Presidential Papers, Doc#73 Cable 6047. <EM>Top secret To Winston Spencer Churchill, 11 March 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Document #73; March 11, 1953
To Winston Spencer Churchill
Series: EM, AWF, International Series: Churchill ; Category: Cable 6047. Top secret
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953
Chapter 2: "A number of misunderstandings": Party and International Struggles

 

The subject raised in your message of today has been engaging our attention here for some days.1 We are convinced that a move giving to the world some promise of hope, which will have the virtues of simplicity and persuasiveness, should be made quickly. A number of ideas have been advanced, but none of them has been completely acceptable.

At our meeting in New York I by no means meant to reject the possibility that the leaders of the West might sometime have to make some collective move if we are to achieve progress in lessening the world's tensions.2

However, even now I tend to doubt the wisdom of a formal multilateral meeting since this would give our opponent the same kind of opportunity he has so often had to use such a meeting simultaneously to balk every reasonable effort of ourselves and to make of the whole occurence another propaganda mill for the Soviet. It is entirely possible, however, that your government and ourselves, and probably the French, should agree upon some general purpose and program under which each would have a specific part to play.

I am sure that Foster Dulles will attempt to keep in rather close touch with Anthony3 regarding possibilities and any tentative conclusions we may reach.4 Warm regards

1 "I am sure that everyone will want to know whether you still contemplate a meeting with the Soviets," the British Prime Minister had cabled Eisenhower (AWF/I). Churchill reminded the President that he had welcomed a Churchill-Stalin meeting. "I understood this as meaning that you did not want us to go together, but now [that] there is no more Stalin I wonder whether this makes any difference to your view about separate approaches to the new regime or whether there is a possibility of collective action." Churchill confessed a "feeling that we might both of us together or separately be called to account if no attempt were made to turn over a leaf" in East-West relations.

2 Churchill and the President-elect had met at the home of Bernard Baruch in early January (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 1034).

3 British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden.

4 Eisenhower, however, did not meet with Soviet leaders until July 1955 in Geneva.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Cable 6047. Top secret To Winston Spencer Churchill, 11 March 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 73. 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/73.cfm

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