Office of the Historian

118. Memorandum of Conversation0

US/MC/3
Washington, April 11, 1960, 2:15–3:15 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Norstad Plan

PARTICIPANTS

  • Mr. Merchant—M
  • Mr. Bohlen—S/B
  • Mr. Kohler—EUR
  • Mr. Tobin—RA
  • M. Paul-Henri Spaak, Secretary
  • General, NATO
  • M. Andre Saint-Mleux, NATO International Staff
  • M. Alexander Boeker, NATO International Staff

Mr. Merchant mentioned discussions we have already had with the British, the Germans and the French on the inspection zone plan originally put forward by General Norstad, and our intention to seek General Norstad’s recommendations at this juncture. We look toward a possible summit presentation of such a plan in order to test Khrushchev’s intentions, and also to make some tangible beginning towards preventing surprise attack and adopting zones of inspection. We do not know if the Four will agree to this, or what General Norstad will recommend. If the Four agree, we would of course bring the subject up for discussion in NAC. If we propose it, it would probably be in conjunction with some other area, perhaps Siberia and Alaska, to avoid any implication of discrimination against Germany.

M. Spaak said this conforms with his idea that if you wish to talk disarmament at the Summit you must propose something concrete like [Page 290] this plan which is precise and manageable. He has always been hostile to any narrow plan which discriminates against Germany, but something like the Norstad plan is needed in order to have a test case in the field of control and inspection. The extent of the area is to his mind secondary. He sees no connection between such a plan as General Norstad’s, and disarmament and neutralization such as were involved in the Rapacki plan.1 If it succeeds, it might however open the way to later progress in phased and controlled disarmament. We should nevertheless put it forward only if we can avoid the political hazards involved.

In this connection, Spaak thought that it was important that the communiqué to be drawn up at the Istanbul meeting should express confidence in the Federal Republic as a loyal ally. Such a statement would publicly present the attitude of the entire alliance, in line with the Secretary’s remarks in his address on April 4,2 to which Mr. Bohlen had referred.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 559, CF 1624. Secret; Limit Distribution. Drafted by Tobin and approved in M on April 16. The conversation took place in Secretary Herter’s office.↩
  2. The Rapacki Plan, first proposed by Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly on October 2, 1957, and subsequently renewed through diplomatic channels, called for the establishment of a denuclearized zone in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, and the Federal Republic of Germany. A memorandum of conversation between Secretary Dulles and Rapacki on the plan, October 16, 1957, is printed in Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, vol. XXV, pp. 671–677.↩
  3. See footnote 2, Document 107.↩