129. Editorial Note
At the 267th meeting of the National Security Council, held at Camp David, Maryland, on November 21, Secretary Dulles gave a lengthy report to the Council on his recent activities at the Geneva Foreign Ministers Conference. During Dulles’ report, President Eisenhower made the following remarks regarding Western European integration:
“After a brief pause, the President said that he had a few remarks to make on the subject of Western Europe. Smilingly he said that all the members of the Council realized that this area was one of his pets. Moreover, nearly all those present around this table had been engaged in work with large human organizations. Accordingly all knew the great value to be attached to the morale factor in large organizations. It was by working with the group that the individual achieved his greatest satisfaction and success. Secretary Dulles had [Page 349] just touched on NATO as an organization which U.S. policy should support harder than ever in view of the fact Germany was not likely to be united for some time to come. Actually, said the President, the Secretary of State really underestimated the case he had made. The unity of Western Europe today, continued the President, would solve the peace of the world. A solid power mass in Western Europe would ultimately attract to it all the Soviet satellites, and the threat to peace would disappear.
“Continuing in this vein, the President said that there was one thing that all of those present could do as individuals to forward the objective he had just mentioned. Whenever occasion arose for any member of the National Security Council to talk in public about foreign policy, that talk should stress the great advantages of a more nearly united Europe—cultural, economic, moral, and otherwise. The President referred to his own speech, made on July 3, 1951, at the English Speaking Union in London, on the general subject of a United States of Europe. After that speech, the President said, he had gotten the warmest compliments of no less a person than Winston Churchill, who said that the speech, from the point of view of logic, was the best speech which had been delivered in this generation.
“At this point, with even greater emphasis the President repeated his view on the desirability of developing in Western Europe a third great power bloc, after which development the United States would be permitted to sit back and relax somewhat. To help to produce such a development it must be demonstrated to all the countries of Western Europe individually that each and every one would profit by the union of them all and that none would lose. The President cited the development of the American historical pattern as an illustration of the point he was making.” (Memorandum of discussion by Gleason, November 22; Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records)