526. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between Herter and McCone1
Mr. McCone telephoned to say he had about 45 minutes with the President this morning, and that their talk had run along the lines of the Secretary’s talk with the President yesterday. Mr. McCone said the President expressed considerable concern over the British opposition, and volunteered his recognition that if this British opposition ever got on the Hill we would have troubles on the bilaterals. The Secretary said Mr. Merchant had already run into difficulties on this yesterday. Mr. McCone said it was the Republicans who were causing the difficulties, principally Hickenlooper and Hosmer, who were probing this so-called “undue extension of Presidential authority”.
The Secretary said he is going to talk very frankly to Caccia this afternoon. McCone said he mentioned the Ormsby-Gore threat to the President, and the Secretary said we had sent information on this to Goodpaster to pass along to the President. McCone said Goodpaster did report to the President and that the President had asked Goodpaster to call the Secretary to be sure we fully understood the implications of this from the standpoint of the bilaterals. The Secretary said he is going to have to see Ormsby-Gore when he arrives on Monday, and that it is a question of how far to go with him and still try to keep the confidence of the person who told us. McCone said he thinks the Secretary will just have to smoke him out by telling him this is what we are going to do and asking him what they are going to do in light of this. McCone said the President is right along with us all the way.
[Typeset Page 1931]McCone said on the Emylanov matter, the President seemed to think it was worth exploring. McCone said he was now talking with Dr. Rabi and John Hall, and that Mr. Hall will be meeting a little later with Mr. Bohlen. McCone said they will then phone Emylanov and, if that is productive, Hall will go over there and, if that is productive, McCone will go.
McCone said he and the President had an interesting talk on the idea McCone had talked to the Secretary about, i.e., taking a plant and matching it with another plant on the cut off, with a second phase of an open sky search for another plant. McCone said he would like to see us staff this out a little with Eaton and others. The Secretary [Facsimile Page 2] said Eaton has to be given guidance on our line of approach; what, at the present time, Eaton is still doing is trying to talk about matters of substance rather than technique on the major issues to see where we are at but, at the same time, it is a question of how this particular thing is approached. McCone said he thinks this might be something that could be done. The Secretary said it was a question in his mind whether this is leading to a complete cutoff, with this being a method of doing it bit by bit, and this being a part of the method of ascertaining whether there are any more plants or not—a part of the inspection, so to speak. McCone said this might lead to a complete cutoff and reveal all the plants, and the open skies would lead to a lot of other things, including the missle problem. The Secretary said this is where we run into problems in that they will say we want to find the launching pads instead of the plants. McCone said he would tell them that of course we want to find the pads if we are going to discuss disarmament. The Secretary said that, of course, this is the crucial thing we are driving at, but that this is the great military advantage the Soviets have and it is a question of what they may ask as a quid pro quo for their giving up this military advantage. McCone said they offerred complete disarmament without any quid pro quo. The Secretary said he thinks all the way through we are up against the same fundamental difficulty, i.e. adequate inspection. The Secretary said there he thought the question of inspection ought to be considered case by case on what we are trying to handle. McCone said his theory is that our posture will be better on the 15th of March if we offer something significant and tangible; but not complete, rather than just offering to study something, and that is why he suggests this course. McCone said all we may get is one padlocked plant here and one there but it will make headlines three inches high. The Secretary said we want to give very careful study to actually laying it on the line and asking them to do the same in having so much fissionable material neutralized which is something we can afford better than they can. McCone said he had a few brief notes on this, which he could personally show the Secretary. Agreed McCone would meet the Secretary at 1:50 today and ride over to lunch with him.
- Source: Ormsby-Gore visit. No classification marking. 2 pp. Eisenhower Library, Herter Papers, Phone Calls and Miscellaneous Memos.↩