Office of the Historian

77. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, March 19, 1965.

SUBJECT

  • Dr. Walter Hallstein’s Meeting with the President, March 18, 19652

PARTICIPANTS

  • Aide du Chef Karl-Heinz Narjes
  • Under Secretary Mann
  • Ambassador Tuthill
  • Mr. Bator

Following an exchange of greetings, President Hallstein thanked the President for the government’s hospitality, explained that he was in Washington not to transact business but for a general exchange of views, and that he was in the pleasant position of having nothing to ask of the President, except his confidence. (In an aside, and without naming names, he conveyed his sympathy for our problems in Vietnam and Selma.)

The President affirmed his admiration for Hallstein’s and the Commission’s leading part in the adventure of European unification and conveyed his sense of President Hallstein’s significant personal role in Europe.

The President made the following specific points:

  • —Despite the apparent U.S. preoccupation with currently acute problems, the United States has not lost interest in the Atlantic World and continues to be committed to the goal of European integration. Our policy has not changed since the Marshall Plan.
  • —The U.S. has a continuing concern that Europe remain open and Atlantic-minded. The President particularly emphasized the importance of a successful Kennedy Round, with liberalization both in industry and agriculture. He hoped that the Commission would give the Six and Europe a strong and constructive lead in the negotiations.
  • —The President has a strong interest in expanding peaceful trade with Eastern Europe and the Soviets as an important part of his policy of bridge-building.
  • —We are determined to fix our balance of payments; there should be no doubt of the fundamental strength of the dollar. In the interim, we intend to be fairly tough about overseas capital investment. (The President made special mention of our large trade surplus, indicating that the problem has to do with our worldwide responsibilities and the capital account.)
  • —On Atlantic nuclear matters, we will continue working for constructive arrangements without trying to impose any particular scheme on a reluctant Europe. The President expressed gratitude for Chancellor Erhard’s wisdom on this matter and also on other matters of joint concern. He indicated that we shall be prepared to move forward in cooperation with our partners as soon as Europe seems ready, perhaps in the period following the German elections, and that he is reasonably optimistic that the British, after they settle down, will help to work out a mutually acceptable solution.

Dr. Hallstein thanked the President for his views, especially on unification and partnership, sketched for the President the recent progress of the Community (merger, agricultural package) and promised that the Commission would do all it could to advance the Kennedy Round.3

The meeting ended with a few minutes of private conversation between the President and President Hallstein.

FMB
  1. Source: Department of State, President’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 70 D 217. Secret. Drafted by Francis Bator on March 19.↩
  2. Hallstein visited Washington March 16–18. Memoranda of his conversations with Ball and Mann, April 16 and 18, are in Department of State, Central Files, ECIN 6 EEC; memoranda of his conversations with Senator Fulbright and McNamara, March 17 and 18, are ibid., POL 3 EUR; memoranda of his conversations with Schaetzel, Rusk, and Vice President Humphrey, March 16, 17, and 18, are ibid., POL EUR-US, POL ASIA SE, and POL 15–1 US. For text of the joint communique issued by the President and Hallstein following their meeting, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, Book I, p. 295.↩
  3. On March 29, EEC Commissioner Jean Rey also visited Washington. Memoranda of his conversations with Department of State officials on the Kennedy Round and monetary matters are in Department of State, Central Files, ECIN 6 EEC.↩