294 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



that perhaps Spaak could be informed on a personal and confidential
basis.
    In response to von Brentano's question as to the Secretary's
thoughts on the subject of East-West contacts, particularly whether he
thought agreement could be reached on a common formula, the Secre-
tary said that this had to be discussed thoroughly. Of all the subjects
suggested as possible topics for the Summit, we could not see much use
in raising any of them. However, since the French had taken the lead in
this field we did not wish to prejudge the matter until Couve had had a
chance to state his position. Nevertheless, we frankly did not see much
prospect for useful discussions with the Soviets in this area. We had ex-
amined the various topics which the Working Group had been study-
ing. It might be desirable to explore some with the Soviets if we could be
sure they would work out a way we wanted, but all contained dangers
as we saw it. On the subject of Berlin, we cannot be certain of the Soviet
attitude, but there was an intimation in the de Gaulle-Khrushchev talks4
that, if we make a little headway on disarmament, the Soviets might be
willing to put off action on Germany and Berlin for a period of some two
years under some sort of modus vivendi. This was somewhat different
from what Khrushchev had said to Gronchi5 and in Indonesia.6 He
seems to blow hot and cold, and we could never be quite sure what he
would say next. Von Brentano noted that Khrushchev had to a large ex-
tent limited his freedom of action by the speeches he had made. There
was a question whether he had done this intentionally. The Secretary
observed that we did not know whether Khrushchev was actually
strong enough internally so that he could commit himself on a separate
peace treaty to the extent that he had and still not move ahead on it. Von
Brentano commented that he continued to be anything but polite to the
Federal Republic. The Secretary said that the Soviets were undoubtedly
engaged in a deliberate campaign against the Federal Republic. It was
hard to tell whether this was essentially for domestic reasons or to split
the alliance. The latter objective was the probable one, but it seemed to
have had the reverse effect. Von Brentano agreed with this and said that
particularly with reference to the French-German relationship
Khrushchev seemed to overestimate the possibilities of sowing dissen-
sion. The Secretary confirmed that our impression also was that the So-
viets had had little effect on France's attitude to the Federal Republic.
De
Gaulle's attitude had been sober and firm, as well as that of the French


    4See Documents 106 and 108.
    5 See Document 77.
    6 For text of Khrushchev's remarks at a press conference in Indonesia
on February
29, see Pravda, March 1, 1960; an extract pertaining to Germany is also in
Embree, Soviet
Union and the German Question, pp. 229-231.