Office of the Historian

143. Memorandum of Conversation0

US/MC/8
Istanbul, May 2, 1960, 9:15 a.m.

NATO MINISTERIAL MEETING

Istanbul, May 2–4, 1960

PARTICIPANTS

  • United States
    • The Secretary
    • Mr. Merchant
    • Mr. Hillenbrand
  • Germany
    • Enrich von Brentano, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs
    • Mr. Karl Carstens, Assistant Under-Secretary of State
[Page 372]

SUBJECT

  • Norstad Plan

The Secretary opened by saying that he had read von Brendan’s letter1 which had been received on Sunday discussing the American statement of Summit goals, and he could assure the Foreign Minister there was no need for any concern.

[5 paragraphs (1/2 page of source text) not declassified]

The Secretary recounted the history of the Norstad Plan as deriving from the original American Open-Skies proposal. This had led to a discussion of possible areas to be affected in various parts of the world. The Open-Skies proposal, as such or in modified form, might conceivably be discussed at the Summit. With disarmament talks at a standstill, there is something very appealing about this proposal. The Soviets, of course, call it inspection without disarmament. [7 lines of source text not declassified] General Norstad had not taken the initiative in the present instance. He had been asked for his military views and he had stayed within legitimate limits.

[7-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] In response to the Secretary’s query as to whether the Germans objected to any zone in Europe, Von Brentano said that a proposal might be accepted with a definition of the area to be affected which did not discriminate against certain countries, such as was the case with the large zone included in the 1957 Western Disarmament package.2

Mr. Merchant pointed out that the Norstad Plan was really three years old, going back to the London Disarmament talks when all variants of possible zonal proposals were under consideration by the West. [16-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]

The Secretary said the idea should not be referred to as the Norstad Plan but as a zonal plan. Von Brentano commented that it would be best to avoid the term “zone” entirely. The approach in the Norstad Plan paper, he continued, would not be so dangerous politically if it did not start out by attempting to fix the area involved. If the definition in the paper had stopped with “Atlantic and Urals”, he thought it might be considered by the Five-Power Western Disarmament Working Group. [3 lines of source text not declassified]

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 559, CF 1650. Secret. Drafted by Hillenbrand on May 3 and approved in M and Son May 10. The conversation took place in Herter’s suite at the Istanbul Hilton Hotel. A summary of this memorandum was transmitted in Secto 51 from Istanbul, May 2 at 6 p.m. (Ibid., 396.1–IS/5–260)↩
  2. See Document 140 and footnote 3 thereto.↩
  3. For the Western disarmament package of 1957, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1957, pp. 1296–1301, 1309–1311, and 1316-1323.↩