104 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



    At an East-West Summit, the Secretary continued, it seemed certain
that the Soviets would begin with their German peace treaty proposals.
There were two possible approaches to a Berlin arrangement: to seek
either a temporary or a more enduring agreement. The Secretary noted
that he was sorry that Foreign Minister von Brentano felt, as indicated in
his letter, that the West had weakened its position by the proposals
made on July 28 at Geneva.4 This indicated that von Brentano did not
wish further to discuss the possibility of some temporary arrangement.
If the arrangement were not to be temporary, then it must be designed to
last until German reunification. What kind of a solution would fill this
need? If a solution cannot be found, then we must sooner or later count
on the Soviets making a separate peace treaty with the East Germans.
    Ambassador Grewe said his Government was always prepared to
discuss possible solutions with its Allies, but it did not see anything new
which could be done. He himself had tried to examine the range of pos-
sibilities and had come only to a negative conclusion. The difficulty with
the Western proposals at Geneva was that the Soviets would use them as
a starting point in the next round of negotiations. The Secretary com-
mented that he did not see where we could give any further in terms of
the Geneva approach.
    As to the Spaak dichotomy between a Summit meeting with full
preparations and one with no preparations, Ambassador Grewe stated,
the Federal Government considered it impossible as well as dangerous
to try to solve the big problems at one Summit meeting. However, the
conclusion could not be drawn from this that careful preparations for an
initial meeting were not necessary. The Secretary noted that, since we do
not know precisely what the Soviets will propose at a Summit meeting,
it was obviously too much to expect that the Western Heads of Govern-
ments could come up with all the answers within a period of four or five
days. One problem with reference to a series of Summit meetings, the
Secretary continued, was that if the first such meeting were to take place,
say in April, it would be problematic when the next could take place. It
would certainly not be advisable to have it in the heat of the American
election campaign, and a new administration in this country must have
a little time to organize itself. This seemed to mean one Summit per year,
Ambassador Grewe commented. The Secretary observed this probably
also meant that the Foreign Ministers would have to contemplate an-
other meeting on their part.
    Bonn was quite happy with the proposed preparations for the De-
cember Western Summit meeting, Ambassador Grewe stated, and had
authorized full participation by the German Embassy here. The Secre-
tary observed that the Four Powers would have a problem with NATO.



4See vol. VIII, Document 488.