Office of the Historian

190. Memorandum of Conversation, June 24, between President Kennedy and German Chancellor Adenauer1

PET/MC/14
Bonn, June 24, 1963
[Facsimile Page 1]

PRESIDENT’S EUROPEAN TRIP, JUNE 1963

PARTICIPANTS

  • United States

    • The President
    • The Secretary of State
    • Ambassador George C. McGhee
    • Assistant Secretary Tyler
    • Assistant Secretary Manning
    • Minister Martin Hillenbrand
    • Mr. Pierre Salinger
    • Mr. Robert Creel, EUR/GER
    • Mr. Lissance (interpreter)

  • Germany

    • Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
    • Vice Chancellor Ludwig Erhard
    • Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder
    • Defense Minister Kai-Uwo von Hassel
    • Ambassador Karl Heinrich Knappstein
    • State Secretary Carstons
    • State Secretary Globko
    • State Secretary von Hase
    • Counselor Weber (interpreter)

SUBJECT

  • Forthcoming Test Ban Negotiations

The President said he would like to say a word or two about the test ban negotiations to be held in Moscow next month. He was not too optimistic that any great results would come from these talks. Recent discussions on the subject with the Soviets had been quite negative of results. This lack of optimism was shared by Governor Harriman and Lord Hailsham. Nevertheless, we wished to have the responsibility for a failure of these talks placed on the Soviets rather than on ourselves. As concerned the number of inspections, Kusnetsov had received the impression somehow from Arthur Dean that we would be prepared to accept a total of three inspections a year. This appeared to [Facsimile Page 2] be some misunderstanding on the Soviets’ part, possibly owing to language difficulties. In any case, Khrushchev was now offended and had apparently withdrawn his offer of three inspections. The President said that he felt the real problem for Khrushchev was the attitude of the Chinese Communists and the Soviet inability to bring them along on a test ban. We might be faced with a new situation if the Chinese exploded a nuclear bomb in the next year or so. Meanwhile, an effort must be made in this field and we would do our best.

[Typeset Page 520]

The Chancellor said he considered the President’s thinking on this to be correct.

The President added that there was a possibility the Soviets might be getting ready to test again; we had received some indications to this effect. But even if they did so, there were technical reasons why we would not wish to conduct further tests at this time. (After the translation, the Secretary said it should be made clear that from the technical standpoint we were perfectly capable of conducting further tests but there were “technical reasons” why we would not do so at this time.)

  1. Forthcoming test ban negotiations in Moscow. Secret. 2 pp. Department of State, Central Files, POL 7 US/Kennedy.↩