Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Germany and Austria, Volume VII, Part 1

Eisenhower Library, C. D. Jackson papers

No. 456
The Special Assistant to the President (Jackson) to Marie McCrum, White House Secretary

Berlin, February 10, 1954.

Dear Machari: This has been the most dramatic day yet. I will try to give you a blow-by-blow but don’t think I can do justice to it. You have to hear the sound, see the faces change from pleasure to pain and vice versa, feel the danger of looming booby traps and get the thrill of coming through with the enemy visibly shaken.

Yesterday had definitely been our round. Molotov had talked interminably and said nothing new. When Dulles, next in turn, very quietly said, “I have heard nothing new. I have nothing to say,” the Russians were thrown off base and started whispering to each other. Then Bidault and Eden both felt called upon to say something which gave M a chance at another round. When he was finally cornered he pulled out what we had been expecting all along, the announcement that he would present a formal Soviet proposal for European Security.¹

All evening and part of the night and this morning we were trying to dope out what it would consist of. The boys had it pretty well taped, although they could not guess that having succeeded in embarrassing us, M would throw the whole thing away and give us the greatest chance we have had thus far. By two incautious or arrogant or just ill-informed (I don’t know which) statements the tide of battle swung right around and we nailed him so hard that I don’t think he will be able to squirm out of it.

The beauty of the nailing is not just the satisfaction of scoring in the meeting. The real victory is that in one package he has been made to alienate East and West Germans and, most important, the slightly neutralist SPD, plus the French, plus the British, plus anybody who wants to listen.

By the time this reaches you, you will have all the news stories and the full texts of the speeches so I won’t try to give you anything but color. I am enclosing the full text of Dulles’ talk because I want to be sure you see that.²

Molotov was in the chair and asked if he could talk first. The chair generally calls on the person to his left to open but every one agreed and Molotov started a long harangue on Germany and European security winding up with a specific plan for the unification of Germany³ and a draft of a collective security treaty for Europe.

We were feeling less and less happy because although his proposals were phoney all through nevertheless they contained bits and pieces that could not help have appeal to the French and the Germans, withdrawal of troops, neutralization of Germany and a lot of subtle little twists that might look good to the folks in Paris or the Socialists in East Germany, etc., etc. EDC was roundly denounced, but NATO was left vague.

Then came the block buster. The U.S. was specifically excluded from the collective security pact but was permitted to be an “observer” along with communist China. At that point we all laughed out loud and the Russians were taken completely by surprise at our reaction. Molotov did a double take and finally managed a smile, but the Russian momentum was gone.

When he was through he turned to Dulles who was next to speak. Dulles said that this was something new and complicated and asked for a twenty-minute recess for study, and we all filed out.

Dulles, Bidault and Eden got together for about ten minutes and then Dulles had another ten minutes with his staff, and we went back feeling that we were in a tight spot but that we might get out of it. One of the reasons for our uneasiness was that Dulles had simply listened to the advice that everybody was tossing at him but had not given any indication that things had jelled in his mind. Personally, I didn’t think they could possibly have jelled, because there had not been enough time.

He started very slowly, literally sentence by sentence, with long pauses while it was translated first into Russian and then into French. This was one of the rare times when consecutive translation was a blessing. Generally it interferes with the effect; this time it accentuated it.

As he got into it we all realized that he was on exactly the right pitch, leaving to the Europeans the job of defending the U.S. presence in Europe and NATO and sticking to those matters of history and principle which would force Bidault and Eden to close ranks.

For you alone I will say that my only contributions were the opening paragraph and the section on the Baltic States with the deadly parallel of Molotov’s words in 1939 and his words today.

When he got toward the end there wasn’t a sound in the room. By that time he was pausing between paragraphs instead of sentences so that the final paragraph stood out in letters of gold. When he said that every country could make its own choice but that the United States would not be absorbed I almost bawled, and I am sure a lot of others felt the same way.

Then came Bidault who was superb, and then Eden who put the lid on it by saying very simply that the proposal was “unacceptable”.

The whole Russian house of cards had come tumbling down and it could be seen on the Russian faces. Molotov was drawn, gray and angry and they were all scribbling furiously and avoiding looking up in our direction, which they always do when they think they are doing well. This business of Russian omniscience and omnipotence in conference is nonsense. They are so rigid and inflexible that if one comma gets knocked out of place they don’t know what to do. That is somewhat of an exaggeration as Molotov is so agile, but even he can’t take two paragraphs being knocked out of place.

Molotov’s rebuttal was pathetic and practically ruined him because he had practically to admit that his plan called for the liquidation of NATO which is the one thing France and England know is their salvation. He also admitted that his scheme would probably perpetuate the division of Germany for 50 years which certainly will endear him to his German audiences and he also admitted that this business of troop withdrawal was a phoney because the Russians could come back any time they wanted, literally without any pretext other than the unilateral announcement that they felt like coming back.

Finally, when Foster, toward the end, said that classifying the Americans as “observers” may be considered by some a poor joke but by Americans as an affront after the blood and treasure the U.S. had expended in Europe, Molotov actually went white and then red.

We have maintained an advantage up to now, sometimes precarious, sometimes solid. I think that today has won the battle of Molotov’s momentary bulge and that he won’t be able to reform his forces.

The session lasted from 3 to 8:15 and then I went to the opera with Foster and Conant and some of the delegation. It was Valkyre and the emotional shock of stepping into that music after what we had been through in the afternoon just about did me in. The orchestra was wonderful, Brunhilde and Siegmund excellent, Sieglinde okay, Wotan lousy. No comments on Hunding as we only got there in the middle of the second act.^*

This been a day. My net reaction is that I am damn proud to be an American and that I know we will win.

CD

1. FPM(54)47, Document 517.
2. For Secretary Dulles’ remarks, see Secto 114, Document 452.
3. FPM(54)46, Document 516.
4. When the audience spotted Dulles during the intermission everyone rose to his feet, applauding wildly and shouting, “Mr. Dulles, Mr. Dulles, Mr. Dulles.” Tremendously moving. [Handwritten footnote in the source text.]