253. Tentative Notes of the Secretary of State’s Staff Meeting, Department of State, Washington, March 29, 1957, 9:15 a.m.1
[Here follows Armstrong’s intelligence briefing.]
2. Egyptian Announcement—Considerable discussion of the Reston2 publication of the still confidential announcement the Egyptians had distributed and which we were discussing with a number of Embassies. (Later when the Secretary came in and discussed the matter, he said he thought it was inevitable considering the number of countries to whom a combination of the Egyptians and ourselves gave the text.) Mr. Rountree noted that the Reston text contained the same garble as was in the Department version given to the Embassies. In the discussion it was pointed out that we perhaps should promptly inform the Egyptians through Ambassador Hare that we were not responsible. It was generally agreed that no blame was attached for our showing it to other Embassies since this had been stated to Hammarskjöld [Page 483] by the Egyptians as expected. It was also generally agreed that we would have to proceed with making our comments in any event. It was suggested that Line White, in answer to anticipated questions, could say that we were still in consultation with other countries.
Mr. Phleger said that he had drafted a revision of the Egyptian announcement which by deletions and insertions changed the “announcement” to a “declaration” and with binding force of a treaty. A meeting will be held later (12:30 today)3 to discuss it and to consider making it available to the other countries with whom we are consulting before sending to Egypt. Mr. Henderson suggested that we might insert a minor garble different for each version submitted to each Embassy thus to trace the anticipated leak.
[Here follows discussion of unrelated subjects.]