<--PREV Doc #1432  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1434 Document #1433; February 5, 1960 To Konrad Adenauer Series: EM, WHCF, Confidential File: State Department ; Category: Confidential The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part VIII: "Friends and Foes"; September 1959 to February 1960 Chapter 20: "No substitute for personal contact"   Dear Mr. Chancellor: I have just had an opportunity to study your recently released letter of January eighth to Mr. Khrushchev and I want you to know how much it impressed me. Both in its substance and in its tone, I found it a model of statesmanlike communication.1 Your ability to hold to a course of patience, reasonableness and dignity in the face of numerous provocative, not to say scurrilous, attacks made on you personally in recent months from a variety of Communist sources will surely do much to persuade world opinion of your strength of purpose in a just cause.2 May I also express my gratification at the cooperative contribution you made to resolving the very perplexing question of organization for the preparation on the Western side for the summit conference. Let me assure you that no matter what the procedural forms adopted may be, we always have in mind the essential interest of the Federal Republic in the issues to be discussed with the Soviets. It is self-evident that we will continue, as before, to work out our policies in the closest cooperation with your Government. I look forward to seeing you here in March. We will then have the opportunity to discuss at some length the problems that concern us both.3 With warm regard, from your friend, Sincerely 1 Adenauer had written Khrushchev in response to an earlier letter in which the Russian leader had accused him of obstructing disarmament by raising such issues as the signing of a German peace treaty and the establishment of a "free city" of West Berlin. Khrushchev more recently had accused Adenauer of making an agreement on disarmament a precondition for the resolution of the political issues. The Federal Republic never intended "to make our tasks more difficult by raising preliminary conditions and priorities," Adenauer had written. Although disarmament could not be completely separated from other international concerns, "it would be unrealistic to lay down from the outset a rigid sequence for the solution of the problem facing us." Adenauer had also urged Khrushchev to consent to the right of the German people to self-determination. At such time as the Germans could freely chart their own course, he said, then "the way to the conclusion of a peace treaty will be free and the Berlin problem will settle itself" (State, Documents on Germany 1945 - 1985, pp. 688 - 90). In a memorandum accompanying the State Department draft of this message, Secretary Herter had told Eisenhower that Adenauer’s letter was "remarkably good for its carefully reasoned substance and its patient and dignified tone." Herter also had told Eisenhower that Adenauer had agreed to the elimination of the Western nations’ Steering Committee that was preparing for the summit, even though the Germans were members, in order to end the quarrels regarding German representation that had divided the West. He had taken this step, Herter said, regardless of the possible reaction among the West Germans and his fear that he would not be kept informed of the summit preparations (Herter to Eisenhower, Feb. 4, 1960, AWF/I: Adenauer; for more on the problem of representation on the Steering Committee see State, Foreign Relations, 1958 - 1960, vol. IX, Berlin Crisis 1959 - 1960; Germany; Austria, pp. 175 - 77, 186). The State Department would cable the text of this message to the American embassy in Bonn for delivery to Adenauer. 2 The Soviet Union also had criticized the Federal Republic for trying to establish a West German radio station in West Berlin. The action was illegal, Soviet authorities stated, and would intensify hostile activity against the German Democratic Republic (State, Documents on Germany 1945 - 1985, pp. 686 - 87). 3 Adenauer would tell the President that his message had strengthened him in his "endeavors, through continuing the correspondence with Mr. Khrushchev, to explore in every justifiable manner a possibility to get one step ahead with him" (Adenauer to Eisenhower, Feb. 12, 1960, AWF/I: Adenauer). The German leader would make an informal visit to Washington on a trip to the West Coast to receive an honorary degree from the University of California. He would meet with Eisenhower on March 15 (see no. 1459). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Confidential To Konrad Adenauer, 5 February 1960. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1433. 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/second-term/documents/1433.cfm <--PREV Doc #1432  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1434

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