199. Memorandum of the Conversation at the President’s Breakfast, President’s Villa, Geneva, July 20, 1955, 8:30 a.m.1

PRESENT

  • The President, The Secretary of State, Sir Anthony Eden, Mr. Harold Macmillan, Mr. Dillon Anderson

The discussion began with Secretary Dulles’ request of Eden that he give us a little run-down on the events of last night.2

The British-Russian Dinner

Eden said that the Russians had been cordial, abstemious and well-behaved. (He noted a little interplay that he thought might have some significance—namely, Khrushchev had a way of butting into conversations, interrupting them and taking the play away from his comrades, then turning the talk off with some innocuous remark.)

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Eden said that he had asked the Russians how they felt about their Yugoslav trip, and their reports were, in substance, that they felt it was a satisfactory result, that they had felt that something should be done in this connection to show the change in policy and their willingness to achieve normalized relations with Yugoslavia. They mentioned in this connection their attitude toward Germany as manifested by the invitation to Adenauer to visit Moscow.3

The Russians commented to Eden on the fact that during Stalin’s lifetime, he had never been willing to leave Russia. They explained that they themselves had limited experience outside their own country, and they wished to promote visits back and forth with other countries. At this point the President mentioned what they had said to him about Mr. Dulles possibly coming to Moscow and thereby gaining a more personal impression of them and a better understanding of the Russians and their present attitude.4 Sir Anthony said that within the four walls of the room he would like to mention something that had taken place last night. The Russians had urged that he come to Moscow himself, and he explained that he had been there several times and he doubted that anything would be gained by such a visit; they then indicated the desirability of one or more of them going to London, but no invitations were issued.

Sir Anthony stated that from the Russian comments he had concluded that they were not in a position to agree now to the unification of Germany, with the unified Germany free to join NATO. Sir Anthony made mention of the Russians’ complaint to him the night before that they had been denied admission to NATO. He said he gathered from their statements that they felt “they could not go home” after agreeing to this kind of thing. The President asked “You mean the Politburo might kick them out?” Eden said he did not feel it was quite that bad, but he was certain that they were not in a position to make the agreement. The President recalled a statement made once by Stalin to the effect that whereas in a democracy you have to face elections, in a dictatorship you have to face revolutions; that he, Stalin, had been through two.

Mr. Macmillan then said that he felt we should be able to extract something from the Russians at this time on the subject of German unification, and Eden expressed the thought that if we left it just where it was, the German reaction to the seeming failure of the Western powers to support their aspirations would be unfortunate; in other words, that perhaps there should be some further effort to gain [Page 400] some ground in this area, else it would seem that we were accepting the idea of indefinite continuation of a divided Germany.

It seemed to be agreed in the breakfast meeting that the Western powers should press for a remitment of this subject to the Foreign Ministers to continue and work on the matter. It was pointed out in this connection that if the action went no further than this, it would leave the matter just about where it had been before the Conference began. Eden said that we might be able to get something more than this in the context of some character of security plan. This line was apparently adopted.

European Security

Eden said that he had explained to the Russians last night that the matter of getting Spain and all the other European countries (26 in all) to agree in the measurable future to an over-all security plan was a more or less bleak prospect. The Russians had appeared to recognize the practical difficulties involved in securing agreements of all other countries; that the prior consent or concurrence of other countries to be affected would be necessary. There was then a discussion with the Russians of some kind of agreement to include non-aggression pacts to be participated in by the NATO countries and Warsaw Agreement countries.

In further talks at breakfast about security arrangements, it was recognized by all that we are not prepared at this time to go into or approve the details of any such an arrangement; and that there would be the necessity of continuing consultations with the Germans, whose country would be the heart of such an arrangement. The President mentioned that we were constantly in touch with a representative of the Bonn government, and in fact Adenauer had himself talked fully about Germany’s place in such an arrangement, and suggested a plan illustrated by a map. It was agreed between those at breakfast that the broad principles of a European security arrangement might be established at this Conference, with the task of elaboration thereof to be remitted to the Foreign Ministers.

Disarmament

The subject of disarmament was discussed next. The President indicated that he, Mr. Dulles, Governor Stassen, and others in our Government had been giving very intensive thought to this subject; that Governor Stassen would be in Geneva today;5 that the President, Mr. Dulles and Governor Stassen had all reached the conclusion that the very heart of any such arrangement lay in the efficacy [Page 401] of the inspection system that would be parts of it; and that we were exploring possibilities in this regard.

