<--PREV Doc #1596  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1598 Document #1597; August 1, 1960 Correspondence To Harold Macmillan Series: State Department Files, Presidential ; Category: Cable. Secret The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XXI - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part X: Ending an Era; August 1960 to January 1961 Chapter 23: "To keep the Free World free"   Dear Harold:1 Thank you for your letter of July 22 which further reassures me of our common understanding of the several problems which we have been discussing.2 With particular reference to our joint consultations with de Gaulle, I have finally settled on a further reply to his letter of June 10, which I am assured reflects Selwyn Lloyd’s comments to Chris Herter and your views as reported during the close consultation with your Embassy here. I will be sending my letter out within the next several days, but am enclosing an advance copy for you.3 I have also just received from your Embassy the draft of your own letter to de Gaulle and believe that it is very good. One point, however, troubles me somewhat. I would hope that you would agree to deleting the last sentence in the first paragraph, or perhaps changing it to reflect the fact that we both have the same attitude on strategic questions. I wonder if you might not also like to note in the second sentence of the same paragraph that you had felt free to seek my views in as much as de Gaulle told you he had sent me a copy of his letter to you.4 With warm personal regard, As ever 1 State Department officials sent this message to the American embassy in London for delivery to Prime Minister Macmillan. 2 Responding to Eisenhower’s message regarding U.S. policy toward Cuba (see no. 1582), Macmillan had characterized Castro as "the very Devil." Cuba’s position--"sitting right at your doorstep"--made the strategic implications even more important than economic considerations, Macmillan had written. 3 For background on tripartite consultations among British, French, and U.S. officials, and de Gaulle’s June 10 letter, see no. 1572. "Our people are fixing up with yours the right kind of line," Macmillan had written. "It seems to me that what we must do is neither to disappoint the French nor lead them up the garden path. We want broad strategic discussions but we do not want to upset NATO. This is a delicate but not impossible balance." Eisenhower had suggested to Secretary Herter that the reply to de Gaulle might include the possibility of tripartite discussions of NATO problems. After seeing a draft reply, however, British Foreign Secretary Lloyd had insisted that the suggestion be removed (Telephone conversation, Eisenhower and Herter, July 1, 1960, Herter Papers, Telephone Conversations; and State, Foreign Relations, 1958 - 1960, vol. VII, pt. 2, Western Europe, p. 398). For Eisenhower’s reply to de Gaulle see the following document. 4 Macmillan would send Eisenhower the final version of his response to de Gaulle. "You will see," he wrote "that this takes account of the points you made." The last sentence of the first paragraph would read: "I have not sent you a full answer sooner, since you told me you had sent a copy of your letter to President Eisenhower and I thought it was only sensible to find out what he thought about the strategic aspect before giving you my views" (Macmillan to Eisenhower, Macmillan to de Gaulle, Aug. 4, 1960, same file as document; see also Macmillan, Pointing the Way, pp. 245 - 46). For developments see the following document. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Cable. Secret Correspondence To Harold Macmillan, 1 August 1960. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1597. 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/1597.cfm <--PREV Doc #1596  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1598

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