202. Memorandum From the Director of the Executive Secretariat (Howe) to the Acting Secretary of State1
THE PRESIDENT’S INTEREST IN CURRENT EGYPTIAN DEVELOPMENTS
General Goodpaster called to report that the President, after reading the reports from the Department and intelligence reports, had said that he would like to know from the State Department “exactly what we are going to ask from Egypt”, whether we have yet made it known to Egypt, and, if not, how we plan to make it known to Egypt. He wished to know also “what steps we plan to take if Egypt resists”.
I explained to General Goodpaster that we were currently taking a hard look at this very problem of “next steps” on an urgent basis. General Goodpaster said that he thought the President would be interested in knowing the nature of the problem as we visualize it and the manner in which we are planning to attack the problem, if we could not give him the complete answers to his question.
In terms of timing, General Goodpaster thought that the President would like to set up a meeting with you this afternoon “if you had something to tell him”. He said that he would like to hear from me as soon as possible whether such a meeting is probable.
[Page 381]I have reported this to Ambassador Dillon who says that he is meeting with Messrs. Phleger, Rountree and Wilcox at 11:00 a.m. and that he would be able to report fairly soon the recommendations of this group on the requested meeting.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.74/3–857. Christian A. Herter was Acting Secretary in Dulles’ absence at the SEATO Council meeting at Canberra.↩