179. Note from Smith to
Rusk, April 131
[Facsimile Page 1]
Mr. Secretary:
The attached message from the Prime Minister is now being transmitted to
Palm Beach.
When you have read this, would you call me so that we can work out an
expeditious way of getting your views to the President today?
[Facsimile Page 2]
Attachment
April 13,
1963
TEXT OF MESSAGE
Dear Friend,
Thank you very much for your message of April 11 sent after our
telephone conversation. It seems to me that we are now very close on
wording. I accept the substance of your change to my paragraph 6 but
I think that the order of this paragraph ought to be changed a
little in consequence. I attach for your consideration a suggested
redraft which incorporates your new wording.
I also entirely accept the idea of including the reference to a quota
in paragraph 5 of my draft which would now read as you
suggested.
I hope, therefore, that we can now agree the text of the joint letter
on the above basis. There remains the question of delivery. On the
whole I think that the draft as it now appears is sufficiently
arresting in tone to make Khrushchev realise that it is a genuine attempt to
break the deadlock and not just a propaganda move. I therefore doubt
if we need send emissaries at all at this stage; the Ambassadors
could deliver the letters (I [Facsimile Page 3] suppose acting jointly). When
they do this I suggest that they might indicate that the “very
senior representatives” mentioned in paragraph 6 of our letters
could be special envoys or could be our Foreign Ministers. Thus we
should be offering Khrushchev a number of options; he would have little
procedural excuse for not accepting one of them.
[Typeset Page 491]
If we can agree the texts and the instructions in time I would hope
that we might get our Ambassadors in Moscow to deliver these
messages on April 15 or 16. As you know, the Geneva meeting
reconvenes on April 17 and with the Neutrals in their present mood I
would like to get our message to Khrushchev before then. If we look like having to
think a bit more about the precise instructions to the Ambassadors I
would hope that we might at least be able to instruct Kohler and Trevelyan in the next
two days to warn the Russians that they expected important messages
and would like to know if they could see Khrushchev personally next
week.
With warm regard,
[Facsimile Page 4]
Attachment
PROPOSED REDRAFT OF PARAGRAPH
6
We should be interested to hear your suggestions as to how we are to
break out of this. For our part we should be quite prepared now to
arrange private tripartite discussions in whatever seemed the most
practical way. It would be our hope that these discussions would
bring the matter close enough to a final decision so that it might
then be proper to think in terms of a meeting of the three of us at
which a definite agreement on a test ban could be reached. We are
very ready to discuss the best method of reaching this position. For
example, our chief representatives at Geneva could conduct
discussions on the questions which remain to be settled.
Alternatively, or at a later stage, President Kennedy/Mr. Macmillan and I would be ready to
send in due course very senior representatives who would be
empowered to speak for us and talk in Moscow directly with you. We
would hope that by one method or another we would get to a point at
which we, who bear the ultimate responsibility for decisions on this
matter, would have clearly before [Facsimile Page 5] us the major problems which
might remain to be settled. It is of course obvious that a meeting
of the three of us which resulted in a test ban treaty would open a
new chapter in our relations as well as providing an opportunity for
wider discussions.
