Preparations for the Summit Conference 405



point saying that he was sure Ambassador Eaton would agree that the
essential was that whatever Summit directive on disarmament might be
sent to Geneva, it should be clear and not subject to months of haggling
over interpretation.
     At the end of the meeting, the Secretary inquired whether the
French thought Khrushchev wanted a short-term modus vivendi on
Berlin. Couve said he thought it was unlikely. The Secretary said that the
conclusion of the 1959 meeting in Geneva represented our last position
on Berlin. Couve thought Khrushchev probably wanted some result
from the Summit to justify its having been held, and perhaps it did not
matter to him much in what field and that he hoped to take something
back with him either in the Berlin or disarmament field.
    The meeting adjourned at 12:20 p.m.5
























    5 At the end of the conversation, Merchant spoke to Alphand and Lucet
about the
French proposal. According to his memorandum of the conversation, the discussion
went
as follows:
    "Following the break-up of the bipartite meeting with the French
on disarmament, I
told both M. Lucet and Ambassador Alphand that the French proposal on means
of deliv-
ery and their decision to present it as a proposal at the Summit was to us
a matter of utmost
seriousness. I said that they were proposing to offer controls over weapons
which they did
not possess. Moreover, the controls necessary were so far-reaching and complicated
that
we would never contemplate this project in any other phase of the Western
disarmament
plan than in stage 3. Finally, I said it seemed to me that it opened up the
very real poss-
ibility that the President would have to repudiate de Gaulle's proposal in
front of
Khrushchev. Both of them deprecated the seriousness of the matter, but I
did not feel that
their hearts were in the defense of the proposal." (Department of State,
Conference Files:
Lot 64 D 559, CF 1664)