628 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



242. Memorandum of Discussion at the 354th Meeting of the
     National Security Council


                                     Washington, February 6, 1958.

    [Here follow a paragraph listing the participants of the meeting and
discussion of unrelated matters.]
    General Cutler 1 discussed at length the controversy in the Planning
Board with respect to paragraph 44,2 and also pointed out the views of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff against inclusion of this paragraph. He then
called on Secretary Dulles.
    Secretary Dulles began by stating his opinion that with respect to
Germany the policies of the United States and the Soviet Union have
something in common-namely, that it was not safe to have a unified
Germany in the heart of Europe unless there were some measure of ex-
ternal control which could prevent the Germans from doing a third time
what they had done in 1914 and in 1939. Secretary Dulles insisted that
the Soviet Union would never accept an independent, neutralized Ger-
many in the heart of Europe. He added that he was convinced of this fact
from many private conversations with Soviet leaders, who had made it
quite clear that they would never agree to the creation of a unified Ger-
many unless it were controlled by the USSR. Nor, on the other hand,
should the United States accept a unified Germany except as part of an
integrated Western European community. We simply could not con-
template re-unifying Germany and then turning it loose to exercise its
tremendous potentialities in Central Europe. Accordingly, we should
get rid, once and for all, of the idea that the re-unification of Germany
is
in and by itself an objective of U.S. policy. Everything depended on the
context in which Germany was re-unified, because you could not neu-
tralize a great power like Germany permanently.
    After paying tribute to the formidable capabilities and energies of
the Germans and their extraordinary comeback from the devastation at
the end of the war, Secretary Dulles again warned that we could not
close our eyes to the fact that this great power must be brought under
some kind of external control. The world could not risk another repeti-
tion of unlimited power loosed on the world.
    Summing up, Secretary Dulles stated that we should not accept re-
unification of Germany as a goal under any and all conditions. It would


    Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Top Secret; Eyes
Only.
Drafted by Gleason.
    1 Robert Cutler, Chairman of the NSC Planning Board.
    2See paragraph 44 of NSC 5803, Document 243.