There is transmitted herewith a memorandum covering my conversation with
Prime Minister Salazar on New
Year’s Eve.
Enclosure
Memorandum of a Conversation Between
Prime Minister Salazar
and the Ambassador in Portugal (Bonbright), Sao Bento Palace, Lisbon, December
31, 1956, 6 p.m.4
SUBJECT
Accompanied by Mr. Xanthaky, I
met with Prime Minister Salazar at the Sao Bento Palace at 6:00 p.m. on
December 31, 1956. The conversation lasted close to two hours.
I began by suggesting that it might be useful if I went over
chronologically the various steps in the Azores negotiations since
this record was important in an assessment of the problem. Dr.
Salazar agreed and I then
went over much the same ground as I had covered with the Foreign
Minister on November 7,5 pointing out the
following:
- 1)
- Informal conversations envisaging new defense facilities
at Lajes were initiated on the military level in September
of 1955.
- 2)
- During Dr. Cunha’s
visit to Washington in December 1955, the Azores matter was
also discussed. At that time Dr. Cunha had expressed the
view that negotiations should take place on the political
level and Mr. Dulles therefore
suggested that the U.S. should prepare a draft of a new
Agreement to serve as a basis for negotiation.
- 3)
- This was done, and on March 5, 1956, our draft was
conveyed to Dr. Cunha with an indication that I was ready to
discuss it with him at any time.6
- 4)
- In April, Mr. Dulles sent a personal
letter to Dr. Paulo
Cunha7 informing
him of the difficulties in Iceland and suggesting that, in
his view, it might be extremely beneficial [2½ lines of source text not
declassified] if the Portuguese Government could
conclude our new Azores agreement before the Iceland
elections in June.
- 5)
- During the latter part of May I again endeavored to obtain
from Dr. Cunha an
indication as to when the negotiations at the political
level for the Defense Agreement would start. The latter had
indicated
[Page 468]
that he
had not had time to come to grips with the problem, but that
he hoped to be in a position to discuss the matter in July
when both he and I returned from our holidays.
- 6)
- At the end of August, I was informed in writing by Dr.
Cunha that the
Portuguese Government did not consider the four-months
period which we were entering (September–December) as part
of the “evacuation” period. At the same time he expressed
hope of concluding the new document before the end of the
year.
- 7)
- On November 7, Dr. Cunha informed me that since the Portuguese
Government would not be able to come to any decision about
the new agreement before the end of the year, it proposed to
prolong the 1951 Agreement for a year beginning January 1,
1957, during which period the new agreement would be
negotiated. Dr. Cunha added that he hoped to be in a
position to conclude the negotiations “within two or three
months”.
- 8)
- Under date of December 7, Mr. Dulles
again addressed a personal message to Dr. Cunha appealing to the
Portuguese Government to reconsider the position it had
taken in November and conclude a new agreement before the
end of 1956.8
I pointed out that in the light of this record my government had
cause for concern and I had been informed that we were not prepared
to go ahead now, on the basis of a one year prolongation, with the
construction work which our military authorities considered
desirable.
Dr. Salazar listened without
interruption to my recital and when I concluded he agreed that the
Americans had ample reason to be annoyed with what had taken place.
He manifested particular embarrassment that no reply had been made
to Mr. Dulles’ letter of last April. He wanted
to assure me, however, that prior to early autumn, the delays were
purely fortuitous and in a large degree connected with the illnesses
of Dr. Paulo Cunha. For
example, he himself had been confident that after the Foreign
Minister, who had been ailing, had done his cure in Vichy last July,
Cunha would be fully
able to complete the agreement during the summer. As a matter of
fact, he, Dr. Salazar, had
postponed his own vacation in order to be here at the time he
supposed those negotiations would take place. Cunha, however, returned to Lisbon
in worse shape than when he left
and was not in a condition to carry on such an important
negotiation. Hence, the Portuguese letter of late August.9 Subsequently, however, a series of events
caused the Portuguese Government to reflect on the desirability from
their standpoint of postponing the conclusion of the new agreement.
He said, “We are disturbed about the directions which American
foreign policy is taking and frankly I do not understand where you
are heading”.
