Office of the Historian

167. Memorandum of Conversation0

USDel/MC/18
Paris, December 16, 1958, 9:45 a.m.

UNITED STATES DELEGATION TO THE MINISTERIAL MEETING OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC COUNCIL

Paris, France, December 16–18, 1958

PARTICIPANTS

  • United States
    • The Secretary of State
    • Mr. Merchant
    • Mr. McBride
  • Italy
    • Prime Minister Fanfani
    • Mr. Manzini
[Page 378]

SUBJECT

  • DeGaulle Memorandum

The Secretary said that in his talk with DeGaulle yesterday,1 the latter had continued to be insistent regarding the creation of a tripartite body for worldwide strategy. He had told deGaulle that the US was prepared to discuss with France as with others what our policies were in non-NATO areas; however we could not accept a new organism superimposed on the existing arrangements. We had held two tripartite meetings in Washington as the Italians had been informed.2 These had not been very satisfactory to anyone. We were not averse to explaining our policies anywhere in the world to our friends but we would not agree to an organism which had authority and perhaps a veto power. As a result there had not been a meeting of the minds in his talk with DeGaulle yesterday.

Fanfani said that deGaulle had not mentioned this issue to him yesterday at all, so Fanfani had not raised it either, though DeGaulle had talked to him about it in August.3 Fanfani said his objective in this context was not to cause trouble, and accordingly he had not believed it wise to raise the matter yesterday. He said his hope had been that the General would forget about this idea. The Secretary said that unfortunately DeGaulle has not forgotten about it, and indeed was more emphatic and explicit yesterday than he had been on any previous occasion. Fanfani said Adenauer had told him that DeGaulle had not raised this problem with him either.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1169. Confidential. Drafted by McBride on December 16. The meeting was held at the U.S. Embassy Residence.↩
  2. See Part 2, Document 81.↩
  3. See Part 2, Documents 77 and 78. A memorandum of McBride’s conversation with Carlo Perrone-Capano, Counselor of the Italian Embassy in Washington, December 4, summarized McBride’s briefing of the December 4 tripartite talks. (Department of State, Central Files, 740.5/12–458) Topol 2009 to Paris, December 11, noted that the Italians had been briefed on the December 4 tripartite talks. (ibid., 740.5/12–1158)↩
  4. No record of Fanfani’s meetings with De Gaulle in Paris August 7–8 or December 15 has been found.↩