Office of the Historian

269. Diary Entry by the Ambassador to Germany (Bruce)0

Bonn, June 13, 1958.

Terrible snarl this morning over the famous helicopter. General Hodes had gone ahead and instructed his Colonel McQuail at Potsdam to ask the Soviets to act as intermediaries with the GDR for the return of the craft and crew. If they refuse to do this he instructed McQuail to request the Soviets to place him in contact with an appropriate GDR official. [Page 716] When I read these telegrams this morning I called General Willems, Chief of Staff at Heidelberg, Hodes being away in Bremen. I told Willems, who was cooperative, of my misgivings about this procedure and suggested the order should be canceled if possible and we should all await a directive from Washington where I understood the whole affair was being considered at the highest level. (I take it from a telephone conversation I had yesterday with Ray Lisle “highest level” probably means the President himself is involved.) Willems called me back a little later to say that McQuail had already been in communication with the Soviets1 and was awaiting their answer. I suggested that the General tell McQuail upon receipt of the answer to notify the Russians he would refer it to his headquarters. This was done when the response arrived to the effect that they had refused the first proposal but offered to have one of their officials conduct him this afternoon or tomorrow morning to a conference with one of the two GDR Deputy Foreign Ministers.

As a consequence of these conversations both CINCUSAREUR and ourselves have sent a number of telegrams to Washington in the hope of resolving the procedure to be followed.2

[Here follows the remainder of the diary entry.]

  1. Source: Department of State, Bruce Diaries: Lot 64 D 327. Secret.↩
  2. A report on this meeting at 9:30 a.m. was transmitted in SX 4592, June 13. (Ibid., Central Files, 762B.5411/6–1358)↩
  3. At the end of the day, Willems authorized McQuail to meet with East German officials to effect the release of the helicopter without agreeing to any conditions substantially different from similar releases of U.S. personnel in the Soviet Zone. (SX 4618, June 13; ibid.)↩