293. Memorandum of Conversation Between Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles1
1. I showed the President the proposed statement with reference to organizing the disarmament work. He said he would like to get Jack McCloy on the panel also. I said that I would ask him to serve.
2. I referred to the request of Ambassador Menshikov to see the President and pointed out the embarrassment that would result if ambassadors adopted the habit generally of trying to see the President directly on the affairs of their governments. The President wholly agreed. He suggested that we should tell the Soviet Ambassador that he could, of course, see me at once, but that due to the President’s engagements it would not be possible for the Ambassador to see him until toward the end of the week and then I would, of course, be present.
3. We discussed the “Summit” meeting and Macmillan’s letter. I said I would attempt to draft a reply which would point out the desirability of having our agenda and positions and participations agreed with our NATO Allies before we started to negotiate with the Soviets and much more so before we attempt to fix a date. The President felt that this was the right line to take.
I showed the President Roscoe Drummond’s article on “Summit” talks from the Herald-Tribune of February 23.
4. I also showed the President the quotation from the speech of Defense Minister Malinovski criticizing the United States and Britain for delaying the opening of a Second Front.
5. The President referred to a report he had received that Soviet submarines had been sighted off the Atlantic Coast. He said that Admiral Burke was coming to see him about that. The President also expressed his strong reluctance at our Soviet overflights.
I mentioned the Soviet complaint about our “buzzing” Soviet trawlers off the Banks.
[Facsimile Page 2]6. The President referred to Macmillan’s suggestion of participating both in the Citadel and De Pauw events and suggested that it would be best if Macmillan merely came for the De Pauw meeting and then came to Washington the following day, Monday, June 9.
7. We discussed the list of prospective official visits during the latter part of the year. The President said that he was favorable to setting up a meeting for Garcia, but did not think favorably of King Idris, [Typeset Page 1239] President Chiang or Prime Minister Sihanouk. He suggested we should defer on these latter three. In this connection, I showed the President Mr. Herter’s memorandum to me of February 20, attached.
8. The President spoke again of his interest in making a proposal for bringing over a large number of Soviet young people to study here, and at our Government’s expense. I said we were having this staffed as there were many technical problems involved.
- Source: Disarmament panel; summit meeting; Menshikov meeting; Soviet submarines off U.S. east coast; official visits; Macmillan’s visit; youth exchanges with the Soviet Union. Secret. 2 pp. Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Meetings with the President.↩