66. Memorandum of Conversation0
SUBJECT
- Initiation of Economic Discussions with Poland
PARTICIPANTS
- Dr. Tadeusz Lychowski, Economic Minister, Polish Embassy
- Mr. W. T. M. Beale, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs
- Mr. James L. Colbert, Office of Eastern European Affairs
Mr. Beale told Dr. Lychowski that his purpose in calling him in was to give him advance notification that the Department planned to issue a press release noon that day announcing the opening of claims discussions and economic discussions. He handed Dr. Lychowski a copy of the draft release. Mr. Beale said that it should now be clear that the reason for our delay in the last two months in initiation of the economic discussions was the technical delays involved in preparing for the opening of negotiations on claims.
Dr. Lychowski’s reaction to the press release was that the connection between claims and economic discussions could be inferred from the fact that it was proposed to announce the two negotiations in the one release. He said that, on the Polish side, they had been ready to negotiate claims at any time and did not consider that they were tied to negotiations on aid.
Mr. Beale replied that our preference had been to open the claims negotiations first and not to have a juncture between the talks on the two subjects. Events, however, forced us to begin the two discussions at the same time. Dr. Lychowski said that he could not accept the press release unless the announcement of the two negotiations could be put into two separate releases in order to avoid the inference that there was a connection. Mr. Beale agreed that this could be done. Mr. Beale then telephoned P (Mr. Kretzmann),1 and EUR (Mr. Kohler), to explain Dr. Lychowski’s views, and he obtained their concurrence to putting out two press releases instead of one. The original was then redrafted and [Page 175] retyped in Mr. Beale’s office into two separate releases and copies were provided to Dr. Lychowski.2
Mr. Beale and Dr. Lychowski then discussed arrangements for the economic talks. Mr. Beale proposed that they begin on Wednesday, March 4. Dr. Lychowski said that he would start with a presentation of Poland’s economic situation. Mr. Beale said that it would be useful to start the negotiations with such an opening statement. He further suggested that the first meeting be limited to that statement and that we would have an opportunity to study it prior to the next meeting.
Dr. Lychowski then said he wished to explore Mr. Beale’s thinking as to how long the talks might take as there was a prospect that he might want to go to Mexico in April to the ECOSOC meeting. Mr. Beale said he thought that discussions would have developed by that time to the point where most of the issues had been sufficiently clarified so that, while the negotiations might not actually have been concluded, it would still be possible for Dr. Lychowski to take the time to attend the ECOSOC meeting in April.
Dr. Lychowski also asked whether it might be possible to determine the approximate date when loans and credits could be made available under the negotiations. He said that his people wanted to know so that they could determine how to schedule American assistance in relation to their plans for other imports. Mr. Beale told Dr. Lychowski that progress in the claims negotiations must be taken into account in regard to a decision on economic assistance.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 411.4841/2–2759. Confidential. Drafted by Colbert and initialed by Beale.↩
- Edwin M. J. Kretzmann, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.↩
- For texts of the two press releases issued by the Department of State on February 27 announcing that talks between the United States and Poland would begin on both economic matters and the settlement of nationalization claims the following week, see Department of State Bulletin, March 16, 1959, pp. 381–382. The claims negotiations began on March 3 and the economic talks began on March 4; see Document 67.↩