Office of the Historian

131. Letter From the President’s Special Assistant (Stassen) to the President1

London, April 9, 1956.

Dear Mr. President: As we enter this fourth week of the Subcommittee’s London session the presentations of the Soviet Union continue to be consistent with either an intention to seriously attempt agreement or an intention to play propaganda and divisive tactics. Neither alternative has thus far come into clear perspective. The Bulganin-Khrushchev visit to England2 may show their hand to an increased degree.

The complete dropping of any nuclear provisions from the basic Soviet proposal in their Parts I and II are the most important London development as it is a change from their ten year position.

We have made headway in moving the Western Four governments closer together and in burying the unsatisfactory portions of the Anglo-French proposals. We have done this principally through taking a U.S. initiative basically along the lines of U.S. policy but without any commitment of the U.S. government through the use of a draft working paper technique.3 We have also obtained a much better public understanding in Europe and in Britain of the U.S. policy. The enclosed press reports are some indication of this result.4 We are constantly stressing that your objective on the part of the U.S. is a just and durable peace with freedom and that this affects our policy on this subject here as well as in other matters.

I have talked off-the-record to groups of the Members of Parliament and of other British leaders in sessions of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the English Speaking Union, Chatham House, and in various private luncheons and dinners. Recognition of the logic of your policies is gradually growing. There is, of course, a lot of British uneasiness as you are well aware over the problems of the Near East and on their overall balance of payments and low reserves behind sterling. In the last three months, however, a small improvement in their gold and dollar reserves has occurred and Macmillan’s budget message this week, I think, will generally have a cheering note.

Sincerely,

Harold
  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Administration Series, Stassen. Confidential.↩
  2. April 18–30.↩
  3. Regarding the Anglo-French proposals and the U.S. initiative, see Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, vol. I, pp. 599–613.↩
  4. Not found in the Eisenhower Library or Department of State files.↩