232. Editorial Note
On November 5, 1958, members of the U.S. delegation to the technical military discussions on preventing surprise attack, which were to open in Geneva on November 10, met with President Eisenhower. A memorandum of the conversation by Gordon Gray, the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, reads in part as follows:
“The President then said that he would like to make one particular request of the delegation: he indicated that it is entirely possible that the Russians might become freely talkative, and he would be most eager to have their views toward Communist China. He wondered if the Soviets were not really becoming concerned about Communist China as a possible threat to them in the future.
“Mr. FOSTER indicated that they would actively bear this request in mind. He said that it had occurred to him that there may be some chance that an exchange of views of this sort was one of the things the Soviets had in mind when they agreed to the discussions, expressing his view that if the Soviet Union were not worried, they certainly should be.” (Eisenhower Library, White House Office Files, Project Clean Up, Meetings with the President)
Information concerning the Conference of Experts for the Study of Possible Measures Which Might Be Helpful in Preventing Surprise Attack, which met in Geneva November 10–December 18, 1958, is in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1958, pages 1396–1407.