Office of the Historian

354. Letter From the Minister of the British Embassy (Hood) to Secretary of State Dulles0

January 23, 1959.

Dear Mr. Secretary: I have just received the Prime Minister’s reply to the report of your conversation with the Ambassador on January 21.

The Prime Minister is very grateful for the way in which you and the President have considered his proposal about a visit to Moscow and subsequently to Washington. He was particularly gratified by the willingness of the President and yourself to put yourselves out to arrange for him to come at short notice to Washington. On balance, however, and taking into careful account all the considerations that were put forward, he has decided to go ahead with his plan to go to Moscow first if an invitation can be arranged.

The Prime Minister was very touched by the confidence which the President and you have shown in him and his judgment.

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Nothing will be said to the French and the Germans until we know that the Soviet Government will issue their invitation. If the plan proceeds we shall immediately inform these two Governments and N.A.T.O. Meanwhile M. Spaak will be informed very privately as soon as our Ambassador has acted in Moscow.

I also have a message for you from the Foreign Secretary. He warmly appreciates the tone of your reply to the Prime Minister’s message and was very much interested by your impressions of the Mikoyan visit. He would now like to do some thinking aloud and give you his thoughts as though you were having a conversation in the strictest confidence. As these thoughts are quite lengthy I am sending you them in writing. But you will appreciate that they are not for official record nor for circulation in the Department.1

When you have had time to read them perhaps I may come to hear your comments.2

Yours ever,

Hood
  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Macmillan and Lloyd Correspondence, 1958. Top Secret and Strictly Personal.↩
  2. In this document, which was attached to the source text, Lloyd discussed Western public opinion on Berlin and the use of military force in Germany, among other topics.↩
  3. No record of a conversation between Dulles and Hood on this subject has been found in Department of State files.↩