238. Letter From Prime Minister Eden to President Eisenhower1
Dear Friend: Here are a few random reflections from the visit of the bears.2 We were soon agreed that the main purpose of our meeting was serious talk. They made no attempt to escape from this and accepted without demur all the arrangements for the meetings, heavy as these were. They were considerate guests and made little attempt at propaganda. This may have been in part because the public behaved with such admirable restraint. They got no encouragement to attempt any such tactics as playing off the people against the Government, even if they had had them in mind.
From such exchanges as they had they seemed to prefer Her Majesty’s Government to Her Majesty’s Opposition.3
There was no effort at wedge-driving between us and you may think that this was clever on their part. I am inclined to think that it was an acceptance of the facts. They made few references to the United States and always spoke with respect of you.
Some of our earlier discussions were tough, especially an argument about colonialism, and a corresponding one about Eastern Europe. I think both were useful and instructive to each of us. Khrushchev was emphatic that we ought to understand that although the Russian influence with the satellites was considerable, the latter could be touchy and the Russians could not just order them about. There may well be something in this.
I was impressed by the grasp that these two men had of all the topics we discussed. I hardly saw them with anything that amounted to a brief. They were confident about their own country but I did not think that they were arrogant about their economic situation.
In the Middle East talk I made plain to them that we had to have our oil and that we were prepared to fight for it. They accepted this and though they continued to inveigh against the Bagdad Pact (or the Eden Pact, as Bulganin told me they called it in Moscow) I think that they may have begun to understand that it is a protective pad for our vital interests and not a dagger pointing at their guts.
[Page 658]I believe that war in the near future has no place in their plans. Their country seems to me to be going through a fairly normal post-revolutionary phase, Stalin having played the part of Napoleon in their story. These men seem to me to want to get on with their work at home, and why should they not? Therefore they do not want a flare-up, even in the Near East. I had to explain to them that this would happen if we did not align our policies.
I feel sure that the whole business was useful, although I confess I had some anxious moments at times. As the days went by I found these men more ready to admit other points of view than any Russians I have known, which does not of course mean that they accept them. It seems strange that they should exercise so much power. At times one wonders how long it can last.
Yours ever,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, International File. Top Secret. Enclosed in a letter from Makins to the President, May 1.↩
- Khruschchev and Bulganin.↩
- Reference is to a dinner on April 23 given in honor of the Soviet leaders by leaders of the Labour Party which “turned into sharp and bitter clash between the guests and their hosts” on the question of human rights in the Soviet Union. (Telegram 4843 from London, April 24; Department of State, Central Files, 033.6141/4–2456)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