<--PREV Doc #1598  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1600 Document #1599; October 11, 1955 To Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin Series: EM, AWF, International Series: Bulganin ; Category: Secret The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVI - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part VIII: Toward "statesmanship of a high order"; June 1955 to November 1955 Chapter 17: "Stern edicts" from the Doctors   Dear Mr. Chairman:1 I wish to thank you for your letter of September 19, 1955 about my Geneva proposal of July 21 that we exchange information about military establishments and permit reciprocal aerial inspection over our two countries.2 You raise a good many questions, and I shall not be able to reply to them until the doctors let me do more than at present. In any event, a full reply calls for preliminary work by my advisers and this is actively under way.3 Let me now say, however, that I am encouraged that you are giving such full consideration to my Geneva proposal. I hope that we can agree on it, not as a cure-all, but, as I said at Geneva, to show a spirit of non-aggressiveness on both sides and so to create a fresh atmosphere which would dispel much of the present fear and suspicion. This, of itself, would be worthwhile. It would, I believe, make it more possible to make progress in terms of comprehensive plans for inspection, controls and reductions of armament, which will satisfy the high hopes of our peoples, and indeed of all the world. I have not forgotten your proposal having to do with stationing inspection teams at key points in our countries, and if you feel this would help to create the better spirit I refer to, we could accept that too.4 With best wishes, Sincerely 1 Secretary Dulles had drafted this reply to Marshal Bulganin and had discussed its contents with the President at Fitzsimons Army Hospital (see Memorandum of Conversation, Oct. 11, 1955, Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series; see also no. 1595). 2 For background on Eisenhower's Open Skies proposal see no. 1523. 3 Bulganin had written regarding the lack of progress in the negotiations of the Subcommittee of the United Nations Disarmament Commission that had been meeting in New York between August 29 and October 7 (see State, Foreign Relations, 1955-1957, vol. XX, Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy, pp. 166, 192). He referred specifically to the impression he and his colleagues had that the United States was confining the entire problem of disarmament to the President's proposals at the Geneva Summit Conference. Bulganin questioned the effective results of an aerial inspection system that did not include coverage of the military installations of countries outside the United States and the Soviet Union. Eisenhower's proposal lacked provision for armament reduction and a prohibition against atomic weapons, Bulganin wrote. "If such a proposal does not promote the ending of the arms race, then it . . . does not remove the threat of a new war." The Soviet leader asked for agreement on dates for enforcing the prohibition on the use of atomic weapons and for the reduction of armaments (AWF/I: Bulganin; see also State, Foreign Relations, 1955-1957, vol. XX, Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy, pp. 76-81, 85-86, 202-3). 4 Eisenhower had added this paragraph to Dulles's draft. He told the Secretary that he had discussed the issue with Bulganin and Khrushchev at a buffet dinner in Geneva and "felt obligated now to make some reference to that in his reply" (Memorandum of Conversation, Oct. 11, 1955, Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series; see also Ann Whitman memorandum, Nov. 2, 1955, AWF/D). For the Soviet Union's proposal regarding control posts, which was presented to the United Nations Disarmament Commission on May 10, see U.S. Department of State Bulletin 32, no. 831 (May 30, 1955), 900-905; on the Geneva dinner see State, Foreign Relations, 1955-1957, vol. V, Austrian State Treaty; Summit and Foreign Ministers Meetings, 1955, pp. 478-80. In his reply (October 20) Bulganin would tell Eisenhower that he would "await the moment" when the President would be able to set forth his views on disarmament. "I am happy that you attach such great importance to these problems," he wrote (AWF/I: Bulganin; see also Barnes to Goodpaster, Oct. 14, 1955, ibid.). Eisenhower would send a complete reply to Bulganin's letter on March 1, 1956 (see no. 1765). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Secret To Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin, 11 October 1955. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1599. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1599.cfm <--PREV Doc #1598  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1600

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