Office of the Historian

113. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, May 26, 1957, 11:30 a.m.1

Washington, May 26, 1957, 11:30 a.m.

SUBJECT

  • Report of Four-Power Working Group on German Reunification

PARTICIPANTS

  • German Side
  • Chancellor Adenauer
  • Foreign Minister Von Brentano
  • Ambassador Krekeler
  • Dr. Grewe, Foreign Office
  • Mr. von Eckhardt
  • Mr. von Hase
  • Mr. von Baudissin
  • Mr. von Lilienfeld
  • Mr. Limbourg
  • Mr. Schnippenkoetter
  • U.S. Side
  • Secretary Dulles
  • Mr. Murphy
  • Mr. Dillon
  • Ambassador Bruce
  • Mr. Elbrick
  • Mr. Bowie
  • Mr. Berding
  • Mr. Irwin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
  • Col. Heasty, Defense Department
  • Mr. Timmons
  • Mr. Reinstein
  • Mr. Walmsley
  • Mr. Creel

After the Secretary had welcomed the Chancellor to Washington, he asked whether the proposed agenda was satisfactory.2 The Chancellor said it was. The Secretary suggested that the first item on the agenda, disarmament, be discussed in a restricted meeting. It was agreed to hold such a meeting in the afternoon.3

[Page 260]

The Secretary then turned to the second item on the agenda, the draft Four-Power declaration and annex prepared by the Four-Power Working Group on Reunification.4 The Secretary said we considered the draft documents prepared by the Four-Power Working Group to be generally acceptable. He had only two comments:

(1)
With regard to the disagreed language of Section IV dealing with the status of the East Zone of Germany after reunification, we thought that something less specific would be preferable. We therefore proposed the following wording in this section: “We would not seek to gain any military advantage as a result of the withdrawal of Soviet forces.” The Secretary explained that we were reluctant to make a firm commitment that no forces would ever be advanced into East Germany because of our fear that this might create a vacuum of power. At the same time, if German forces even of a limited character were established there under NATO control this could be considered a violation of our commitment under the terms of the language proposed by the UK-French-German members of the Group. We would, therefore, prefer some language more limited in character, as he had suggested earlier. The Chancellor indicated his agreement.
(2)
With reference to the disagreed passage in Section III of the declaration on the relationship between disarmament and German reunification, the Secretary said we would prefer the following language: “The Four Powers wish to make clear that they do not intend taking any steps in the disarmament field which would prejudice German reunification.” The Secretary said that the point was that while we do not intend to take any steps which would prejudice German reunification, it was quite another thing to say that we would not take steps which would have a particular effect. It was not always possible to tell what the effect on this issue might be of our actions in other parts of the world, such as Japan or Poland. This could well depend on whether the Soviets might claim that these actions were in fact prejudicial to German reunification. We did not wish to give the Soviets complete control over our policies and actions in other parts of the world. It was always difficult to say we would not do anything which would have a particular effect, since this involved the question of Soviet mentality and we are not always clear what is in their minds.

The Chancellor said that he was doubtful that the Soviets would in fact claim that what the United States or the other three Western Powers might be doing in other areas would prejudice the reunification of Germany. In any event he would appreciate being furnished with our suggestions for the specific wording of this paragraph in order that he might study the matter. He would be able to discuss it further tomorrow.

The Secretary then commented that there appeared to be certain duplications in the Annex of material already covered in the main [Page 261] document prepared by the Working Group, which he felt tended to weaken the total effect of the two papers. In addition, he felt that the reference to the Geneva Summit Directive5 regarding the reunification of Germany by free elections deserved a place in the main document rather than the Annex.

The Chancellor said he wished to explain the idea of the Annex. The German thinking had been that the Annex should be in condensed form (in order to take into account the laziness of the average reader) to summarize the principal ideas spelled out in more detail in the main document. The Secretary said he was prepared to yield to the Chancellor in his estimate as to how much the German people were willing to read, and if the Chancellor considered the documents to be in the best form we would not argue to the contrary. The Chancellor said that if the Secretary had any doubts on the matter and thought the documents could be compressed, he believed this question should be referred to the Four-Power Working Group for study. The Secretary indicated his agreement.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 62 D 181, CF 888. Secret. Drafted by Creel on June 3.↩
  2. Regarding the agenda for the meetings, see Document 98.↩
  3. See Document 116.↩
  4. Copies of the draft declaration and the annex are in Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 62 D 181, CF 888.↩
  5. For text, see vol. V, pp. 527–528.↩