Office of the Historian

145. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, March 9, 1955, 12:30 p.m.1

Washington, March 9, 1955, 12:30 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Secretary
  • Sir Roger Makins, British Ambassador
  • Mr. Robertson
  • Mr. Merchant

The British Ambassador called this noon at his request. He referred briefly to the Secretary’s speech the evening before and to Sir Anthony Eden’s statement yesterday in the House. He thought the two of them did not hang together too badly.

The Secretary remarked that he considered Bangkok a good meeting and that it had given him the opportunity to have several long talks with Sir Anthony. He said that he had not discouraged Eden from making a private approach to Chou En-lai since he felt that if it were successful it was all to the good whereas if it was a failure it would give Sir Anthony further insight into Chinese Communists’ purposes.

Sir Roger agreed and commented that Eden’s speech had been well received on both sides of the aisle and that he felt he now had firm bipartisan support on the line he was taking. The Ambassador then inquired where we stood on the matter of Oracle. The Secretary replied that he had told Sir Anthony at Bangkok that we wanted to proceed with the resolution. He felt it necessary to demonstrate our full efforts to secure a cease-fire and that if New Zealand was reluctant we were willing to proceed with the resolution on our own responsibility. He agreed, however, to suspend action until Eden had had a chance to approach Chou En-lai. This had been done and now he would like to move ahead. In fact he had told Sir Leslie Munro of his attitude in the matter this morning. He recognized however that Sir Anthony had only just returned to London and would need to have a few days to get his bearings. It wasn’t an urgent matter in terms of a few days but he would like the Ambassador to report to Sir Anthony his desire to move ahead and secure his reaction. He added that the President felt a very real responsibility in line with his Message to the Congress to push the matter as far as possible in the United Nations, and he did not feel we had yet exhausted these possibilities.

Sir Roger said that he was without instructions but was inclined to think personally that Sir Anthony would consider that British [Page 345] public opinion was now entirely clear concerning the pacific intentions of the U.S. There was consequently no need to make a further demonstration on this point and to raise the issue in the Security Council in the form of a resolution which would ultimately have to be voted on might merely stir things up. The Secretary reiterated his desire to move ahead on the resolution without undue loss of time.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 793.5/3–955. Secret. Drafted by Merchant. The time of the meeting is from Dulles’ appointment diary. (Princeton University Library, Dulles Papers)↩