Mr. Macmillan pointed out that the Russians were going to make considerable headway in world opinion by their oversimplified “Ban the Bomb” motto. It was agreed that the best way to counter this was to point out the incompleteness and inadequacy of the inspection system that the Russians had proposed, and citing possibly the fact that in Korea such a system had failed to work.

It was apparently agreed between those at breakfast that in this meeting we should propose consideration of a limited or test inspection plan in connection with the forces in opposition to each other in Europe.

There was some further discussion of Germany’s position in this connection and the possibility of a demilitarized zone with forces on each side limited by agreement and subject to effective inspection. The point was suggested that such an inspection system might in the first instance be one that would exclude the Soviet Union but include East Germany and the satellite countries on the one side; that, on the other, the Eastern bloc would be permitted to inspect in all NATO countries except the United Kingdom and the United States. The President said he would be agreeable to some plan including all of our installations, since without an Iron Curtain on our side the Russians knew exactly where the installations were, and what they were, anyway. He said he would even be willing to go further and agree to mutual overflights of the two countries, Russia and the United States; he did not feel there would be anything lost to us in such a connection. Mr. Dulles mentioned the possibility of this being difficult in connection with war games and similar exercises. The President said he would just as soon let them witness these. He re-emphasized the point that the Russians already have means of knowing most of the facts about our military installations and their locations. He cited the fact that in the Smyth report the complete map and plot of Hanford was illustrated—a perfect bomber’s map.6

After the breakfast was over, Secretary Dulles stepped out of the room for a moment. The President and Eden stood and talked, and Eden seemed to me to press him for an agreement that the United States would agree in this Conference to the adoption of some specific arrangement of an arms limitation and inspection plan participated in between the Eastern and Western powers and applicable to Europe. This seemed to me to be an extension of the degree of commitment which had been contemplated before we came to Geneva; in other words, the U.S. policy had seemed to be that we would be prepared [Page 402] to explore mutually acceptable inspection systems, but not to agree at Geneva to a particular plan.

China and the Far East

At this point there was some mention of the Chinese situation and I had to miss it, since the President asked me to give Chip Bohlen a call in relation to today’s meeting which he is having with General Zhukov.7 At any rate, there apparently was not a full development of the subject between Eden and the President on the subject of the Far East, because, after the breakfast broke up, it was agreed that this should be the subject of some serious discussions, possibly at breakfast in the morning.

The Russians Generally

At some point during the discussion the matter of the true attitude and position of the ruling group in Russia came up. The President expressed the idea that there were two kinds of ways to look at this dictatorship. One had been the accepted concept—namely, that these fellows were pursuing with religious zeal the ideologies of the Communist Party and determined by one means or another to see them spread around the world; the alternative concept was that they were simply a group of power-mad dictators whose first objective was to hang on to their power—and if this latter was truly the case now, the technique of dealing with them could be an entirely different one.

The Middle East

. . . . . . .

It was agreed that the matter of Iraq aid is an urgent one and must be dealt with promptly.8

Egyptian Armament

Mr. Dulles mentioned that the Egyptians had recently offered to buy from the United States a substantial (for them) quantity of tanks, guns and ammunition; that they had hinted that they would buy from the Russians if we didn’t sell to them. Eden thought this latter would be bad, but doubted that the Russians would sell to the Egyptians.

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Mr. Dulles said he thought we would make the sale; that it couldn’t be aid because the Egyptians would not make the kind of agreement in connection with aid that our laws require.

Eden said the British were furnishing some small amount of armaments to the Egyptians; that the French were too; that some of it was being resold through Libya to the Arabs and shot back at the French in Morocco and Algeria.

  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, White House Office, Project Clean Up. Top Secret. Drafted by Dillon Anderson. Another account, dictated by Anderson to Ann Whitman and virtually identical, is in her diary, pp. 6–11. (Ibid., Whitman File)
  2. On the evening of July 19 the British held a dinner for Bulganin, Khrushchev, Molotov, Zhukov, and Malik. For Macmillan’s account and another by Eden, see Tides of Fortune, pp. 618–619, and Full Circle, pp. 332–335 and 344–345.
  3. For text of the Soviet note of June 7, inviting Chancellor Adenauer to Moscow, see Documents (R.I.I.A.) for 1955, pp. 245–248.
  4. See Document 187.
  5. Harold Stassen and Nelson Rockefeller arrived at Geneva from Paris at 9 a.m.
  6. Reference is to Henry D. Wolf, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, Princeton, New Jersey, 1945.
  7. See Document 203.
  8. Another record of the discussion on the Middle East up to this point is included in a memorandum by Dillon Anderson to Secretary Dulles, July 26. (Eisenhower Library, White House Office, Four Power Meeting)