Office of the Historian

80. Editorial Note

John Foster Dulles, V.M. Molotov, Harold Macmillan, and Antoine Pinay represented the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France, respectively, at the meeting of the Foreign Ministers in Geneva from October 27 to November 16. The Western powers’ invitation to the Geneva Summit Conference had stated that East-West tensions should be approached in two stages: the development of agreements on the substantive issues and the methods to be followed in exploring solutions to them, and the second stage in which the problems would be discussed in detail. The Heads of Government summit meeting in Geneva, July 18–23, was supposed to foster the first, and the Foreign Ministers meeting later that year became the organizational format to promote the second. For the views of the United States on the initial purposes of the Heads of Government meeting, see the note of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to the Soviet Union, May 10, printed in Department of State Bulletin, May 23, pages 832–833.

The directive of the Geneva Summit Conference, July 23, instructed their Foreign Ministers to discuss three major problem areas: European security and Germany, disarmament, and development of contacts between East and West. The directive to the Foreign Ministers further specified that they would meet “to initiate their consideration of these questions and to determine the organisation of their work.” For text, see ibid., August 1, 1955, pages 176–177.

The result of the discussions on these issues at the Foreign Ministers meeting in Geneva were inconclusive in terms of specific agreements, and the final communiqué of the meeting, November 16, concludes: [Page 225]

“The Foreign Ministers agreed to report the result of their discussions to their respective Heads of Government and to recommend that the future course of the discussions of the Foreign Ministers should be settled through diplomatic channels.” (Ibid., November 28, 1955, page 886)

For documentation on the Foreign Ministers meeting, see volume V.