PPS files, lot 65 D 101, “Germany”
No. 256
Memorandum of Conversation, by the
United States High Commissioner for Germany (Conant)1
- Participants: President Eisenhower
- Chancellor Adenauer
- High Commissioner Conant
- [Secretary of State Dulles]
The first matter discussed was the communiqué which had already been gone over by the Secretary and the Chancellor.2 The President read the communiqué and said that it met with his approval. There was no lengthy discussion of any item among those listed in this communiqué.
The Chancellor referred to his desire to have a German army built on a new basis and his intention of devoting a great deal of his own efforts to that end. He referred to his satisfactory conversation with General Ridgway on this whole subject.3 The President said he would be very glad indeed to have the United States assist in any way he could. He wished the Chancellor to understand that it was his desire to see that the Chancellor was assisted in the rearming of Germany in the way the Chancellor desired. It was more important from the point of view of the United States and the President to have this done in the right way than to have it done in the minimum amount of time. The President wanted the Chancellor to feel free to report to him if there seemed to be any pressures put on the Chancellor to go forward with the rearming of Germany in ways that seemed to the Chancellor unsatisfactory.
The rest of the conversation was of a purely social nature and the whole interview did not last more than twenty minutes.
- Attached to a cover sheet, dated Nov. 24, which stated that the meeting took place at the White House at 12:30 p.m. and that the memorandum had been drafted by Conant.↩
- For a record of Dulles’ meeting with Adenauer, see the memorandum, supra; for text of the communiqué, see Department of State Bulletin, Nov. 8, 1954, pp. 680–681.↩
- The conversation under reference has not been further identified, unless the meeting scheduled with Ridgway for Friday, Oct. 29, was actually held on Oct. 28.↩