611.61/1–1651
Memorandum by the Ambassador at Large ( Jessup ) to the Deputy Under Secretary of State ( Matthews )
Subject: Negotiations with the Soviets
The current considerations of a possible meeting of the four Foreign Ministers and the exploratory talks which would precede them suggest the desirability of re-examining the entire problem of negotiation with the Soviets as a part of our overall strategy.
We have consistently taken the position through public statements by the President and the Secretary that we are always ready to negotiate. We have also argued that we must create positions of strength as a background for negotiations. Our draft of Annex VIII of NSC 681 stressed the point that “a general attitude receptive to negotiation is essential”. It does not seem to me that we have worked out a clear picture of the ways in which we can use “negotiations” as part of our general strategy. There is always the danger that we will either underestimate the basic strengths of our position as they might appear to the Soviets or, that when we have a position of strength, we will say that we do not need to negotiate.
At the present time in spite of the various obvious Soviet advantages we are by no means devoid of our own bargaining advantages. One of these elements on our side is our potential productive capacity which the Russians respect and which we are now throwing into high gear. Another is the fact that we are moving ahead with consideration of re-arming both the Germans and the Japanese which are developments that the Russians fear.
“Negotiation” as an element in the strategy can be considered not only in terms of formal meetings to debate possible settlements and specific issues but also as including the whole problem of contacts with the Soviets and the planting of ideas which it would be advantageous to us to have the Kremlin consider.
On the more or less formal side we have a continuing course of “negotiations” with the Soviets through the various UN channels. [Page 1526] We have pending the possibility of discussions on the Far East under the UN resolution if Peiping accepts it. We have the possibility of exploratory meetings followed by Ministerial meetings. There are also the current lend lease negotiations.
On a somewhat less formal side we have the series of discussions between Mr. Dulles and Mr. Malik on the Japanese Peace Treaty. We also have sporadic contacts, direct or indirect, with Malik and with other representatives of the Soviets.
Whether it is part of a general plan or not it appears that the Soviets constantly interlard public positions through diplomatic correspondence and through their official press and through speeches in the UN and elsewhere, with informal approaches or occasional remarks. In the latter category we have recently had a report of an approach by the Soviet military person in Tokyo regarding a settlement of the Japanese question; we have had several suggestions by Malik both to officials and to American businessmen that they are interested in the possibility of trade with the United States;2 we have had a report that the Russians who are coming to discuss the lend lease settlement would like to discuss some trade questions. There are probably other incidents of this kind.
I am not aware of any general considered plan within which all of these various contacts could be fitted in order that the individuals who engage in them would have an appreciation of attitudes or points of view which we might consider it advantageous to have conveyed to the Russians.
I suggest the desirability of having this problem studied with a view either to rejecting the general idea of a strategic plan in this field as useless or not necessary or with a view to developing a plan.
- Dated April 14, 1950, “U.S. Objectives and Programs for National Security”, Foreign Relations, 1950, vol. i, p. 234.↩
- Regarding the proposed trip of American industrialists to the Soviet Union, see the memorandum by Kennan and the memorandum of conversation by Reinhardt, Documents 768 and 772.↩