Status of Berlin, August-December 1959 123



States recently regarding balance of payments, etc. In response to Lord
Hood's inquiry, the Secretary said the remarks he had just made would
not be published. Ambassador Grewe was assured that a copy of the re-
marks would be given each of the Embassies at the end of the meeting.
    The Secretary then proceeded to discuss the record of Washington
consultations (HGP D-O/1).2 With regard to timing, he assumed that
the dates April 21 to 26 were acceptable. He mentioned the un-
desirability of publishing the terminal date of the conversations since it
might be that the meetings would conclude earlier than that time. In fact,
the President's available time should be considered as April 21 to 25
since he must be back in Washington on the 27th.
    The Secretary mentioned that the 10-nation disarmament group
preparatory work will be going on at the same time as the pre-summit
preparations and he would hope that these discussions could take place
in the same city for purposes of coordination. He said that Washington
has been suggested and this would be agreeable to the United States if
the others so desired, although we would be ready to consider any other
city that might appear more convenient to the others.
    The question of consultation with NATO, the Secretary said, pre-
sents a difficulty as regards the possibility of premature disclosure of
substantive matters in view of the gap between the Western summit in
December and the East-West summit in April. The first meeting there-
fore should not deal with substance but rather leave this for prepara-
tions which would take place early next year. He felt that NATO would
be satisfied if it had the feeling it was being filled in from time to time
during the preparatory interval. Ambassador Caccia said that while the
U.K. is doubtful about the United States suggestion for a Spaak repre-
sentative in the Working Group, the U.K. felt that something of sub-
stance must be said to NATO. Ambassador Grewe asked if the recent
Geneva experience was not a good example since NATO seemed to be
satisfied with the method used then. The Secretary mentioned that the
Foreign Ministers had taken turns in discussing problems with NAC.
Ambassador Alphand noted the difference between discussions with
the Soviets and the deliberations of a Working Group since in the latter
case you would not want to give advance information of subjects pro-
posed to governments for consideration. While NATO must be kept in-
formed, he felt the Working Group governments could say something


    2No copy of this draft report has been found. The report as revised by
the working
group in light of the comments made at this meeting, HGP D-O/lb, December
10, com-
prised three sections: I) Procedures and Arrangements, II) Scope, and III)
Annexes, of
which there were six. (Department of State, EUR/SOV Files: Lot 64 D 291,
Germany) An-
other copy of the report, with only two annexes, was circulated as NMM Ref-1/102,
De-
cember 8. It was intended for the use of the NATO Ministerial Meeting delegation.
(Ibid.,
Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1554)