500. Telegram From the Delegation to the Foreign Ministers Meeting to the Department of State0
Secto 441. American Embassies Moscow, London, Bonn—eyes only Ambassador. American Embassy Paris—eyes only Houghton and Burgess. US Mission Berlin—eyes only Gufler. Private Session. Two hour meeting of experts this morning and two and one-half hour private discussion of Foreign Ministers this afternoon at Gromyko’s “working tea” were unproductive.
Foreign Ministers devoted most of afternoon to persistent probing on what juridical situation would be at the end of an interim agreement but their efforts succeeded only in eliciting from Gromyko virtually the same evasive and unresponsive statements which he has repeated untiringly since private sessions began. Only variation in Gromyko theme was his statement that at end of interim period a “certain situation” would obtain, but he refused to define what this would be. In other respects, his replies were identical with past responses—i.e., that agreement would expire at the end of the prescribed period, that negotiations at which participants would have right to raise any questions pertaining to Berlin would then begin, and that during negotiations Soviet Union would refrain from unilateral action. Gromyko characterized persistent efforts by all three Western Foreign Ministers to ascertain if Soviet position was that situation at end of agreement would revert to status quo ante as efforts to raise troublesome questions of rights and future of occupation regime which could only serve to complicate negotiations. Western Foreign Ministers he said are suspicious of Soviet motives and have no justification for being so. He called upon Western Foreign Ministers to concentrate on discussion of concrete interim arrangements on which agreement seemed feasible rather than focusing their attention on questions—meaning Allied rights—on which agreement impossible.
The other subject discussed by Ministers was question of activities, particularly procedure for ensuring compliance with obligations to be undertaken by both sides. While stressing that Soviet Union, unlike Western powers which “occupation bosses” of West Berlin, could not undertake commitments in East Berlin on behalf of GDR, Gromyko offered to consult East German delegation on nature of commitment GDR would be willing to assume with view toward producing new Soviet [Page 1103] language embodying principle of reciprocity on which West insisting. He again made clear however that proposal containing language on fundamental rights and liberties would be unacceptable since this would be exploited as at present to justify continued West Berlin subversive and hostile propaganda activities.
Although confirming that four power supervisory committee would be entitled to hear complaints on activities in both East and West Berlin, he now implied commission must discuss any required corrective measures directly with GDR authorities. In other words, Soviet element on committee would not undertake responsibility for East Berlin as Western elements would be expected to for West Berlin. Meanwhile Gromyko continued to insist that responsibilities of four power supervisory committee must also extend to supervision of Western commitments on troop levels and armaments but not to Soviet responsibilities with regard to access.
It was agreed that Secretary and Gromyko who lunch together tomorrow would discuss arrangements for future meetings. Meanwhile Deputies could arrange meeting of experts if any side has new proposals to offer.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 396.1–GE/7–3159. Secret; Limit Distribution. A detailed eight-page memorandum of this conversation, US/MC/167, is ibid., Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1342. The U.S. Delegation record also noted that the experts meeting at 11:30 on July 31 had been unproductive.↩