362. Record of Telephone Conversation Between Herter and John Foster Dulles1
The Sec said Lloyd was in the other room. The Sec has rewritten the statement somewhat but the principle thing is the US taking account of the Geneva conclusions is prepared to proceed promptly etc. and he read. Lloyd is anxious in order to maintain the integrity of our position to have a requirement that the concept of the putting the experts’ report into effect should be accepted in principle by other nations—the SU and UK in our case. H said has it arisen in any way in regard to the French objection to have it submitted to govt—the Sec said no. We have taken the position we will not suspend unless there is a system to supervise—now we say we are going to stop testing for a year—we should insist the Soviets accept in principle there should be supervision and if we do that we have logic and integrity in our position. H thinks it has logic and the Sec thinks it has sense. The Sec said he talked to Farley about this. The Sec said he agreed to “the agreement should also deal with the problem of detonation for peaceful purposes as distinct from weapons tests.” They discussed something briefly I missed and H asked if we are free to continue during it and the Sec said yes, he thinks we are—we just agree to forego weapons tests. H said the logic is clear—the Sec said clear without spelling it out literally which we don’t want to do. H liked accept in principle. The Sec said he just got the text of the Pres’ letter. H said it was complicated.
- Source: Statement on cessation of nuclear testing. No classification marking. 1 p. Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations.↩