Office of the Historian

634. Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation Between the President in Augusta, Georgia, and the Secretary of State in Washington, December 3, 1956, 1:30 p.m.1

Washington, December 3, 1956, 1:30 p.m.

Pursuant to prearrangement the President called me at 1:30. I said that the statements made by the British and the French with respect to their intention to withdraw their forces seemed to me to meet substantially the UN requirements which we had been backing. The only slippage over what we had expected was the fixing of a precise date or time period, but that I did not think this was necessarily essential since we knew in fact what their intentions were. The President said that on the basis of what he had read in the news ticker he thought that they had gone adequately to meet the requirements. I said that the State Department had prepared a statement indicating our satisfaction at the British statement and our hope that the UN would not proceed with reference to clearing the Canal, working out a permanent basis for Canal operation and dealing with the broader problems of the area. Also, George Humphrey was prepared2 to give clearance to a statement which Macmillan planned to make tomorrow, indicating the availability to the UK of IMF gold withdrawals and Ex-Im Bank borrowing capacity.3

The President said that he thought we should proceed along both lines and feel that very satisfactory progress had been made.4

  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations. Secret; Personal and Private. Drafted by Dulles.↩
  2. According to the memorandum of conversation by Bernau, the following telephone conversation between Humphrey and Dulles took place at 12:32 p.m.: “The Sec. said he thinks they [the British] go so far here that we have got to be prepared to go ahead on our side. H. said he does too.” Humphrey “went on to say it is a wholehearted move to comply and we should take it at face value—we should use pressure to get work started on the Canal.” (Ibid.)↩
  3. The following day, Macmillan informed the House of Commons that the U.S. Treasury would recommend to the U.S. Congress that it waive $143 million interest payment on a World War II loan, due on December 31. (Telegram 3119 from London, December 3; Department of State, Central Files, 841.10/12–456) For additional documentation, see Current Economic Developments, December 11, 1956, pp. 1–4.↩

  4. The source text is attached to a memorandum by Asbjornson of a telephone conversation between Dulles and Hoover, which began at 3:05 p.m. on December 3. Asbjornson’s memorandum reads: “The Secretary telephoned Mr. Hoover in connection with the matter mentioned in the attached copy of memo of conversation with the President. The Secretary said that the President felt, on the basis of what he had read in the news ticker, that we should be very satisfied and should go right ahead. The Secretary thought there should be a Departmental statement. The Secretary said he had told the President we were giving out a statement along these lines and he approved of it. The Secretary suggested phoning the statement to Augusta so they would have it there before they saw it in the news ticker.”

    For text of the statement, released on December 3, see Department of State Bulletin, December 17, 1956, pp. 951–952.

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