131. Letter From Prime Minister Eden to President Eisenhower1
Dear Mr. President: Thank you so much for your message.2 Naturally I am disappointed that you do not feel able to come to this country for preliminary talks, but I quite understand how difficult it would be for you to get away. I am sure excellent preparations will be made by the Foreign Secretaries but I hope that you and I, perhaps with Faure, will have some chance of a talk when we arrive in advance of our meeting with the Russians.
I am very glad that you think you could manage the four to five clear days for the meeting at the summit. I understand your reasons [Page 214] for wanting to identify the problems and discuss methods of work rather than enter into a discussion of solutions. This is our own approach also. It follows that, if we are to carry public opinion with us the meeting should be presented as a first of a series at various levels to handle the problems confronting the world. For this reason I think it important that we neither in our minds nor in anything we say publicly exclude the possibility of further meetings at the top level if that seems useful. Yours ever,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, International File. Secret. Attached to this letter was a note of transmission from Makins to President Eisenhower, dated June 3.↩
- Document 128.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