168. Editorial Note
During the morning of September 4, Secretary Dulles returned from Duck Island, arriving outside Washington at 11:10 a.m. He proceeded immediately to the Department of State where, among other activities, he discussed the Suez situation with Hoover, Rountree, other Department officials, and at one point with representatives of the Esso Shipping Company. No accounts of these conversations have been found in Department of State files. At 3 p.m. Dulles, accompanied by Hoover, met with President Eisenhower at the White House. (Dulles Appointment Book; Princeton University Library, Dulles Papers) During this meeting with Eisenhower, Dulles handed to the President his memorandum of September 2 (Document 161), which contained the Secretary’s first thoughts on creating an association of Suez Canal users. A copy of the memorandum of September 2 in the Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Meetings with the President, bears a handwritten notation “Sec. took to W.H. 9/4/56”. Another copy of the paper is ibid., Whitman File, Dulles–Herter Series. No memorandum of the conversation between Eisenhower and Dulles has been found. Eisenhower later appended to his memoirs a discussion of how he and Dulles viewed the users association proposal at the time. (Waging Peace, pages 672–675)
According to Dulles’ Appointment Book, the Secretary met with Coulson at 7:36 p.m. that evening. Although no memorandum of this conversation has been found, a memorandum of a subsequent conversation with Coulson (Document 172) indicates that at the September 4 meeting Dulles outlined the users association proposal.