Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Western European Integration and Security, Canada, Volume VII, Part 1

36. Telegram From the Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Department of State⁰

London, October 23, 1958, 1 p.m.

2220. From Dillon. During my talk with Macmillan accompanied by Ambassador Whitney the Prime Minister said he wanted to discuss the free trade area. The Prime Minister spoke from a memorandum and said that his views represented those of his cabinet colleagues. He said he felt the French had not been negotiating in good faith since last year for a number of reasons among them the pressure of the patronat on De Gaulle. He hoped that De Gaulle would be less subject to this influence after the election.¹ He said it was obvious that no agreement could be reached on FTA prior to January 1 and that UK Government had considered very seriously what to do. They had reached conclusion that they should continue negotiations as at present and had put aside the two alternatives of negotiating provisional agreement or of breaking off negotiations and organizing a counter movement. They hoped that six would extend the 10 percent cut in tariff to all other OEEC countries. Macmillan then said he felt that the De Gaulle letter² had a bearing on this subject and that De Gaulle was definitely using this trick in bargaining with the British on the FTA. It seemed that his price for accepting the FTA would be UK and US acceptance in some form of the principle of the De Gaulle letter.

In answering Macmillan I told him we welcomed British decision to continue negotiations as we felt that this was the right course. I told him that extension of the 10 percent cut to OEEC members only would cause us real difficulties in the GATT unless it took place as part of a definite planned creation of the FTA. Macmillan replied that he understood this and he agreed that there should be some sort of agreement accepting FTA in principle and labelling any cut in tariffs as first step towards eventual full implementation of FTA.

I also said that in my view agreement could only be reached on FTA in bilateral conversations between Macmillan and De Gaulle since other French negotiators would never have adequate authority to reach compromise agreement. Macmillan agreed that French negotiators had no authority and seemed to accept fact that he would have to settle matter bilaterally with De Gaulle at appropriate time, possibly with US assistance in view implications De Gaulle letter.

In talking about the FTA Macmillan was very firm in saying that the British would not go down without a fight. He definitely included the Germans with the French in this [1-½ lines of source text not declassified]. He said that rather than accept such a situation UK would organize a counter movement of their own and would have to reevaluate her position in NATO.

Whitney

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 440.002/10–2358. Secret; Priority. Repeated priority to Bonn and to Paris for USRO. Dillon was in London on the last leg of a 5-week trip that took him to 10 countries in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East.
1. The French general elections for the National Assembly were held in late November and the Presidential elections on December 21.
2. De Gaulle’s letter of September 17 to President Eisenhower, a copy of which was sent to Macmillan, dealt with De Gaulle’s proposal for a restructuring of NATO. For text, see Part 2, Document 45.