106. Notes on Telephone Conversation between Bundy and Ball, March 201
Bundy said they were drafting on the disarmament thing about which the boss talked to Ball. They don’t want to get too many people doing the same thing.
Bundy said he had called Ormsby-Gore and said it was to get away from the argument between us and looking at the fact they won’t buy any inspection. To his surprise Gore said he agreed entirely. He is coming in at 12:15 to see the President and they will know more after the President talks with him. Their inclination is to think the object here is to get the US and UK off their relatively low discussion in response to the Prime Minister and get them back in business.
Ball said he told the President this morning the thing that concerned him the most was (he was suggesting the British say how would you think about going ahead with an inspection system but only after an incident) that Rusk would take this as a position and start negotiating from there. Bundy said he did not think we had to do it that way. We can put up other reasons. We can say we are willing to argue with you about technical requirements of different kinds but there isn’t much point in this if you are sticking to the position that there can be no position. Ball said the Secretary was clear on this; the cables make this clear.
Bundy asked Ball to tell Beam they were working on the draft, at the President’s instructions, and will circulate it later in the morning. They can trade drafts back and forth.
- Patching up differences with U.K. on disarmament. No classification marking. 1 p. Kennedy Library, Ball Papers, Telephone Conversations, Disarmament.↩