162. Memorandum for the Record0
General de Gaulle came up to the President after the meeting1 and said that Khrushchev had been in that morning with Marshal Malinovsky.2 They had created a veritable scene. He had said that this was an act of aggression and that his people would be united in resisting it as they had been in the war against Germany. Mr. Debre said that he gathered that Khrushchev was trying to put himself in the same position as the President when he had said that he would not go to the summit under a threat (on Berlin) and that he indicated that he regarded these [Page 423] overflights as a threat to him and would not go to the summit unless the President understood that they would be discontinued, and was therefore referring more to an undertaking for the future really than a demand for punishment for those responsible in the past. As the President and General De Gaulle were going down the stairs, General de Gaulle indicated that Khrushchev had said he would defend himself against any attack, and the President said he had no intention of attaching anyone. General de Gaulle indicated that Khrushchev had said that he would attack the bases from which these overflights started and the President remarked that bombs can travel in two directions.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, International File. Top Secret. No drafting information appears on the source text.↩
- See Document 161.↩
- For a more detailed description of the conversation, see Walters, Silent Missions, pp. 340–341.↩