Office of the Historian

240. Memorandum of Conversation0

MVW USDEL MC/16
Camp David, March 21, 1959, 11:10 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

At 11:10 a.m. Mr. Irwin and Mr. Merchant joined the main group in Aspen. The discussion of the possible resort to the United Nations in connection with the Berlin crisis was concluding.

The President then told the Prime Minister that we favored tabling at the Foreign Ministers meeting in May a comprehensive and detailed plan for all of Germany including reunification, security arrangements and a treaty. It was our concept that within this framework the problem of Berlin could be readily dissolved. The President said that our proposal which was under study in the working group contained, he felt, great appeal which would be an impact on neutral as well as German and Allied public opinion. He felt it was an ambitious proposal and the right way to approach the negotiation and expect to come out with something more modest.

The Prime Minister indicated without committing himself with any precision that he was in general agreement with this approach.

In some further discussion it was agreed that in our presentation at the Foreign Ministers meeting we would stand on our rights and present position with respect to Berlin but put in a comprehensive package plan in which the problem of Berlin would be wrapped.

The conversation then turned to an explanation by the British of their thoughts on security measures in Central Europe. The Prime Minister said there had been much misunderstanding on this. He said that [Page 527] he “hated the Rapacki Plan.” At this point Selwyn Lloyd interjected that the British “loathed disengagement” but feel they must put something forward on security which would take the field away from woolly proposals for disengagement which seemed to find a broad and sympathetic response not only in British public opinion but elsewhere.

The meeting then broke up for luncheon after a brief discussion of the handling of the press and agreement that there would be no formal communiqué issued at the end of the weekend.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1214. Secret. Drafted by Merchant. For other accounts of this conversation, see the source note, Document 238.↩