Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams

NLT(Naval A.del144 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE WASHINGTON DECLASSIFIED E.O. 12065, Sec. 3-402 State Dept. Guidelines, March 6, 1982 December 28, 1950 By DEB NLT, Date 6-18-65 TOP SECRET SUMMARY OF TELEGRAMS COUNCIL OF In view of the comments of the French and FOREIGN MINISTERS UK UN delegates reflecting the view that a Council of Foreign Ministers meeting should and will be held, we have informed our UN delegation that our position has been, and continues to be, that a Ministerial meeting should be held only if preliminary talks indicate a "mutually acceptable basis" which would make the meeting worthwhile. We pointed out that we agreed to the final wording of the reply to the Soviet Union on the explicit understanding that the replies should not be regarded as acceptance of a meeting in advance of the outcome of the exploratory talks. We requested our UN delegation in all conversations to dispel the idea that a Ministerial meeting is certain to be held, or that if held, Far Eastern questions would as a matter of course be on the agenda. In the meantime, UK and France have con- curred in the desirability of commencing the first round of tripartite discussions with the US as soon as possible for an exchange of views on a possible meeting. In conveying this information, a UK Foreign Office official stated that the Foreign Office considered it quite possible that in replying to the tripartite note the Soviet Union may propose that the agenda include Far Eastern problems and that Com- - munist China take part in these talks. He said that the British could hardly turn down such a proposal even though they would greatly prefer the talks to be solely on a quadripartite basis. He admitted, however, that the participation of the Chinese Communists would have to be preceded by a cease-fire in Korea. He also believed that the Soviets may accept our previous proposals for all-German elections plus agree - ment on German demilitarization as a basis for talks on Germany. He felt that such a move would place us in an extremely embarrassing position since a unified Germany sooner or later would fall under Soviet domination, and anticipated that we would have great difficulty in reject- ing such an offer. T.O.P.O SECRET