Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Western Europe and Canada, Volume XXVII

71. Draft Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington March 28, 1955, 11 a.m.¹

Washington March 28, 1955, 11 a.m.

SUBJECT

• Visit of Premier of Italy Mario Scelba with Secretary of State

PARTICIPANTS

• The Prime Minister of Italy
• The Secretary of State
• The Foreign Minister of Italy
• Ambassador Luce
• Ambassador Brosio
• Ambassador Magistrati
• Assistant Secretary of State Merchant
• Minister Canali (Interpreter for Italian side)
• Mr. Jones (WE)
• Lt. Col. Walters (Interpreter for U.S. side)

The Secretary opened the meeting by saying how happy he was to welcome Premier Scelba and how glad he was to have an opportunity of talking over a number of different problems. Since their last meeting a number of events had taken place, in particular, a happy solution of the Trieste problem had been reached. The Italian ratification of the Paris Accords had taken place at a psychological time and had contributed materially to the recent ratification of these accords by the French Assembly. He felt that the role of Premier Scelba’s Government was significant and it enabled us to envision a future in which the Italian nation is destined to play a great part. He felt that the role of Italy would be increasingly important and that his Government welcomed this development.

Mr. Scelba thanked the Secretary and said how happy he was to meet him again. Many events had taken place since their last meeting at Villa Carminati in Milan and a successful conclusion had been given to a number of matters that had been considered at that time.² The Trieste question had finally been solved after being an irritant ever since the end of World War II. Italy had played her part in solving the various international problems which had arisen. She had given her full cooperation in the matter of European collaboration. He was happy to have this meeting with the Secretary and to be able after these events had occurred to examine the new situation now existing. He again wished to thank the Secretary for all he had done to help in solving the Trieste problem and he wished also to pay a warm tribute to the friendly and practical attitude of Ambassador Luce.

The Secretary then said that he would be happy to follow any line of conversation which the Prime Minister might care to suggest. He hoped that they could at some point talk about the future in Europe in terms of moving forward from the ratification of the Paris Accords towards a greater measure of unity in Europe.

Mr. Scelba mentioned that both the French and Italian Parliaments in ratifying the Paris Accords expressed the hope that some talks might be held with the East on the whole question of East-West relations. While one might not necessarily expect concrete or fruitful results from such discussions, it might be wise not to give the Russians the psychological advantage of presenting this problem as one of refusal to talk, on the part of the West, on questions of East-West problems and limitation of armaments.

In the matter of limitation of armaments the Secretary said he knew how close this matter was to Mr. Scelba’s heart. He believed that the pattern established under the Brussels Treaty³ constituted a first major practical effort to limit and control armaments, and this pattern might lend itself to constructive action. He would like to have the Prime Minister’s opinion on this matter. The Prime Minister agreed with the Secretary and said that this was important psychologically in Italy where the Communists had such strong representation.

Foreign Minister Martino said that just before he left for the United States the Italian Ambassador in Bonn, Mr. Grazzi, came to see him and told him that Chancellor Adenauer would like the Secretary informed that he is now in a somewhat difficult position in his own country because of a movement in public opinion, that he would feel compelled to talk of the necessity of conversations with the East to explore means of unifying Germany. The Chancellor is convinced that unification will not be easy. The Chancellor felt that however great the attractiveness of this search for unity, he would not like to leave the solidarity of the Western camp but that the German Government wanted talks to take place with the East perhaps in the form of a Four-Power conference in order to solve the problem of unification and reach general agreement. The Chancellor felt that the limitation and control of armaments could take place only in such a framework and only in that way might it be possible to unify Germany. He wanted the Secretary to know his position that he would now find it necessary to speak publicly regarding the desire of the German Government in this direction.

The Secretary then said that he was appearing on the following day before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee⁴ as the U.S. had not yet ratified the Paris Agreements. Mr. Scelba jokingly remarked, “You are the ones at fault there.” The Secretary then said that he would like to read to the Prime Minister what he planned to say and would be interested to hear whether the Prime Minister thought this was appropriate and fitted in with their ideas on this subject. The Secretary then handed his proposed statement to Minister Canali who read it aloud in Italian to the Prime Minister. Mr. Scelba then said he felt it was an excellent statement and Foreign Minister Martino added that it accurately reflected the Italian point of view also. Mr. Scelba added that he felt it was extremely timely and he was appreciative of this. The Secretary said he thought the Prime Minister had expressed some thoughts along this line in Ottawa and Montreal. The Prime Minister said that he had been in agreement with the Canadian Government but that the press had inflated what he had actually said and this poor reporting had given rise to some misunderstanding. The Premier said he felt something should be done to satisfy the European Parliament who had asked on the occasion of the ratification of the Paris Agreements, that following these, something be done to lessen international tension.

Foreign Minister Martino said it was a matter of satisfying public opinion. The Canadian Government apparently felt the same way and Mr. Pearson had mentioned that at the new [next] NATO meeting⁵ it might be well to suggest that a rather broad agenda be set up so that public opinion could be informed that the NATO Council was discussing this matter collectively and this would avoid private initiatives by individual nations. The Prime Minister signified his agreement with what the Foreign Minister had said.

The Secretary said he felt the next NATO meeting could be important and would be important. The instruments of ratification would have been deposited. The Germans would be there for the first time and we could look ahead and chart new prospectives with more hope.

Mr. Scelba said that the Canadian Government regretted the limited agenda for the next NATO Council meeting. They felt that in one day it would be impossible to engage in any serious discussions of the numerous problems involved, and the Italians themselves shared this point of view. The Secretary said we felt it should last longer than one day. The Prime Minister then said that it might be profitable if the NATO Council were to study methods and ascertain the modalities for preparing talks with the USSR. The Secretary asked on what particular subjects, and the Prime Minister replied, on the question of East-West relations and disarmament.

