Office of the Historian

121. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Herter0

July 13, 1960, 5:35 p.m.

MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT FROM NEWPORT

The President asked how we stood on the Congo. The Secretary said he had just finished talking with the French Ambassador1 and that the French view was in complete accord with our own. The Secretary said he had a two-page instruction to Lodge, which he then read to the President (copy attached).2 With regard to the reference in the instruction to the “US prepared to assist by means of transport, communications and other logistic support on reimbursable basis”, the Secretary interpolated that he had been talking with Secy Douglas and Adm. Burke and they are ready to move on an airlift if we are asked to. The President then said with regard to reimbursement that in the interests of speed we might keep this question of reimbursement until after the action rather than have the SYG delay doing that; that we should go and do it and then we could put in our claim for reimbursement afterward. The Secretary said this was what we had done before and there had been some complications since the contributions were voluntary. The Secretary said the SYG himself would prefer to have this come out of the UN Fund and then apportion the cost later. The President said the instructions are all right then.

The Secretary said he had talked to Cabot Lodge and the SYG thinks he can get the Tunisians to introduce this sort of resolution. The President referred to all the ticker reports saying the Soviets are alleging the US is really the culprit in this plane incident3 and the President said he is glad they have done this because it shows the venom of their attitude. The President said he doesn’t see why somebody doesn’t point to Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, etc.

The President said he thought the Secretary was doing exactly right.

The Secretary said he didn’t think he would be hearing anything tonight. Lodge thought the Congo SC meeting might have to go over until tomorrow morning.

  1. Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 64 D 199. Confidential. Prepared in the Secretary’s office.↩
  2. A memorandum of conversation with French Ambassador Hervé Alphand is ibid., Central Files, 770G.00/7–1360.↩
  3. Not attached to the source text, but see Document 122.↩
  4. Reference is to the shooting down of a U.S. RB–47 by the Soviet Union on July 1. The Soviets charged that the plane was in Soviet air space.↩