Office of the Historian

317. Letter From Chancellor Adenauer to President Kennedy0

Washington, July 9, 1963.

My Dear Mr. President: Thank you very much for your letter of July 4,1 and for the confidence you have thus shown me. I have gained, I believe, useful impulses for our policy from your visit to the Federal Republic and to West Berlin as from the talks with you, I am particularly grateful for your statement that you will get in personal contact with me if there is any new development.

I have for the moment stopped my steps towards a contact which I had mentioned to you,2 because I deem it suitable for the time being to await the outcome of the negotiations between the Soviet Union and Red China. I shall continue to inform you as soon as something happens.

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In the meanwhile, President de Gaulle was here. The talks with him —the confidential talks as well as the other talks—took a good course. The New York Times as well as BBC-London and anti-de Gaullist papers in Paris are publishing inaccurate reports. I have confidentially spoken to President de Gaulle in downright earnest about the community of interests of all Allies vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, telling him in particular that, whatever I do, I always ask myself: is hereby Moscow’s hope of a split in the West to be strengthened or not. I suppose, President de Gaulle deems fair such a question with respect to every Ally. I have not gained the impression that he is in any way biassed vis-à-vis the United States of America.3

With sincere regards

Yours

K. Adenauer4
  1. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, Chancellor Adenauer’s Correspondence with Presidents Kennedy & Johnson, 1963-1964, Vol. II. Secret. The source text is an unofficial translation apparently provided by the German Embassy.↩
  2. See Document 310.↩
  3. See footnote 4, Document 310.↩
  4. On July 8, Schroeder replied to Rusk’s July 3 letter (see Document 311), stating that a potential non-aggression pact must not have the effect of further stabilizing the status quo, including the division of Germany and Berlin, and should be considered only in connection with measures leading to an improvement of the German and Berlin situation. Schroeder agreed that it “would be useful to explore thoroughly the Soviet position in the forthcoming talks.” (Unofficial translation supplied by the German Embassy attached to German text; Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, German Officials’ Correspondence with Secretary Rusk, 1961-1964) An amplification of Schroeder’s letter is contained in a note from the German Embassy, July 9, attached to a memorandum of conversation held July 8 between Tyler and Georg von Lilienfeld, Minister of Embassy, by F.E. Cash of BTF. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 28 Berlin)↩
  5. Printed from a copy that indicates Adenauer signed the original.↩