The Secretary said that certain aspects of East-West relations were of interest to all NATO nations. The unification of Germany was a matter of concern to all but there was a field of special responsibility of the United Kingdom, France and the United States as they retained under the Accords the rights of occupying powers insofar as the unification of Germany is concerned. He felt that probably about that time or shortly before the meeting, a conference of three or four powers could be held to draw up a common point of view as they had certain legal responsibilities that were not general. He felt that the entire Council would have an opportunity to discuss matters of interest to the whole NATO Alliance. In the matter of disarmament and limitation of armaments the Secretary felt that as indicated in his proposed statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, we felt that the greatest hope at present for progress lies in taking the Brussels pattern and ascertaining if it could be extended to the East. There were two aspects to this question which we should bear in mind: (1) the Federal Republic would not be willing to discuss this matter merely in terms of German rearmament, as this would reopen an issue that had already been settled, but rather to talk about it in terms of the whole NATO position, perhaps again using the Brussels pattern. They would not want the discussions to lead to the isolation or neutralization of Germany. As a second point the Secretary felt that we would have a certain amount of clearance and understanding with the U.N. Commission which was working in London on this subject now. He could not foresee the outcome of their work but he felt that we should be careful not to cross wires on this problem.

Mr. Scelba felt he had several questions in this connection in order to clarify the matter in his own mind. Firstly, a meeting with the Germans, French and British would be considered entirely natural, particularly now that they were in NATO and in view of the fact that the foregoing powers had certain special rights as occupying powers. Italy was not involved in these matters. The establishment of Germany’s equality and participation in NATO presents additional problems in East-West relations concerning unification of Germany, disarmament and Austria. In these, Italy was interested and could participate. He wondered how these questions would be discussed, whether with a fixed agenda or else without formal agenda. He felt that the exclusion of Italy from talks on these subjects would not be considered favorably by the Italians. He would also like to know if such conversations as might be held with the East would be on a particular question, or would cover a broad framework of East-West problems. His second main question was as to where would these matters be discussed and where would decisions be arrived at. In NATO, or elsewhere? This was important for them as Italy was a member of NATO. They also felt that in relations with the East a common agreement was important for the West and that separate initiatives of individual states should be avoided. Individual actions were always dangerous as the Russians consistently used this in an attempt to drive a wedge between the Western countries. The Prime Minister said that he felt that in thrashing out the shape and form of any efforts in this field, NATO would be an appropriate forum particularly now that the Germans would be in it. The Secretary said jokingly that the Prime Minister had certainly succeeded in asking a difficult question early in the meeting. The Prime Minister said that it was important to arrive at a decision as to how to proceed in this matter as the method used would have important psychological repercussions. The Secretary said that he fully recognized the importance of the question that the Prime Minister had brought up. He felt that the time was passing when a few countries could presume to speak for many. That had perhaps been necesary during the war but it was an era that was diminishing. On the other hand it seemed that in the problem of East-West relations where for the purpose of dealing practically with these matters it might be necessary for certain countries who are charged with a special responsibility arising from the recent war to discuss the appropriate means of handling such a difficult question. He felt that in the matter of the liberation of Austria and the unification of Germany that there was a primary responsibility on Germany and Austria themselves and on the four occupying powers. He did not by any means believe that this meant that the opinion of others would be ignored. It had been a practice, at least insofar as the Western occupying powers were concerned to consult and exchange views with the NATO Council in handling these particular problems and he believed that the notes which were exchanged in the past were usually presented in advance to the Permanent Council. He felt that this practice should be continued and developed and that they might take advantage of the next ministerial meeting to have oral discussions on this subject.

Insofar as the other question was concerned, that of disarmament in Europe, this was of obvious interest to all NATO powers. He did not think it would be practical to deal with all aspects of this question through the United Nations of which Italy was not a member. In addition to this there were other aspects of disarmament such as those in the atomic field which might be of special interest to another group of states. Every one of these problems presented, in a manner of speaking, special sub-problems as to which nations were directly concerned and should participate in discussion on them. He did not feel it would be easy to make a generalization. The Soviets were continually trying to bring the Chinese Communist regime in on all discussions and we might have to face a situation where their efforts to enlarge the area of discussion and the participants of such discussions would be unacceptable to us. The Prime Minister’s question had posed a difficult problem. He would like to add that at Moscow in 1947 they had spent many fruitless hours on trying to determine who should attend the German peace conference. This was never settled. Some of the South American countries felt they should participate because they had declared war on Germany. To sum up, he felt that every aspect should be weighed separately to see how the problem could best be dealt with and which states should participate.

The Secretary wanted to make quite clear at this phase that we recognized the growing interest of Italy in these problems and that Italy by her conduct had qualified herself for this type of participation. The Secretary then indicated that it would be necessary to leave in order to reach the White House in time for the meeting with the President. The Prime Minister said he hoped he would have occasion to discuss these matters at the same level again before his departure as they were rather important to Italy.

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 765.13/3–2855. Secret. Prepared by Lieutenant Colonel Walters, a member of the U.S. Delegation to the NATO Standing Group in Washington. A note, dated March 30 and attached to the source text, indicates that this draft was cleared by Merchant and seen by Secretary Dulles.
2. For a record of the Dulles–Scelba meeting of May 3, 1954, see Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, vol. VIII, p. 419.
3. The Treaty of Economic, Social, and Cultural Collaboration and Collective Self-Defense among the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg was signed on March 17, 1948.
4. Dulles’ statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, made on March 29 on behalf of the Paris Accords, is printed in Department of State Bulletin, April 11, 1955, p. 605. The Senate ratified the agreements on April 1; President Eisenhower signed them on April 7.
5. The North Atlantic Council met in Paris, May 9–11.