Presidential Papers, Doc#1542 To Harold Macmillan, 24 May 1960. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Doc #1543

Document #1542; May 24, 1960
To Harold Macmillan
Series: EM, AWF, DDE Diaries Series
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace
Part IX: Shattered Dreams; March 1960 to July 1960
Chapter 22: Disaster in Paris

 

Dear Harold:1 I have just received your cable of May twentieth. I enthusiastically endorse your observation that you and I should remain as closely together as is humanly possible.2

When your message reached me, I was just dictating one to you concerning two newspaper stories, disturbing to me, that came out of London, one written by a man named Cook, the other by Middleton, both Americans. While the stories do not deal with the same phases of post-Paris events, both do refer to some fancied rift between you and me or between our respective associates and assistants.3

As you know, there is no slightest foundation for any such stories so far as Chris Herter and I are concerned. Moreover, in spite of the fact that one of the stories reports that some of the Americans who were left in Paris after the departure of Chris and myself voiced criticism of you and your efforts to bring about a Summit meeting, I cannot believe there is any foundation of fact for the story. All the people working around me and with me heard me time and again refer to the ideal association between you and myself and, indeed, between the both of us with General de Gaulle. Moreover, you and I agreed long ago that a Summit meeting was advisable, particularly after Mr. K. removed his alleged ultimatum on Berlin.4

Another item refers to a conclusion that your reception of Mr. K. on Sunday afternoon was ill-advised because by doing so you indicated or created a rift between our two delegations. Of course nothing could be more ridiculous. I was anxious for you to receive the man to see whether his afternoon story would be the same as the one he gave to General de Gaulle in the morning.5

Of course I know that you do not take such stories as these too seriously. I have respected your judgment and valued your friendship for more than seventeen years, and I want to assure you that my confidence in you is higher, if possible, than ever before.

After leaving Paris I spoke publicly both in Lisbon and in Washington and in both instances took occasion to point out that one good result of the failure of the conference was to bring the allies closer together. I referred especially to the splendid spirit that animated the three of us at all our meetings.6

With warm personal regard, As ever

1 This message was sent by cable to the American embassy in London for delivery to Macmillan. At the request of Presidential Secretary Ann Whitman the cable was marked "personal." The State Department classified it "Confidential."

2 Macmillan had written in response to an earlier letter from Eisenhower regarding the abortive Paris summit (see no. 1539). "I cannot tell you how much I admired the magnanimity and restraint with which you acted throughout those trying few days," Macmillan told Eisenhower. "As for the future, no one can tell which way it will go. But certainly our experiences in Paris make it all the more important to strengthen our Western alliance" (AWF/I: Macmillan).

3 Don Cook, chief of the London bureau of the New York Herald Tribune, had written that the "summit wreckage" had left Macmillan "the most weakened, diplomatically, of any of the Western Big Three leaders." He had played the middleman "past the point of diplomatic usefulness," Cook said, and consequently his advice was "unlikely to be sought or be very influential at Washington in these last months of the Eisenhower administration" (New York Herald Tribune, [May 23, 1960]).

Drew Middleton, chief London correspondent for the New York Times, had reported that some members of the U.S. delegation had said "that a conference of heads of government was always a bad idea, that Mr. Macmillan had talked President Eisenhower into it, that Mr. Macmillan’s position with President Eisenhower had deteriorated as a consequence of the debacle at Paris and that the members of the British delegation differed among themselves on this and other points of the Macmillan policy" (New York Times, May 24, 1960; for background on Middleton’s reporting see no. 88).

4 On Secretary Herter’s message to British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd regarding the stories see State, Foreign Relations, 1958 - 1960, vol. VII, pt. 2, Western Europe, pp. 868 - 69; on Khrushchev’s withdrawal of the Berlin ultimatum see no. 1325.

5 In his meeting with de Gaulle Khrushchev had harshly criticized Eisenhower and said that the "airplane incident" had made the summit impossible. Khrushchev had added that he was particularly disappointed because he had been prepared to present "many ‘constructive’ proposals" regarding disarmament (State, Foreign Relations, 1958 - 1960, vol. IX, Berlin Crisis 1959 - 1960; Germany; Austria, p. 486; see also de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope, p. 253. With Macmillan Khrushchev had maintained his desire for peaceful coexistence and had chided the British leader for not putting more pressure on Eisenhower (Macmillan, Pointing the Way, p. 211).

6 For the two speeches see Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1960 - 61, pp. 431 - 32, 435 - 37; see also New York Times, May 20, 1960.

"Of course I did not take the Cook-Middleton story seriously," Macmillan would answer. "It was very good of you to send me such a generous letter and to speak so warmly. You know how much I value your friendship and I think that our sort of close feeling for each other is the kind of thing which grows stronger with the years" (Macmillan to Eisenhower, June 2, 1960, PREM 11/2995). For developments see no. 1553.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Harold Macmillan, 24 May 1960. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1542. 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/1542.cfm

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