740.00119 Control (Germany)/2–1549
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Chief of the United States Mission to the United Nations (Jessup)
| Participants: | Mr. Malik, USSR |
| Dr. Jessup, U.S. Delegation |
Mr. Malik greeted me in the Delegate’s Lounge at Lake Success this afternoon and said that he saw that I was going to be roving1 and he suggested he knew a good place to which to rove. I asked him where [Page 695] that was and he said Moscow. I said I was very glad to have his invitation. Following the indication which Mr. Rusk had given me,2 I then said that I wondered whether there was anything new in Premier Stalin’s reply to the newspaper questions regarding the Berlin issue.3 Malik asked what I meant. I said that Premier Stalin in referring to the lifting of the blockade had said nothing about the currency question but had merely referred to the Western German Government and the reciprocal lifting of our blockade, and wondered whether that had any special significance. Malik said rather seriously that he had no information on that point. I told him that if he got any information I would be glad if he would let me know. He replied jocularly that he saw in the paper that Mr. Dulles said we didn’t want to settle the Berlin question. I said I did not know anything about that and of course Mr. Dulles was a private citizen. Mr. Malik said he wasn’t sure he was a private citizen. I said it was easy enough to settle the Berlin question since all they had to do was to lift the blockade and then we could discuss matters easily. He asked whether I meant we could settle it on the basis of the agreement reached in Moscow. I said I supposed he referred to the disagreement reached in Berlin.4 He said that was a disagreement which we had created to which I replied that on the contrary it was they who had created disagreement by refusing to carry out the agreement reached in Moscow. I repeated that if there was anything new in what Premier Stalin had said I should be glad to have him let me know. Malik said that he would inquire and find out. The conversation was carried on in a casual and bantering way.
- Dr. Jessup had recently been nominated as Ambassador-at-Large.↩
- The indication under reference has not been identified further.↩
- Regarding Stalin’s interview with INS correspondent Kingsbury Smith, January 30, see editorial note, p. 666.↩
- Documentation relating to the four-power talks in Moscow and Berlin during August and September 1948 concerning the Berlin question is in Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. ii, pp. 995 ff.↩