117. Memorandum of a Conversation Between Secretary of State Dulles and Chancellor Adenauer, Department of State, Washington, May 28, 1957, 10 a.m.1
[Only the interpreter, Mr. Weber, was also present.]2
The Chancellor said he was glad of a chance to talk with me privately about personalities. He was anxious to know what we thought about Krekeler as Ambassador. Was he adequate? The Chancellor said he felt that Von Kessel was abler, but he was not quite so sure as to his complete integrity. He was going to have this further checked.
[Page 280]I said that I considered Krekeler a thoroughly competent Ambassador with whom we got along very well. Perhaps he was not as forceful as some and it was not, of course, possible for me to judge the accuracy of his reporting, but we had no criticism to make of him. The Chancellor said he was always thinking about the problem of a successor. He felt there was no obvious successor in sight and that if he won the election he would probably have to hold on for a time. He had thought of Von Brentano as one of three or four who might possibly succeed him. As I did not personally know the others of whom he was thinking, he saw no point in mentioning their names to me. He thought Von Brentano smoked too much and that that made him nervous. He said he had told Von Brentano last night that he should stop smoking.
I spoke in turn of some personalities. I said we hoped that he had been pleased with Ambassador Bruce, whom we regarded as one of our ablest diplomats. I said I felt he might be more politically minded than Ambassador Conant, who had been a very learned person but perhaps somewhat lacking in a political touch. The Chancellor said the trouble with Conant was that he was too “liberal”.
I referred to a remark which the Chancellor had made a year before when he spoke of Riddleberger very highly. 1 said we had contemplated Riddleberger would be Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, but that his health had made this impracticable.
Having in mind what AWD had reported of the Chancellor’s concern regarding developments within our own government, I said that Secretary Humphrey would soon be replaced by Mr. Anderson, and I spoke of Mr. Anderson’s high qualifications and experience, and indicated I thought he had more of an international viewpoint than Secretary Humphrey. I said there might be some early change in the Defense Department, but this would not have any significant bearing on our international policies. I said as far as I was concerned, I had no present intention of resigning and that there was complete harmony between the President and myself with respect to all aspects of foreign policy. I referred to the fact that Governor Stassen was now working under me and not as an independent agent of the President. The Chancellor expressed his gratification of this fact, of which he apparently had not been informed.
The Chancellor indicated the importance of our talking more with some of the European countries. I asked what others he referred to, to the Benelux countries for example? He said no, France and Britain. This phase of the talk was quite obscure to me.
I mentioned that we had learned in a reliable way that someone in the German Government had been reported to inform Macmillan and/or Lloyd of the fact that in my first talk with the Chancellor I had spoken of the declining position of the UK in world affairs and [Page 281] speaking of their present defense program had said that they were not able to play the part they had done before the First World War. This apparently had been reported to Macmillan and/or Lloyd in a way which made it seem that 1 was deprecating British greatness. I said I was concerned at the fact that such an intimate talk as I had should in garbled form be passed on to the British for no purpose I could see except to make trouble. The Chancellor seemed greatly concerned and disposed to doubt the accuracy of my statement. When I said it seemed to be correct without doubt, he said he would study the matter further from the standpoint of checking on who had been present when we talked; it was hard for him to believe any leak to the British had occurred.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Memoranda of Conversation. Secret; Personal and Private. Drafted by Dulles. The conversation lasted until 10:45 when the Secretary escorted Adenauer to the White House for a meeting with the President. A memorandum of their conversation is printed infra.↩
- Brackets in the source text.↩