267. Telegram From the Secretary of State to the Department of State1
Dulte 4. Eyes Only Acting Secretary for President from Secretary.
Dear Mr. President:
I have had a busy twenty-four hours here in London. Selwyn Lloyd, contrary to my request, met me at the airport, and then after a dinner I had with Stassen and others Lloyd came to the Embassy and we talked for upwards of an hour. He expressed himself as very unhappy about the state of the disarmament negotiations. He said he had great difficulty getting the Cabinet to go along so far. They feel that there is little likelihood of an ultimate Russian agreement but that we may be giving away a great deal from a public relations and political standpoint.
We have spent most of today in meeting with the British, French and Canadians. I find there are very sharp differences of opinion with respect to zones of inspection, methods of inspection, whether “inventories” should be limited to areas subject to inspection and verification and whether there can be a peacetime transfer of nuclear weapons for defensive purposes. The zone of inspection issue is the most difficult involving as it does tremendous public relations problems. I was surprised to find that Lloyd, although he spoke last night so strongly about incurring losses in the name of disarmament, was in fact unwilling to stand firm on matters where he agreed we ought to stand firm. I pointed out that if already we were doing unsound things because of [Page 669] public pressure we will go on and on to do more unsound things until finally we will have sacrificed much and in the end found that there was not really a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The Four Western Power meeting broke up without any agreement. I have been working tonight on possible new formulations and we shall have another go at it tomorrow. In order to avoid a public embarrassment we are having a Five Power luncheon, i.e. with the Russians tomorrow.
And now at midnight I go to bed hoping that sleep will bring counsel.
Faithfully yours, Foster.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 330.13/7–3057. Secret; Eyes Only. A covering note from Howe to Goodpaster, July 31, forwarding a copy of this telegram to the President is initialed “DE” in the President’s handwriting. (Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Dulles–Herter Series)↩