396.1–PA/6–1951
The Secretary of State to the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union (Vyshinsky)1
The Secretary of State presents his compliments to His Excellency the Foreign Minister of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and has the honor to refer to the current Four-Power negotiations in Paris.
1. The United States Government communicated on May 31st to the Soviet Government a note designed to remove the Deputies Conference from the deadlock in which it has been for some weeks.2 To this end the United States Government proposed, together with the Governments of France and the United Kingdom, that a Conference of Ministers should meet on the basis of whichever one of the three agenda which had been submitted to it, the Soviet Government should prefer.
The negative reply of the Soviet Government3 has put the Deputies Conference back to the point at which it was before May 31.
The Soviet Government stated in its note of June 4 that in its view it would be inexpedient to interrupt the work of the Conference. The United States Government took account of this recommendation. As a Result, the Deputies have held further meetings. These meetings have shown again that it is impossible to make any progress. The Soviet Representative in fact continues to make the meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs conditional on a demand which it knows to be unacceptable to the other Delegations, although the Soviet Delegation has obtained satisfaction in so far as concerns the inclusion in the agenda of all the questions which the Soviet Government stated that it wished to have discussed in its notes leading up to the Conference or in the proposals which it made for the agenda at the beginning of the Conference.
2. If the insistence of the Soviet Government on including in the agenda some mention of the “Atlantic Treaty and American military bases” is to be explained by its desire thus to secure, directly or indirectly, a decision of the Ministers calling into question a Treaty concluded by twelve powers for the purpose of insuring their common defense and to which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is not a [Page 1159] party, it is clear that this insistence is entirely unjustified, since such a decision does not come within the competence of the Meeting of Ministers.
If, on the other hand, the purpose of the Soviet Government is solely to reserve the right of the Soviet Foreign Minister fully to give his interpretation of the causes and effects of international tension, this insistence is unnecessary, since it has been agreed that the agenda should contain a general heading which would permit each Minister to express his point of view on these matters.
3. Considering that the further discussions between the Deputies on this question which the Soviet Government proposed in their note of June 4th have not advanced the prospect of agreement, the United States Government proposes that the Foreign Ministers of the Four Powers, without further efforts by the Deputies to complete an agreement on the agenda, should meet on the basis of the large measure of agreement already reached by the Deputies in Paris. Taking into account Agenda B and the notes which have been exchanged between the Soviet Government and the other Governments in which their respective points of view are recorded, the four Foreign Ministers should be able to proceed without delay to their task of seeking to reduce the existing tensions in Europe.
- On June 12 the U.S. Delegation transmitted to Washington a translation of a French draft note to the Soviet Government. In the course of the next two days, the three Western Delegations to the Four-Power Talks, using the French draft as a basis for discussion and consulting with their respective Governments, succeeded in reaching agreement on the text of a tripartite note to be delivered to the Soviet Delegation at Paris and to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow on June 15. Identical notes were delivered by the British and French in Paris and Moscow. Documentation relating to the drafting of the note, including a copy of the initial French draft and comments thereon, is in file 396.1–PA/6–1251 through 6–1551.↩
- Ante, p. 1148.↩
- Presumably a reference to the Soviet note of June 4 transmitted in telegram 7473, June 4, p. 1150.↩