Office of the Historian

CFM files, lot M 88, box 169, “Churchill–Eden Visit”

No. 469
Memorandum of a Meeting of President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Churchill at The White House, June 25, 1954, 3 p.m.1
top secret
CEV SPEC–1
Washington, June 25, 1954, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Participants:

  • United States

    • President
    • Secretary of State
    • Ambassador Aldrich
    • Mr. Merchant

  • United Kingdom

    • Prime Minister
    • Mr. Anthony Eden
    • Sir Harold Caccia
    • Sir Roger Makins

Subject:

  • Atomic Energy Matters

When the discussion turned to atomic matters the President suggested to the Prime Minister that Lord Cherwell (who was reported already to be in touch with Admiral Strauss) should tell the Admiral precisely what the UK would like done in the matter of exchange of information. The President said that Admiral Strauss was in general charge of the legislative aspect of this problem. He thought that after they had had a good talk, the two of them could report later in the weekend for half an hour to the Prime Minister and himself. He noted that there were three general aspects of the problem. The first was the exchange of information (on which point the Secretary noted that, whereas there was little opposition in the Congress to broadening the provisions for exchange of information with our allies, the legislation might be held up by reason of dispute over the section of the new legislation which dealt with the internal organization of the Atomic Energy Commission). The second was the question of British bomber design to ensure the capability to carrry the A-bomb. Reference was made to the successful visit of Duncan Sandys in connection with this problem which now seemed to be solved.2…

The Prime Minister said that the recent tests of the H-bomb3 had transformed what had been to him a vague scientific nightmare into something which now dominates the whole world. He [Page 1086] said that Congressman Cole’s recent speech in Chicago had made his eyes start out of his head.4 He noted that Russia now has the bomb. He said that wars could have been fought with the A-bomb but that the H-bomb is something totally different

. . . . . . .

There was some general discussion of the deterrent aspect of thermo-nuclear weapons which it was noted depended to a great extent on the existence of a sufficiently broad network of bases to ensure that our retaliatory power could not be crushed by a surprise blow. The Prime Minister said that the safety of the world depended on this deterrent—on the capacity for an overwhelming retort, and he said what might be the doom of the world could prove to be its salvation. The Prime Minister said that in his mind the key words were now deterrent, alert and alarm.

In response to a question from the Prime Minister, the President indicated that he felt the US position in the thermo-nuclear field at the present time was several times that of the Russians’.

The talk then turned to the possibility of a moratorium of H-bomb experimentation and there appeared to be general agreement that it would be unwise in light of the difficulty of detection and possible concealment of the size of any explosion. There was some further discussion of the dangers which now faced the world as a result of the portability of the bomb.

  1. Drafted on June 27. The meeting took place between 3 and 5 p.m.; for a record of other subjects discussed at this meeting, see CEV MC–3, supra.↩
  2. Sandys visited Washington at the beginning of June for talks with Secretary of Defense Wilson on guided missiles and atomic armaments. No record of these talks has been found in Department of State files.↩
  3. The United States conducted a series of hydrogen bomb tests in the Bikini–Eniwetok area of the Pacific in March.↩
  4. For extracts from the speech at Chicago on Feb. 17 of Congressman W. Sterling Cole (R–N.Y.), Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, see the New York Times, Feb. 18, 1954, pp. 1 and 8.↩