472 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



    Prime Minister Macmillan said that President de Gaulle could rea-
son with Khrushchev. It was necessary to exert every possible effort in
order to prevent the leftist elements from saying that we have failed to
do everything in our power to get this Conference going.
    M. Couve de Murville reported the text of a new message from Mr.
Khrushchev, which inquired whether the meeting called by de Gaulle
was for the purpose of ascertaining "whether the conditions for the
holding of a Summit meeting have been fulfilled."
    Prime Minister Macmillan noted that this wording did not say
"conditions of the Soviet Government."
    The President stated that Mr. Macmillan apparently wished Mr.
Khrushchev to say clearly that he would not come so that he could quote
that statement in the House of Commons.
    President de Gaulle said that Khrushchev would never say such a
thing. He stated that he had indicated how far he personally and the
French Government could go and then read the text of a communique
which the French Foreign Ministry had prepared and which was not to
be put out as a joint communique, but rather a statement of his own. He
then read the following text:

    "General de Gaulle, President of the French Re public, suggested
to
President Eisenhower, Chairman Khrushchev and Mr. Macmillan that
they should meet with him on May 17 at 3:00 p.m. in order to consider
with him whether the Summit Conference could begin studying the
questions it had been agreed to discuss.
    "The President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great
Britain were present. The absence of the Chairman of the Council of
Ministers of the Soviet Union was noted. General de Gaulle took note of
the fact that in these conditions the anticipated discussions could not
take place."
    President de Gaulle then raised the question of a joint com-
munique. He said that perhaps a sentence could be added to the French
unilateral communique stating that the President of the United States,
the President of the French Republic, and the Prime Minister of Great
Britain would publish a joint communique tomorrow morning. If Mr.
Khrushchev should yield in the meantime we could then see what to do.
If not, a communique would then be published which would recognize
that there was no Summit meeting; in any case the world knew that this
meeting had been called by President de Gaulle and it should be
informed that only two of the invited parties had come to attend it.
The question of the joint communique could perhaps be reserved until
tomorrow as an extreme limit, but it should be resolved early in the
morning because this situation could not go on indefinitely.
    M. Couve de Murville reported that there had been another mes-
sage from the Soviet Embassy, this time in reply to his request for an