538. Transcript of a Telephone Conversation Between President Eisenhower in Washington and Prime Minister Eden in London, November 7, 1956, 9:55 a.m.1
9:55 a.m.—Sir Anthony Eden.
President: I wanted to talk to you about your visit—so we can’t have any misunderstanding & later regret it. As you know, we are committed to Hammarskjold’s plan—& very definitely. If the purpose of the visit would be to concert ourselves in NATO & what we are going to do in the future, then we have nothing to fear. If we are going to discuss this plan & your people would find it necessary to disagree with us, then the resulting divided communiqué would be unfortunate.
Eden: We have meeting scheduled for 3 o’clock—trying to hammer out something for Hammarskjold. We will go along as far as we can on the lines you mentioned last night. I think we can pretty well agree to any scheme that will work—as long as we are in the dark …2 But I don’t want to come to talk about that.
President: I think that is very good. The only thing I didn’t want for us to have to say we would discuss points that are up for discussion (before the UN).
Eden: I imagine they will discuss them long before I leave. I think at the worst we can always stay or make some declaration that we are in favor of any organization that will work. I don’t want to block that any more than I can.
President: I don’t want to put us in a false position. Then it is all right.
Eden: That isn’t the thing in my mind at all.
President: Does Mollet understand that?
Eden: I never mentioned anything about the UNO to him. But I am sure he does understand it. I am taking Selwyn Lloyd who is going to the UN. He3 speaks very good English. They might go along to UNO. That is all I said to him—never mentioned the business about the international force. I never referred to it at all.
Eden call of 9:55 (2)
President: Then I think my fears are groundless. But I was afraid we would get to talking about certain features & you would [Page 1043] feel that you couldn’t go along with the UN plan. If that were brought up at all—or any thought of it—then we would be in a bad spot, if we had to have a divided communiqué. But if we are going to talk about the future & about the Bear4—okay.
Eden: We have had two London undisguised observation planes (?).5 Your people know it. Ask them. I think we ought to talk about what we should do with them. I think, on the kind of international force … as long as it works, I don’t care what kind of international force we have.
President: I don’t know exactly what the timing is.
Eden: The take-over (?) is perfectly all right… . about getting out.
President: do you want us to announce this at 11 o’clock?
Eden: Is that time all right with you?
(Agreed on 11 o’clock announcement.)
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries. Prepared in the Office of the President. A copy of this transcript and transcripts of other conversations between the White House and Eden’s office which took place on November 7 are ibid., ACW Diary.↩
- All ellipses in this document are in the source text.↩
- Presumably Mollet.↩
- Reference is to the Soviet Union.↩
- This question mark and the one below are in the source text.↩