442. Telegram From the Embassy in Canada to the Department of State0
797. This morning I paid my initial call on Prime Minister Diefenbaker.1 The conversation lasted about half an hour. Although vigorous [Page 1192] in speech and gesture, he struck me as being unwell and exhibited evident signs of palsy or perhaps Parkinson’s disease. After the usual but briefest of pleasantries he immediately queried me regarding the Nassau meetings, but I refused to be drawn, explaining that I had left Washington for New York before detailed arrangements were formulated. He left the subject with great reluctance for the Common Market and UK entry.
I thought it was wise to meet directness with equal directness and thus replied frankly to a series of forthright questions he put to me. Although he found the purport of the answers unpalatable, the conversation proceeded amicably enough on an even tone. After pointing out that the US was not a party to the negotiations and the opinions I expressed were personal, my replies in brief indicated that the UK must have known the probable terms for entry and these would not be much better or much worse than could have been anticipated. His theory that De Gaulle would place some arbitrary roadblock in the path had not thus far been supported by evidence and the French elections would not result in a change of direction of French policy but merely a reinforcement of the French position which on many issues was shared by the other 5. The common external tariff was the most important tangible factor binding the Six and they were conscious of this fact which would entail that the UK would have to pay the entrance fee (except for transitional arrangements, et cetera) and the annual dues to be a full member of the club.
Diefenbaker dissertated at length about British statements and assurances and implied that our dislike of preferences was the source of the difficulty that Canada and the Commonwealth now faced. I refrained from discussing our attitude toward preferences, but concentrated on quoting chapter and verse, indicating that the initiative had not been ours or EEC, but solely the UK’s. I should judge that Diefenbaker has been made hopeful in the past month that the British negotiations might well not succeed and when, in reply to further direct questions, I told him I thought they would, and pressed further, that the Macmillan Government had nailed its political sail to that mast, he was evidently disappointed. I did not get the sense he knew very much about what he was talking.
He did not bring up the subject of nuclear weapons. When I left he volunteered that he would always be glad to see me and I should not hesitate to come to him.