428. Memorandum From Herter to
Eisenhower1
Washington, February 22,
1959
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SUBJECT
- Reply to Prime Minister Macmillan’s Message of February 20
I enclose a suggested reply to Prime Minister Macmillan’s letter of
February 20 to you about our position in the Geneva nuclear test
suspension negotiations.
If you approve the response I propose to pass it to the British Embassy
on Monday morning for transmission to the Prime Minister in Moscow.
Acting Secretary
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Enclosure
Suggested Letter From Eisenhower
February 22, 1959
Dear Harold:
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I agree with the points you make in your message of February 20 about
the importance of the negotiations in Geneva and the advantages
which would come to us from a sound agreement. I agree also that
perfect control is impossible, both in theory and in practice.
However, I am firmly convinced that it would be folly for us now to
relax our position in any way; the Soviets are making no signs of
movement toward us on the crucial issues.
I concur that an agreement with the USSR on nuclear testing will establish a precedent for
controls in other fields. This point concerns me very much. It
reinforces the need to continue to press the USSR for a satisfactory agreement on
fundamentals before moving to other issues. The important points are
the way inspection is organized and the procedures to insure rapid
dispatch of inspection teams. We cannot accept any impediments to
dispatch of inspection teams. We must be careful that the staffing
pattern of the control posts is not
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such as to interfere with the
integrity of the collection and transmission of data. We must be
sure that the voting procedures do not legalize obstruction of the
operations of the control system. I am sure that you will agree with
me that on these points we must be absolutely firm.
Our fear about your proposal for setting an annual upper limit on
inspections is that it would get us into negotiations on numbers
without agreement on the basic elements of inspection and control.
Further, there would be ever-increasing pressure on us, once we
accepted the upper limits principle, to go lower and lower until
there would no longer be an acceptable level of deterrence.
Therefore, I believe we should contemplate no proposals of this type
until and unless the important points I have described above are
satisfactorily settled.
With warm personal regard,
As ever,
