Office of the Historian

311. Memorandum From David W. K. Peacock, Jr., of the Office of the Secretary of State to the Director of the Executive Secretariat (Howe)1

Washington, November 6, 1957.

Ambassador Lodge reported to the Secretary at 5:30 p.m. November 52 that he had finished the meeting with the Four Powers on disarmament.3Moch had agreed that this is not the time to show weakness. He reported that the Canadians have a draft resolution to enlarge the Committee by 10. The British were reported to side with the Canadians but after discussion had indicated that they have no firm position. Lodge reported that the Secretary’s proposal was ingenious but fall between two stools. (The Secretary that morning had discussed with Lodge the possibility of giving the Disarmament Commission authority in its discretion to co-opt other members to serve on a permanent or partial basis whenever they thought it would serve their purposes, the thought being that the Committee or Subcommittee would not be enlarged although there would be the possibility of bringing other countries in, thus enabling us to keep control without showing our hand.)4

The Secretary subsequently asked Ambassador Caccia to help assure British support for our position.5

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Thereafter the Secretary discussed this problem with Ambassador Merchant and asked him to approach the Canadians stating that it would be unfortunate if the US and Canada publicly split. Merchant later reported to the Secretary that the Canadians had not advanced a resolution of their own but one which had been developed with the Indians. Merchant further reported that the Canadians were under the impression that they had British support, although he thought they were under a misapprehension.6

The Secretary then brought Ambassador Lodge up to date on the foregoing developments, whereupon Ambassador Lodge thanked the Secretary for his efforts and stated that he thought that they would have a very good effect.7

D.W.K. Peacock, Jr.8
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 660.0012/11–657. Confidential. The source text is a summary of several memoranda of Dulles’ telephone conversations, all of November 5. (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations) Specific citations to these telephone calls are given in all but two of the following footnotes.↩
  2. Memorandum of telephone call from Lodge to Dulles, 5:32 p.m. (Ibid.)↩
  3. This meeting is summarized in Delga 371 from New York, November 5, (Department of State, Central Files, 330.13/11–557)↩
  4. Dulles’ suggestion is contained in a memorandum of telephone call from Lodge to Dulles, 11:48 a.m. (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations)↩
  5. Memorandum of telephone call from Dulles to Caccia, 5:38 p.m. (Ibid.)↩
  6. Two memoranda of telephone calls from Dulles to Merchant, 5:45 p.m., and 6:25 p.m. (Ibid.)↩
  7. Memorandum of telephone call from Dulles to Lodge, 6:30 p.m. (Ibid.)↩
  8. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