307. Memorandum of a Conversation Between Secretary of State Dulles and Foreign Secretary Lloyd, Secretary Dulles’ Suite, Waldorf Astoria, New York, October 7, 1956, 6:30 p.m.1
I met alone with Selwyn Lloyd at his request prior to our more general meeting. He said he wanted to speak to me about his distress [Page 657] at persistent newspaper reports that the US and UK were divided on the Suez matter. He said that in fact there was an extraordinary degree of agreement, and that while we might not perhaps be in complete agreement as to what ultimately might happen, we were surely in agreement up to that point. He wondered what could be done to remedy the situation.
I said that I really did not know what could be done. The press constantly sought to give an impression of difference as this was newsworthy. I felt that merely to make statements protesting our agreement might be counterproductive on the theory that we “protest too much”. The best thing, I thought, was to plug ahead instructing our press representatives to indicate agreement not just in terms of generalities but in terms of concrete steps that we were taking together. This, I thought, would be more convincing than general statements as to which the press would be skeptical.
I said that with respect to the actual measure of our agreement I thought that we had in fact achieved a remarkable amount of agreement and that even as regards the “ultimate” I did not disagree with the proposition that the possibility of force needed to be kept in the picture. If it wholly disappeared, then the chance of getting an acceptable settlement would also largely disappear.