303. Memorandum for the File, by the Deputy Director of the Executive Secretariat (Barnes)1
In the course of another conversation with the President this afternoon, the Acting Secretary informed him that we had just received a message relayed through the British Foreign Office to the effect that Chou En-lai had accepted our proposal to conduct further negotiations in Geneva at the Ambassadorial level. The Chinese have proposed that the first meeting be held on July 21. They have also confirmed that there should be no publicity until mutual agreement on the question had been reached between the U.S. and Chinese Governments.
The President expressed great interest in this message but felt it might create serious complications if these bilateral U.S.-Chinese Communist discussions were to commence during the meeting of the Heads of Government. After further discussion of this point, the President and Mr. Hoover agreed that the earliest practicable date would be July 25 and that we should stall the Chinese Communist on some such grounds as our inability to get our representative to Geneva earlier than this.
I subsequently placed a call for Mr. O’Connor2 in Paris and failing to reach him, talked to Mr. McAuliffe3 who was familiar with the telegram from London. I informed him of the sense of the above and told him that unless I heard further from Paris we would [Page 656] assume that follow-up action would be taken by the delegation in Paris and that it would reflect the President’s wishes in this matter.