218. Editorial Note
At the 407th meeting of the National Security Council on May 21, 1959, Under Secretary of State Dillon briefed the Council on the results of the Geneva Foreign Ministers Conference. Gleason’s memorandum of discussion reads as follows:
“Secretary Dillon added the thought that there had been a couple of fairly significant developments at the private dinner meeting of the Foreign Ministers. In the first place, Secretary Herter had informed Gromyko that the U.S. would never consent to a Summit Meeting under threat. Secondly, there had been a flop in the matter of the nuclear test negotiations. The sudden hope of progress in this area had ended abruptly almost as soon as it had been born. If the Soviets do not retreat from the position recently taken by Khrushchev who had stated a willingness to study only high altitude test suspension, the prospects for any real agreement seemed to Secretary Dillon to be very slim.
“The Vice President inquired whether Secretary Dillon meant to convey that the Soviets would not agree to the suggestions on test suspension made in the President’s recent letter to Khrushchev. Secretary Dillon said they would not agree to these suggestions.” (Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records)
[Page 745]President Eisenhower’s most recent letter to Khrushchev is that of May 5, the text of which is printed in Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, pages 1403–1405. In a May 14 letter to Eisenhower, Khrushchev expressed willingness to discuss at a technical level concrete measures for the detection of explosions conducted at high altitudes for the purpose of including such measures in the system of control. For text of that letter, see ibid., pages 1409–1411.