No. 59
Editorial Note
On November 29, a Conference of European Countries on Insuring Peace and Security in Europe opened in Moscow. The conference, which lasted through December 2, was attended by delegations from the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Rumania. The People’s Republic of China sent an observer delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Chang Wan-tien. The Czechoslovak, GDR, and Polish Delegations were headed by their respective Prime Ministers. The others were represented at the Foreign Minister level.
The conference had its origins in the exchanges of notes between the Soviet Union and the Western allies which occurred subsequent to the Berlin Conference in early 1954. (For documentation on the Berlin Conference, see volume VII, Part 1, pages 601 ff.) A Soviet note of March 31, 1954, rejected by the three Western powers on May 7, proposed that the United States join an All-European Security Treaty as put forth by the Soviet Union at the Berlin Conference. (For documentation, see volume V, Part 1, pages 487 ff.)
A second Soviet note, July 24, proposed a conference to discuss collective security in Europe. The Western reply of September 10 made such a meeting conditional on Soviet agreement to an Austrian Treaty and free elections in Germany. For texts of this exchange, see Department of State Bulletin, September 20, 1954, pages 397–402.
The Soviet call for a European security conference was reiterated in two additional notes of October 23 and November 13; the latter issued invitations to the Moscow Conference for November 29. The Western powers replied on November 29, repeating the two aforementioned preconditions and adding a third: that a conference take place only after the Paris Agreements (see volume V, Part 2, pages [Page 141] 1435 ff.) had been signed. Texts of the Soviet notes and Western reply are in Department of State Bulletin, December 13, 1954, pages 901–907.
In light of the Western rejection of the Soviet proposal, the Moscow Conference included only the East European countries and the People’s Republic of China.