Office of the Historian

602. Memorandum of Conversation1

SecDel MC/110
New York, October 7, 1960, 1:10 p.m.
[Facsimile Page 1]

SECRETARY’S DELEGATION TO THE FIFTEENTH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
New York, October 3–7, 1960

PARTICIPANTS

    • United States
    • The Secretary of State
    • Mr. Max V. Krebs
    • United Kingdom
    • Lord Alexander Home
    • Mr. I. A. Samuel (Private Secretary)

SUBJECT

  • Disarmament

The Secretary opened the conversation by asking Lord Home how Prime Minister Macmillan’s second conversation with Khrushchev had gone. The Foreign Secretary said almost the entire conversation had been devoted to disarmament with Khrushchev adding a new element in suggesting a special session of the General Assembly in February or March 1961 to take up only disarmament. Macmillan countered that he thought some progress could be made in Committee I during the General Assembly. He made no commitment regarding Khrushchev’s suggestion. Lord Home went on to say that Khrushchev is expected to speak tomorrow when the Assembly discusses adoption of the agenda, and may advance his line regarding disarmament at that time.

Lord Home said that British tactic will be to refuse to be drawn into any general discussion of disarmament in the plenary. He questioned how long Boland would allow Khrushchev to go on with any statement on disarmament noting that the [Facsimile Page 2] vote in the Committee on referral of disarmament to Committee had been better than a two-thirds majority. The Secretary said that in several of his talks with representatives of smaller nations he found them all in agreement with the idea of taking up disarmament in Committee first. As far as he was concerned Lord Home said he planned to leave on the morning of the 8th and would come back to New York only if the General Assembly got involved in the disarmament item and then only for a few days. He did indicate he might return to take part if the item came under serious consideration in Committee I.

[Typeset Page 2181]

Continuing, Lord Home said Macmillan had tried to get Khrushchev into discussion of controls and inspection, but that Khrushchev had shied away. The Foreign Secretary said that in a talk with Moch yesterday he had raised the question of DeGaulle’s proposals on control of means of delivery. Moch had said there had been a misunderstanding of French intentions in this regard and that they had intended only inspection of the means of delivery in the first stage.

In reply to Lord Home’s question the Secretary said the only other item which had been under consideration by the U.S. for possible advancement into the first stage was the matter of nuclear missiles. The Secretary added, however, that we had run into difficulty since this would involve submarines and other naval vessels as well as any aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

  1. Source: Disarmament at the United Nations. Secret. 2 pp. NARA, RG 59, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 64 D 199.↩