s compromise language nor the President’s has been identified further.↩
  4. Transmitted from Camp David in CPD–1018, March 21, and received at the Department of State at 2:21 p.m. for transmission to Bonn, Paris, Moscow, and London. (Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1214) Regarding the final text of the note, see Document 244. Notification of the agreement reached was transmitted in CPD–1017, March 21. (Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1214)↩
  5. Transmitted In CPD–1018 from Camp David, March 21. (Ibid.)↩