293. Editorial Note
The major source for documentation on the Geneva Foreign Ministers Meeting, May 11–August 5, is Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1278–1288, 1296–1298, and 1309–1407. These folders contain briefing papers for the conference, orders of the day, chronologies, seating plans, telegrams to and from the U.S. Delegation, telegrams to and from the Secretary of State, U.S. verbatim records of the sessions, summaries of the verbatim records, press releases, memoranda of conversations that took place during the conference, conference documents, and various miscellaneous materials relating to the proceedings. A second Conference File: Lot 65 D 81, CF 1289–1295, contains press releases from the U.S. Delegation.
A second source for documentation on the conference is Department of State, Central File 396.1–GE, which contains nearly all of the telegraphic traffic between the U.S. Delegation and the Department of State, and Central File 762.00, which has copies of many of the telegrams from Secretary of State Herter. Several other files contain miscellaneous papers on the conference and these are indicated in source notes and footnotes as appropriate.
Two of the members of the U.S. Delegation recorded their impressions of the conference in diaries or notes. Bruce’s recollections are ibid., Bruce Diaries: Lot 64 D 327, and Merchant’s daily impressions of the meetings are in small notebooks in his papers at Princeton University.
Four publications also present additional documentation on the conference. Department of State publication 6882, Foreign Ministers Meeting, May–August 1959, Geneva; Washington, September 1959 (hereafter cited as Foreign Ministers Meeting), presents the major statements given during the sessions and papers and addresses dealing with the conference. The British Foreign Office also published a selection of statements and documents dealing with the conference, but Conference of Foreign Ministers at Geneva, May 11–June 20, 1959 and July 13–August 5, 1959, Cmd. 868 (hereafter cited as Cmd. 868) presents only official documents of the conference. Ambassador Grewe and West German Foreign Ministry Press Spokesman von Eckardt, who were members of the Federal Republic Delegation, recorded their impressions in Rückblenden, pages 402–410 and Erinnerungen, pages 566–589.
Because of the very extensive documentation on the conference the editors have limited the selection to the most significant documents illustrating the evolution of the conference. Where documents or statements are available in published editions, the editors have provided citations to these publications rather than reprinting them here.