[Page 469]
At this point I observed that my government had always felt that the
Azores problem should be considered on its merits. The Azores was a
matter involving our mutual defense and it was a contribution which
both countries were able to make as members of the NATO alliance. Naturally amongst
allies there would be differences of opinion on political questions,
but we had hoped that these would be considered apart and not in the
context of our mutual defense. To this Dr. Salazar observed that Portugal had
interests scattered in Africa and Asia, and she wished to make sure
that American policies were not prejudicial to those interests; he
felt that we could not expect Portugal to make concessions to the
U.S. in the Azores if our policies should result in harm to them
elsewhere. He went on at considerable length about NATO. In his view the alliance was
seriously shaken despite the optimistic words spoken in Paris and in
the official communiqué. By our action against England and France,
the two most powerful European components of the Alliance, we had
completely undermined NATO and he
wondered whether it would ever again have the same value. In reply I
stressed our continued support for NATO and explained as best I could the American
viewpoint on the Suez question, but it was clear that Dr. Salazar was unconvinced. He
expressed complete distrust of Nasser and the Egyptians and pointed out that the
moment the French and British attacked, all terrorist activities in
French North Africa ceased immediately. When the attack was halted
the terrorist activities were resumed. The Prime Minister repeated
several times “We must see where the U.S. is heading; we are greatly
disturbed at her Afro-Asian policies in prejudice of Europe”. Dr.
Salazar also mentioned
his skepticism of the United Nations as an instrument for the
carrying out of foreign policy; in addition, the UN is gradually being weighted against
the Europeans and he has no confidence in it.
The Prime Minister said he found Mr.
Dulles’statements of October 2 as well as those
of Vice President Nixon made
about the same period particularly disturbing. He understood that at
times U.S. public men may make off the cuff declarations to
newspaper reporters that do not represent considered policy.
However, usually only with the passage of a certain period of time
could it be fully ascertained whether statements of the nature made
by Mr. Dulles and Mr. Nixon reflect the considered
opinions of the Government or whether they were made under the
pressure of circumstances of the moment. I reminded Dr. Salazar that Mr.
Dulles had spoken to Dr. Cunha about the colonial issue
when the latter visited Washington in December, 1955. The Secretary
stated then that the traditions of the United States in favor of
self-government, etc., for all peoples were well known. The
Secretary, however, had carefully qualified this statement by adding
that the evolution of dependent peoples to self government should
take place
[Page 470]
only after they
had first manifested their desire for it and shown themselves in a
sufficiently advanced state of civilization to govern themselves. To
this, Dr. Salazar observed
that while it was true that the Secretary had made such remarks to
Dr. Cunha, he had not stated
such qualifications in his October 2 press conference.
[1 paragraph (22 lines of source text) not
declassified]
Turning again to the question of our negotiations I remarked that
since the technical aspects had been agreed upon in principle by the
U.S. and Portuguese military, it seemed to me that the only question
of consequence as far as the Defense Agreement was concerned was the
termination date. Dr. Salazar
said that in general he agreed, although all the drafts were “ad
referendum”. However, he thought that when Dr. Cunha was in shape to begin the negotiations, they
should go rapidly. He emphasized, in this connection, that Portugal
did not intend to bargain with us or attempt to hold us up. He also
added, “We cannot agree that the termination date should be that of
the North Atlantic Treaty itself; it will have to be for a fixed
period of years.”
Dr. Salazar said that the
physicians had assured him that Dr. Cunha would be completely restored to health by the
latter part of February and that he was confident Cunha would be able to take up the
negotiations shortly after reassuming his duties. (Note: In
subsequent discussion of this point with Queiros, the latter said he had
Salazar’s personal
assurance that if Cunha does
not recover as rapidly as hoped, the Portuguese Government will
proceed with the negotiations in March regardless.) He said he saw
no reason why the urgent construction work of a military character
could not be undertaken by us at Lajes immediately. He added that he
had already given his consent to this. I explained again the
budgetary and Congressional difficulties which confronted us in an
agreement whereby we were getting an extension for only a year. Dr.
Salazar said he wished to
make it clear that what he was proposing was not a new agreement but
simply the unilateral prolongation of the 1951 Agreement for another
year. In other words, he said, just consider that the expiration of
the 1951 Agreement was December 1957 instead of December 1956.
I concluded that if that was Dr. Salazar’s final decision, we would of course have to
accept it but that I wished to register my personal disappointment
as well as that of my government. However, I was reassured by Dr.
Salazar’s statement that
the agreement would be promptly resolved once Dr. Cunha was back in the Foreign
Office, and that he anticipated this would take place in March or
April. On departure Dr. Salazar was once more extremely apologetic for their
past
[Page 471]
delays and mentioned
that “these were fortuitous up to the time of the Suez invasion and
did not represent a policy of indefinite postponement on our
part”.
