Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Western Europe, Volume VII, Part 2

270. Memorandum of Conversation⁰

US/MC/38

April 13, 1960, 2:15 p.m.

FOREIGN MINISTERS MEETING

Washington, D.C., April 12–14, 1960

SUBJECT

• Disarmament

[Here follows the same list of participants as Document 267.]

After a brief exchange during which Foreign Minister Segni said that the political situation in Italy was still on the “high seas”,¹ Mr. Segni said that he would be grateful to know what the Secretary thought would be discussed during the Five-Power Foreign Ministers Meeting on Disarmament² which would take place immediately after the meeting with the Secretary. Mr. Segni noted that he had received reports from the Italian Delegation at Geneva³ which indicated that, if the disarmament talks were not dead, they were certainly making no progress.

The Secretary said he thought the meeting this afternoon could agree on the report which the Five-Power Delegations in Geneva had prepared. There were several points of difficulty which might be discussed. In the first place it would be desirable to discuss the question of whether the Western Powers should agree to the drafting of a declaration of general principles, as the Soviets wished, or whether the West should maintain its present position of insisting on consideration of specific measures which would advance us towards our goal of disarmament. It might also be desirable to discuss the relationship of the control organization to the UN. This would be particularly important since any enlargement of disarmament to include many other nations might require relationship of the control organization to the UN. The Secretary pointed out too that the Canadians feel very strongly on this point. The United States was working on this problem at the present time and we hoped, the Secretary said, to have a paper for distribution before the next meeting of the Five Ministers in Istanbul.⁴ The discussions on this point might be preliminary but we hoped that this would not be an issue which would split western unity so early in the proceedings. Another point of discussion might be the strong French insistence with respect to nuclear weapons without regard to other matters. The Secretary pointed out that the meeting this afternoon might be somewhat complicated since while the Foreign Ministers would be talking in Washington, the Ten-Power Meeting would also be going on in Geneva.

Mr. Segni said he thought that the Russian proposal for a declaration of principles had all the earmarks of propaganda. From the western point of view it would be desirable to refute this propaganda move. There was nothing new or concrete in the Russian proposal and it appeared that the Russians had tried to gain time this week without resolving anything. Mr. Segni wondered whether the Secretary thought that some of the points of difficulty with the Soviets might be resolved at the Summit.

The Secretary replied that it was difficult, of course, to know what the Russians are planning to do. It was possible that they might try at the summit to obtain our agreement to a declaration of principles. The Soviets wanted to build a propaganda record to prove that the West had failed to move toward disarmament. If the Soviets did not succeed at the Summit in obtaining our agreement to a set of generalities, then they might be ready to move to negotiations on specific matters.

The Italian Foreign Minister expressed agreement with this analysis and said that the Russians were always interested in propaganda. The propaganda tactics were similar to those employed by the Communists in Italy. Mr. Segni said that his Government believed that during the next days before the recess of the talks at Geneva the Soviets would continue their propaganda skirmish. Perhaps this might be useful since this might mean that some concrete discussions on disarmament could take place at the Summit.

The Secretary indicated that the Italian views coincided with ours.

Mr. Segni said he wondered whether it would be wise for the Five Ministers to attempt at Istanbul to establish a firm position on disarmament for the Summit Conference. It might be too soon to develop these positions since there might be some press leaks on the Western position occurring between the Istanbul meeting and the Summit meeting. These leaks might handicap the Western negotiating position at the Summit. Perhaps it might be desirable to have another Five-Power Foreign Ministers Meeting on disarmament sometime closer to the Summit meeting. Mr. Segni suggested that the Ministers at Istanbul might fix the time for the subsequent meeting.

The Secretary said that it might be possible to arrange such a meeting a day or two before the Summit Meeting but pointed out that this would depend on arranging the already difficult schedules of the Ministers. There would not be much time between Istanbul and the Summit. There would also be a question of whether the Canadian Foreign Minister would desire to come to Paris only for this meeting. The Secretary said that there was also the problem of consulting with NATO and that our NATO partners would want to know what proposals we intended to present at the Summit.

Mr. Segni said that it would of course be most useful to consult with the NATO partners. He repeated that it would also be an excellent idea to have another meeting of the Five Foreign Ministers on Disarmament after consultation with NATO and just before the Summit.

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 396.1–W/4–1360. Confidential. Drafted by Stabler and approved by S on April 22. See also Documents 267–269.
1. See Document 266.
2. The Foreign Ministers of Italy, France, the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Canada met in Washington April 12–14 for discussions relating to the forthcoming summit conference in Paris among the United States, United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union.
3. The creation of an agency to control armaments was under discussion at the Ten-Power Conference at Geneva.
4. The North Atlantic Council Ministerial Meeting took place in Istanbul May 2–4.