396.1–PA/5–3051
Memorandum of Conversation, by the United States Representative at the Four-Power Exploratory Talks (Jessup)
Subject: Four-Power Exploratory Talks
| Participants: | M. Robert Schuman, French Minister of Foreign Affairs |
| M. Alexandre Parodi, Chairman, French Delegation | |
| Mr. Ernest Davies, Chairman, UK Delegation | |
| Mr. Philip C. Jessup, Chairman, US Delegation |
In accordance with the arrangements made by Parodi, Mr. Davies and I met him in Schuman’s office at 8:15 last evening. De Bourbon-Busset was also present
Schuman referred briefly to the situation in our meetings. He commented particularly on the changes which had taken place in regard to the notes since the idea was first advanced. He found particularly satisfactory the fact that the present draft1 omitted all polemics and that we had in mind delivering it to Gromyko at the meeting. This procedure was important in avoiding the impression of an ultimatum. He then referred to the suggestion which Parodi had passed on to us that the Deputies might recess for a month. He said this was an idea which had occurred to him personally and he then referred to the objections which Davies and I had made in our morning tripartite meeting.2 Parodi had evidently briefed M. Schuman fully and he seemed quite familiar with our point of view.
I repeated our view that the sending of the note was the only move remaining to us in a last effort to induce the Soviet Government to agree to the meeting. I emphasized that the sending of the note would not itself constitute a termination of the deputies’ meeting and that the note would constitute a continuing open invitation. On the other hand, I did not wish to pass over the fact that if the Soviet reply to the note was a complete rejection then presumably we would have to tell Gromyko that while the invitation remained open there seemed to be no value in continuing the discussions at the Palais Rose. Mr. Schuman indicated that he accepted this point of view.
Davies then said that he had just received for delivery to M. Schuman a personal letter from Mr. Morrison, from which he read a few [Page 1147] extracts before handing it to Schuman. Morrison’s line was that as an old political campaigner he was very sympathetic with M. Schuman’s problems. He hoped M. Schuman would not mind his expressing his own point of view. In Morrison’s opinion the idea of a month’s recess for the deputies was not a good one. He suggested that the communists (and I think he said also the Gaullists) would seize upon this as a basis for attacking the French government on the ground that the French government was trying to avoid facing an important international question during the election period. Davies told me later that the rest of the letter contained in some detail the arguments for sending the notes immediately.
Schuman then said that his colleagues in the Cabinet had been consulted briefly about the idea of sending a note to the Soviets and that they were in full agreement with the idea of the note. The difficulty arose in connection with the timing. He said also that the note was somewhat different from the one which he had discussed with his colleagues previously. Schuman said that he was having his consultation with his colleagues tomorrow on this point; he emphasized that it was a Conseil de Cabinet and not a Conseil des Ministres. In talking about taking this question up with the Cabinet Schuman didn’t flatly say that he would urge them to agree to sending the note on Thursday but both Davies and I had the impression that that was his attitude and he did indicate that he thought the Cabinet would agree. We went over together all of the various arguments for sending the note and against the indefinite continuation of the meetings and M. Schuman weighed and restated the various arguments from the point of view of evaluating their effectiveness when presented to the Cabinet.
Schuman began to discuss the problem of presenting this matter to French public opinion and asked Parodi to consider the preparation of a statement which would explain and fortify our position particularly with a view to making it clear that we were not responsible for a rupture. I said we had been giving some thought to this matter and had discussed among ourselves various alternatives. We had thought about a tripartite statement which might be issued by the deputies but we had felt that this would not be an advantageous plan since the note itself would be in the nature of a tripartite statement issued at the same time and from higher authority. We had also discussed but had not taken up with Washington the possibility of statements by the three Foreign Ministers separately. The third plan we had talked about was for each one of the deputies to have a press conference after the notes were delivered in order to give such explanation as he thought suitable. M. Schuman and Mr. Davies agreed that a tripartite statement by the deputies would not be the best method and both thought that the individual press conference would be the best, Davies emphasizing that each public opinion needed to be handled a [Page 1148] little differently, and Schuman supported this view. Parodi nodded agreement but did not seem very well satisfied about this public relations end of the problem M. Schuman went on to say that we had to consider the presentation of the case to public opinion both at the time the notes were delivered and at the time when the Soviets replied, in case they rejected the invitation. He thought that perhaps at that time, which might be Monday or Tuesday of next week, it would be appropriate for Mr. Acheson, Mr. Morrison and him to issue individually some public statement.
- Presumably a reference to the draft note referred to in footnotes 1, 2, and 7 to the May 31 note, infra.↩
- At the tripartite meeting on May 30, Jessup had argued that a long recess would give the Soviet Union a great propaganda advantage, while Davies had stressed the need for sending the note at once before the Soviet Delegation despatched a similar note inviting the Western Ministers to a conference and including NATO as an agenda item. (Telegram 7321 from Paris, May 29, 396.1–PA/5–2951)↩