Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Germany and Austria, Volume VII, Part 1

396.1 WA/7–2953

No. 210
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State¹

secret

Washington, July 29, 1953.

The French Ambassador called to see me under instructions of his Government to state that the recent letter of President Eisenhower to the German Chancellor² had been seriously embarrassing to the French Government.

His principal point was that the value and the authority of the 3-Power communiqué had been largely impaired by the fact that the President of the United States apparently felt that it was inadequate and called for his unilateral interpretation.

The Ambassador further pointed out that the program for the 4-Power conference had after long discussion by the three Foreign Ministers been based upon the 3-Power note of September 23, 1952,³ rather than the Bundestag Resolution of June 10,⁴ and that this decision by the three Ministers seemed to have been reversed by the President’s letter.

The Ambassador further pointed out that the President’s letter seemed to rely for the unification of Germany upon revolution in East Germany rather than upon the orderly processes which were sought to be invoked by the proposed 4-Power conference. It would seem that the President’s letter made a 4-Power conference less likely by anticipating its failure and dependency upon other means.

The Ambassador further pointed out that the references to EDC and the option of a future Germany to elect whether or not to stay in EDC was embarrassing since France had no such option.

I said to the French Ambassador that I did not think there was much validity in most of the points he made but that I did feel that if the President had been advised by someone who had been a participant in the 3-Power conference he would have changed the letter in certain respects. I said that any lapses in this respect were my own fault because I had been so much engrossed in Korean matters that I had not been able myself to advise the President in relation to the letter but that it had gone through State Department channels which were not as intimately familiar with the 3-Power communiqué as I had been.

I told the French Ambassador that he might express to M. Bidault my regret that I had not been able to give the matter my personal attention.

JFD

1. Attached to a memorandum from Dulles to Under Secretary Smith, dated July 29, which asked that it be circulated within the Department of State as Smith felt suitable.
2. Document 207.
3. Document 138.
4. For text of the June 10 resolution of the Bundestag concerning German reunification, see Papers and Documents, pp. 117–118.