Office of the Historian

323. Memorandum of Conversation0

US/MC/48
Geneva, May 21, 1959, 8 p.m.

MEETING OF FOREIGN MINISTERS PALAIS DES NATIONS, GENEVA, 1959

PARTICIPANTS

  • United States
    • Secretary Herter
    • Secretary McElroy
    • Mr. Merchant
  • United Kingdom
    • Foreign Secretary Lloyd
    • Sir Anthony Rumbold
    • Mr. Hancock
  • France
    • Foreign Minister Couve de Murville
    • Mr. Laloy
    • Mr. Lucet
  • USSR
    • Foreign Minister Gromyko
    • Mr. Zorin
    • Mr. Soldatov

SUBJECT

  • Problems Relating to Foreign Ministers’ Meeting

Both before and during dinner there was no general conversation, most of the talk being conducted in groups of two and three and in so far as I observed on a social rather than a serious basis.

After rising from the table at 9:45 and following coffee which most drank on their feet, the entire party ranged in a semicircle around the two love seats on which were seated the Secretary with Gromyko and Lloyd with Couve de Murville respectively. The conversation thereafter until about 10:55 when the guests left was substantially confined to the four Foreign Ministers with an occasional interjection by Zorin and Rumbold and intervention by Secretary McElroy.

The subject of Czech-Polish participation first came up, Mr. Lloyd introducing it by saying that he had discussed the subject exhaustively for an hour during dinner with Mr. Zorin but that neither had been able to convince the other. Gromyko clung tenaciously to his usual arguments and was rebutted by all three Foreign Ministers with equal vigor in the use of past arguments. Gromyko finally dropped the subject without, however, appearing unduly disturbed.

The question then turned to possible areas of agreement, with Mr. Herter seeking to pin Mr. Gromyko down to the propositions that the [Page 743] Soviet Union agree that Germany should be reunified and that it should be done by free elections. Mr. Gromyko countered repeatedly by saying that the Soviet Union was “not against” reunification nor “against” free elections but that both these matters were exclusively for the two German states to work out.

This led to a warm discussion of the nature of the DDR, Mr. Herter maintaining that it was propped up by Russian bayonets and that its leaders could not conceivably be considered to represent the German people living in the Eastern Zone.

Gromyko countered with an attack on the atomic arming of the Federal Republic and appeared totally unimpressed by Mr. Herter’s and Mr. McElroy’s pointing out that under United States law the warheads had to remain in United States custody. This discussion likewise was inconclusive.

Both during his arguments for Czech-Polish participation and toward the end of the evening Gromyko openly invited counter proposals from the West and the establishment of private talks, possibly even with a smaller group outside the Palais.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1338. Secret; Limit Distribution. Drafted by Merchant and approved by Herter. The meeting was held at the Villa Greta. A summary of this conversation along nearly identical lines was transmitted in Secto 101 from Geneva, May 22. (Ibid., Central Files, 396.1–GE/5–2259) For McElroy’s account, see Document 324.↩