Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy, Volume XX

234. Letter From the President to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Whitney)¹

Washington, June 11, 1957.

Dear Jock: I have not had an opportunity to answer your fine letter of May twenty-fourth,² even though several of us have studied it carefully in our consideration of the whole business of disarmament. I was particularly glad that Macmillan called you in to talk the thing over on a preliminary basis. Such a practice is exactly in line with the hope both sides expressed in Bermuda that such matters would be discussed between us before being exposed to the world.

About a week after you wrote your letter, I had one from Harold Macmillan, who was protesting very bitterly an action of Stassen in presenting a tentative paper of his own to the Russian representative on disarmament before coordinating it fully with the British, the French and the Germans.

So far as I was concerned, I was wholly on Harold Macmillan’s side—in fact, I was more than angry. I dictated a telegram to Harold Macmillan which expressed my feelings in no uncertain terms. Foster toned it down and later called me to say that you had telephoned upon receipt of the message urging that it not be delivered to Harold Macmillan until further softening because of the lessening of the furor about the incident itself.

My last few days have been terribly full, complicated by a day of illness yesterday, and I have not had time to catch up with all the loose ends attached to the incident.

Stassen is here for conversations and I assume has had some serious ones at the State Department. Nevertheless, it is going to be hard for me to forgive a man for what I believe to be, at this moment, one of the most stupid things that anyone on a diplomatic mission could possibly commit. I shall, of course, not close my mind completely, because I have not heard the other side of the story, but on the face of things it looks like he was more than clumsy.³

So far as the meeting at the top level is concerned, such a proposition always presents to me a very special and difficult problem. As President, I have Constitutional duties which cannot be delegated. I must perform them or there would be varying degrees of chaos in a number of activities. I personally believe that any so-called “Summit” meeting should be preceded by one between the Foreign Secretaries, who would prepare the way for some success at the later one. To have a meeting of the Heads of Government (in my case also the Head of State), and to go back to the world with no more specific accomplishment than followed the Geneva meeting, would in my opinion sound the death knell of much of the stirring hope that is discernible in the world.

The trouble with a Foreign Ministers’ meeting is that none of the other three has the same confidence of his Government as⁴ does Foster Dulles. Selwyn Lloyd, Pineau and Gromyko are not in his class. Consequently, there would be grave doubt that this group would have adequate authority to settle such questions as the agenda for the Summit meeting and to work out certain international arrangements that would later be agreed upon, with every confidence on all sides that such arrangements would be honored.

Of course this letter is not to be used as a special basis for any further discussion between yourself and Harold or Selwyn Lloyd. However, in the event such a conversation does occur with Harold, you might ask, for your own information, a few questions that would tend to bring out his thinking about the questions I have raised.

Give my love to Betsey⁵ —and warm regard to yourself, As ever,⁶

[Here follows a postscript, not included in the draft cited in footnote 1 above, regarding an unrelated matter.]

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Administration Series, Whitney. Secret. Eisenhower sent a draft of this letter to Dulles with an attached covering note, both dated June 11, requesting Dulles’ suggestions for changes. (Ibid., Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda) Dulles made only minor changes on the draft which were incorporated in this letter.
2. Document 203.
3. Instructions on this matter, drafted by Dulles and read to and approved by the President, were transmitted to Whitney in telegram 8701 to London, June 12, which reads as follows: “Please in the highest confidence inform Prime Minister Macmillan from me that, with Presidential authority, I have had a very thorough review of disarmament procedures with Governor Stassen and that the President and I feel confident that there will be no repetition of unauthorized proceedings or uncoordinated submissions to Soviets of U.S. position papers.” (Department of State, Central Files, 330.13/6–1257)
4. The word “that” has been deleted and the word “as” has been inserted in handwriting on the source text.
5. Ambassador Whitney’s wife.
6. Printed from an unsigned copy.