537. Note From Caccia to Herter1
Washington, March 7,
1960
Dear Chris,
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I have been asked to pass to you the attached personal message from the
Foreign Secretary.
Yours sincerely
Attachment
Message From Lloyd to Herter
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TEXT OF MESSAGE
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your letter of March 5. I am glad that you have got safely
back to Washington. I hope that you are not too tired by what must have
been a very arduous but well worth while journey.
I am glad that we have reached a compromise agreement on the language of
the link between Stages 2 and 3. I am grateful to you and your
colleagues for their willingness to try to meet our point of view. I do
not think that our solution is ideal, but we too tried to find something
that you could live with.
The problem in my mind has been one of presentation. Our preoccupation
has been to prevent Mr. Khrushchev getting off with an undeserved halo as the
man who is for complete disarmament. To start with, the Western plan
must look good enough and far reaching enough, subject to the accepted
reservations about effective control. If our plan does not look good
enough, we shall have given Khrushchev a big propaganda advantage which he will
particularly exploit at the Summit.
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Ormsby-Gore is going this
evening to Paris. I hope that Eaton and he will succeed in bringing the
French along. It would be a great pity if they are out of step on
disarmament. It will be another damaging blow to N.A.T.O.
With my best wishes,
