800.796/716
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
Mr. Michael Wright came to see me at my request. I told him that we had considered sympathetically the suggestion of H.M.G. that we have a 14-nation conference on aviation in North Africa. I told him that while we much appreciated the desire of H.M.G. to seek a workable method, we frankly could not see it. We thought that such a conference would have all the difficulties of a United Nations conference, and perhaps a few more besides.
I then reviewed the matter historically, namely:
That the U.K. had proposed bilateral conversations to us. We were very agreeable to that but felt that in order to make such a conversation productive, we should also have to consult the views of certain other powers: the Canadians, for geographic and functional reasons; the Russians and the Chinese for political and possibly also functional reasons.
When the British had accepted this idea but proposed adding the Commonwealth countries, we were forced to point out that a good many other countries had considerably better right to enter the conversations than, let us say, New Zealand or South Africa. Hence the present impasse. I said that we were a little surprised at the 180 [Page 406] degree shift in direction from the original proposal of quiet bilateral exchanges of views to the proposal for a 14–nation conference. Accordingly, I hoped that His Majesty’s Government would reconsider our earlier proposal for bilateral conversations which might include Canada, the Soviet Union, and China, as well as the U.K.
Mr. Wright said he thought that merely proposing to go back to something already rejected would accomplish nothing. I said that I did not consider any later suggestion had come off Mount Sinai and that I felt that the earlier suggestion should be considered.
Mr. Wright then said he wanted to think aloud and wondered whether we could not cobble it up in some fashion so as to make it look more attractive. He said, could we start with the British in London and then follow up with conversations with the Canadians and so forth. I said it seemed to me this led to the same thing. We could not say anything very definite in London unless we and they knew the Canadian view. Conversations would, therefore, simply mean that we were pausing to ascertain the Canadian views through diplomatic channels, and almost by sheer force of gravity we would be in simultaneous bilateral conversations. Mr. Wright more or less agreed, but said he thought this might be a way of doing it. I said that I was not clear whether this method would suit the Russians, who were formal about these things, and who would probably want an exactly similar kind of exchange as that proceeding with the British.
Mr. Wright asked whether we would perhaps be agreeable to offering to hold the conversations in London, on the basis of the five powers originally suggested. I said I wanted to reserve judgment on that; my colleagues in the Department had not evinced any enthusiasm for any proposal other than that which we previously made.
Mr. Wright said he would cable this home, but he wanted to go on thinking to see if he could work out a way of getting the arrangements started. I told him that I thought he had best make it clear that we rather liked our original suggestion.