Eisenhower Library, James C. Hagerty papers
No. 457
Hagerty
Diary, Monday, June 14, 1954
[Here follow several other entries for June 14.]
The big important news of the day was, of course, the upcoming visit of Churchill and Eden to Washington on June 25th. There is quite a story that goes with the release which will be announced at 10: 30 A.M. tomorrow Washington time and 3:30 P.M. British time. It is as follows:
Churchill has been pressing for this meeting as he did with Bermuda1 and as he pressed off and on for a four-power meeting with Malenkov. We are not sure that anything good will come of it but as the President says, “I’ve decided to let the old man come over for this visit.” The decision was as a result of communications between our government and the British over the weekend.2 It has been agreed by all concerned that at 10: 30 tomorrow I shall put out the following statement:
“Some weeks ago the President of the United States invited the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom to spend a weekend as his guests in Washington. The invitation was cordially accepted, and it has been arranged for the visit to take place during the weekend of June 25th.”
This statement was cleared this morning during a visit by Foster Dulles with the President, and the British were accordingly notified. The Prime Minister will make his announcement in Parliament at 3:30 British time.
Churchill has been really pressing for this meeting, somewhat to the annoyance of the President. Foster Dulles had not planned to have a press conference at his usual 11 o’clock time, but the President urged him to do so in order that the proper note may be sounded from the American side as to the meeting. I talked to Foster later in the day and he told me that the President had urged him to hold the conference and stress the informality of the meeting. This is extremely important since world conditions and world affairs would give this meeting a stronger import than it will actually have. With Geneva folding up, with the French Government collapsing, and with the pre-announced British decision on [Page 1065] not making up their minds on any collective action in Indo-China until Geneva is finished, there is every chance that unless carefully guided, this meeting will be another one of those things. Foster and I agreed that in addition to the two sentences which I would officially release, it would be an excellent idea if I were to say this is a visit between two old friends, that it is informal, that of course, many subjects will come up for discussion but that there is no set agenda. I checked this with the President at 6 o’clock, and he agreed that that was exactly the right approach to take—“Winston really wants this conference although I don’t know how much good will come of it, but I decided to go along with him once again and play it more or less by ear.”
The British interest in how we would announce this was typified by a call I got early in the afternoon from Nigel Gaydon of the British Embassy. He wanted to know if the release time had been agreed on. I told him I would call him back, and after talking with the President, I did so. I told him I would stress the informality of the meeting. He agreed completely with this—so quickly that I am sure that that is the way the British want it played, too. He obviously was calling to sound me out. In my discussion with the President he told me of his private conversations with Dulles and said that he expected that at his press conference on Wednesday he would further stress the informality of the visit.
As I was discussing the Churchill visit with the President in his office at six o’clock a very amusing incident happened. His glass porch door was closed and a squirrel on the outside kept jumping up and hitting the glass. The President and I watched it for a few minutes. Then he laughed and said, “That just proves what I’ve been saying around here. This is a nuthouse—Oh well, that squirrel has a lot more sense than some of the visitors I have had lately.”
- For documentation on the Bermuda Conference, Dec. 5–8, 1953, see vol. v, Part 2, pp. 1710 ff.↩
- On June 10 President Eisenhower requested a postponement for one week of the proposed visit. On the following day Churchill agreed to postpone his arrival until June 25. Copies of these messages, transmitted to London in telegrams 6715 and 6736, June 10 and 11, are in file 033.4111/6–1054.↩