Office of the Historian

7. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, January 24, 1964.

SUBJECT

  • German Proposal on Berlin

PARTICIPANTS

  • U.K.:
    • Sir David Ormsby Gore, British Ambassador
    • Nigel Trench, Counselor, British Embassy
  • U.S.:
    • The Secretary
    • The Under Secretary
    • William C. Burdett, EUR
    • Henry T. Koren, SEA

The Ambassador inquired how we thought the German proposal on Berlin should be handled in the Ambassadorial group. In the British view the German draft had too much of the flavor of an internal political document. In the first place it should be recast in a form suitable for presentation [Page 16] to the Soviets. The Secretary agreed. He said that the matter was now more urgent because there were some indications that the Russians were working on a proposal of their own and it was important to get in ahead of them.

The Ambassador suggested sharing the drafting task. Mr. Greenhill was seeing Ambassador Thompson this afternoon to discuss British views. The Secretary wondered whether it would be preferable for Mr. Greenhill to talk to EUR2 because if the press should learn of the meeting between Mr. Greenhill and Ambassador Thompson there would immediately be speculation that Berlin was under discussion.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 28 GER B. Secret. Drafted by Burdett.↩
  2. No record of these meetings was found.↩