378. Telegram From the Department of State to Secretary of State Herter at Geneva0
Tocah 90. For Secretary from Acting Secretary. After our telephone conversation1 I discussed Cahto 91 and 922 with the President and gave him your brief report on today’s meeting. The President asked me to answer your telegrams and to tell you that in view of the rapidly changing circumstances he felt that final decision should be left in your hands.
He agrees with the idea of a private talk with Gromyko provided Couve and Selwyn are agreeable and provided the situation still permits such a conversation. The President was in accord with the general line of your suggested démarche to Gromyko. We talked of the question of our rights and the President indicated that he would be satisfied if we maintained them by any means that you found satisfactory. Specifically he saw no objection to your thought that it might be possible to preserve them by a unilateral declaration not objected to by the Soviets. The President also indicated his hope that there might be some agreement at Geneva to increase individual contacts between East and West Germany as he feels this could only redound to the advantage of the West.
I then showed the President some excerpts from Khrushchev’s speech at Budapest, in particular Khrushchev’s remarks regarding a possible summit conference. The President reacted strongly and said that we should make clear that we could not allow a break-up of the Foreign Ministers Conference without results on any theory that the Ministers lacked authority to reach agreement and that only heads of government were competent to make agreements. He pointed out that in the case of the US and the other Western powers the Foreign Ministers are the official representatives of the governments and can make decisions on their own within the broad outlines of governmental policy. The President suggested that you might tell Gromyko this and in particular say to him that you as Secretary of State have the President’s full confidence and are authorized to make agreements which will be backed up by the United States. To imply otherwise and to deny the competence of Foreign Ministers would be to deny the validity of the whole diplomatic process. The President thought you might bring this view out in public at anytime you felt it would be useful.
Should there be a breakdown we in the Department feel that there is considerable merit in Couve’s suggestion of a thirty-day cooling-off [Page 869] period. The President agreed that this might be a practicable course provided you and your British and French associates feel it desirable. The main burden of the President’s views was that in view of the rapidly changing situation he thought that you should feel fully free to take whatever action you thought best at tomorrow’s plenary.