Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Berlin Crisis, 1959–1960; Germany; Austria, Volume IX

129. Message From the British Ambassador (Caccia) to Secretary of State Herter⁰

Washington, April 19, 1960.

Dear Chris: Before the Foreign Secretary had received from the United States Embassy in London your letter of the 17th April¹ he had sent me a message asking me to put to you orally the following points about procedure at the Summit. These points had arisen as a result of a discussion between himself and the Prime Minister of the draft which had been shown to us in Washington last week. I should hope to have an opportunity of seeing you as soon as convenient, but I think that in the meantime you may find it useful if I send you this summary in writing.

The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have four main points. First, they are convinced that the paramount consideration should be to avoid a repetition of the last Geneva Summit Conference when there were large numbers of people present at almost all the meetings, and the four Heads of Governments spent their time making prepared speeches for public consumption.

Secondly, while detailed negotiation should be done by the Foreign Ministers and advisers, in the last resort agreements will probably only be brought to finality by the Heads of Governments themselves. Consequently, the meetings of Heads of Governments may not in practice be confined to discussion. They may also have to do some negotiation at some stage.

Thirdly, they think that the normal pattern of meetings should be one in the morning of three or four a side (Heads of Governments, Foreign Ministers and one or two note takers each). Such meetings could then be followed by meetings of Foreign Ministers or advisers, and the final decisions might be made at meetings of Heads of Governments only, if this seems appropriate. The advantage of this procedure will be:—

(a) It would avoid the waste of time in the Heads of Governments reporting to the Foreign Ministers about what has happened in their restricted meetings.

(b) More important, it would mean that the Foreign Ministers would know what has actually happened between the Heads of Governments. It would be very difficult for the Foreign Ministers to do their own work and guide the meetings of advisers without this knowledge. Even if a verbatim note is taken of the private meetings of Heads of Governments, there is always in practice a twenty-four hour lag before it is duplicated, checked and circulated.

(c) It would mean that the Foreign Ministers had a clear guidance for their work and knew exactly what was in the minds of the Heads of Governments, whilst leaving plenty of time each day for informal meetings between the Heads of Governments themselves.

Fourthly, they believe that it really will be essential to have some form of central interpretation. Whispering is inconvenient and may lead to misunderstanding. By the same token it will also be necessary to be sure that when the four Heads of Governments meet alone there is some form of record.

If agreement can be reached between us and with the French on these points we would favor sending a letter to Khrushchev in advance. So far as we are concerned it would be equally agreeable if such a letter were to come either from the President from whom we believe the idea originated, or from General De Gaulle as representative of the host Government on this occasion. Such a letter might enable us to get the Russians to agree in advance not to have large propaganda sessions with which Khrushchev is familiar from his last experience at Geneva, and this we believe would be a real advantage.

Yours sincerely,

Harold Caccia

0. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204. Personal and Secret. The source text bears Herter’s initials. On a memorandum to Goodpaster from Calhoun, April 19, which transmitted another copy of the message, President Eisenhower wrote: “To Sec State, This is in general what I believe should be done. DE”.
1. No letter dated April 17 has been found; however, in an undated letter transmitted in telegram 7843 to London, April 18, Herter informed Lloyd that summit procedures would be discussed at the highest level in Washington over the coming weekend. (Ibid., Central Files, 396.1–PA/4–1860)