397. Memorandum of Conversation Between John Foster Dulles and Gray1
On 26 November, I met with Secretary Dulles. For the first portion of the meeting Mr. Philip J. Farley was in attendance.
The first subject for discussion was Senator Gore’s memorandum to the President which I had circulated to the Secretary of State and others under date of 26 November. I suggested to the Secretary of State that, with his approval, we might make use of the interdepartmental machinery, which had previously been set up by Mr. Farley, to deal with problems arising out of the Geneva Conferences. I indicated that I had earlier received Mr. Farley’s agreement to such a procedure.
The Secretary felt that this was altogether appropriate. He said, however, that inasmuch as the Gore proposal was something timed for an impending breakup of the conference, he felt that there was no great rush because he believed that the conference would not break up very soon.
He indicated, however, that a more pressing problem which the interdepartmental machinery should address itself to was the question of a link with other disarmament measures. He indicated that the British were eager to destroy this link for their own domestic political purposes and that we might have a very difficult time holding them with us. I agreed that this matter should have top priority but that the Gore memorandum should be considered as an auxiliary problem. The Secretary instructed Mr. Farley to proceed.
I had pointed out to Mr. Dulles that Mr. McCone was out of town until December 1 and that Mr. McElroy and Mr. Quarles were immediately unavailable because of Defense budget problems. Mr. Dulles then pointed out to me that he would be absent from Washington from Sunday, November 30th until Friday, December 5th.
At this point Mr. Farley departed the meeting.
I then discussed with Secretary Dulles my concern of not having been involved in the decisions reached at his house on Sunday, November 16. The Secretary assured me that this was an oversight and apologized, saying [Facsimile Page 2] that he felt that it was more of an operating decision, but agreed with me that high policy had indeed been involved. He then [Typeset Page 1486] indicated that he has never invited General Cutler to such meetings at his house but it was his intention to make a change for the future.
We then discussed briefly the forthcoming Defense budget conference at Augusta which was to take place on Friday, November 28. The Secretary expressed a desire that, in his behalf, I report at the meeting his feeling that as long as we maintained an adequate deterrent, our greatest threat in the foreseeable future was not of nuclear war but of local aggression and the requirement for such actions as we have taken recently in Lebanon and in the Taiwan Strait. He therefore asked me to say that from the point of view of his responsibilities in the conduct of foreign policy, he hoped that budget decisions would not impair or cripple our capacity to deal with local situations.
Special Assistant to the President
- Source: Use of interdepartmental machinery to deal with issues arising from nuclear test suspension conference. Secret. 2 pp. Eisenhower Library, White House Office Files, Project Clean Up. Drafted December 5.↩