Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Austrian State Treaty; Summit and Foreign Ministers Meetings, 1955, Volume V

69. Telegram From the Delegation at the Vienna Ambassadorial Conference to the Delegation at the North Atlantic Council Ministerial Meeting, at Paris¹

Vienna, May 12, 1955—3 p.m.

434. For USDel. Attempted reach agreed tripartite recommendations to Ministers on tactics at Ministers Conference and put forward following points:

1. Begin with examination and discussion of treaty. Assuming Article 35 is out of way, only point likely to be raised is Austrian desire drop paragraph three of preamble which Ilyichev said yesterday he was not authorized discuss.

2. I suggested we ask Austrians to table their intentions regarding form of neutrality declaration. I suggested and all agreed that would be extremely unwise raise questions as to effect of Austrian declaration on Austrian membership in international economic and political organizations except the United Nations which is mentioned in the Austrian draft resolution of the National Council on Neutrality. We believe that raising questions on membership other than United Nations will give Soviets opportunity to place interpretation on Austrian declaration contrary to our interests. I am satisfied they have sufficient freedom in this respect as matters stand. We could appropriately ask questions of Austrians regarding intention as to timing of their declaration and request for our recognition and respect. We could also at this time declare our own intention unconditionally to support Austria’s application for membership and smoke out Soviet intentions. If they refuse agree unconditional support, they will not be in such strong position to press us on guarantees.

Lalouette stated he understood French Cabinet strongly opposed to our raising either question of neutrality or of guarantees on the basis that any sympathetic consideration of these two questions on our part would have bad effect on Germany.

3. On question of guarantees, assume [we should?] leave Soviets or Austrians to raise this matter. Our questions might relate to timing of Austrian request and form of guarantee, particularly effort to find out whether Soviets have in mind a collective guarantee.

In view of French attitude reported paragraph two above, you may wish discuss this matter with Pinay and Macmillan before leaving Paris.

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 396.1–VI/5–1255. Secret; Niact. Repeated to Moscow and Washington. The source text is the copy sent to Washington.