Status of Berlin, August-December 1959 59



interpreted as an indication that the Federal Republic now had an open
mind on new ideas for a Berlin settlement, had been taken out of context.
The Federal Republic has no such ideas, and von Eckardt's statement
was not intended as an invitation to come forward with new ideas.
    Ambassador Grewe continued that the German Embassy here had
received a report from Ambassador Kroll in Moscow which was inter-
esting in that it threw light on the strange conduct of Khrushchev at
Camp David in refusing to put anything in the actual communique
about the absence of a time limit on negotiations. After talking with vari-
ous people in Moscow, Ambassador Kroll had come to the conclusion
that Khrushchev first wanted to obtain the approval of the Party
Praesidium before making this commitment. Hence his resort to an oral
statement after returning to Moscow. The Secretary commented that
this might be the case, but noted that Khrushchev had been in Moscow
only a short time before his full confirmation of the President's press
conference statement.
    Ambassador Grewe said his Government was interested as to our
ideas about the possible timing of a Summit meeting. Did we envisage
such a meeting as the next step, or did we anticipate a prior meeting at
some other level? The Secretary replied that he had been thinking about
this and also had discussed the subject with the President. The Presi-
dent's feeling is that there might now be a Summit meeting, but he had
no precise thoughts so as to the timing. There had not yet been any dis-
cussion with our Allies. We would have to come to some conclusions
about where and when a Summit might be held and what should be
talked about at it. It should presumably not seem to take place on the
initiative of any one country. All these things still needed to be arranged.
As to subjects for discussion, the two principal ones would be disarma-
ment and the German and Berlin problem. As to the method of conduct-
ing negotiations, it seemed probable that the heads of governments
would agree that their Foreign Ministers should get together, say 3 or 6
months later, to carry on. The Secretary could not visualize anything
else unless the British or French came up with some new ideas. The big
safeguard, the Secretary continued, is the language in the communique
that the solution to be achieved must be in accordance with interests of
all concerned. This formula was used in order to avoid discussing the
troublesome problem of specific participants. In response to Ambassa-
dor Grewe's question, the Secretary said that a Summit meeting must
obviously include a discussion of Berlin. We would, of course, like to
have this in the context of the over-all German situation. The Soviets
want to talk about it in the context of a peace treaty. Likewise, in re-
sponse to an inquiry by Ambassador Grewe, the Secretary indicated
that we would not push a previous meeting of the Foreign Ministers. He
said that he would like to have this postponed as long as possible. The