132 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



He appeared appreciate that in last analysis Western Powers could do
nothing prevent such action. He seemed to feel, furthermore, that any
new arrangement, no matter what nature, would not have result of miti-
gating pressure on Berlin for long, and that therefore present status was
hardly likely to be improved upon.
                                                         Dowling








52. Memorandum of Conference With President Eisenhower


                                               December 18, 1959.

OTHERS PRESENT
    Secretary Herter
    Mr. Merchant
    Mr. Kohler
    General Goodpaster
    Mr. Hagerty

    The President opened the discussion by asking what decisions it
was thought would need to be reached in the Paris meetings, were the
Heads of Governments supposed to agree, for example, on the time, the
agenda, and the basic policy positions for a summit meeting. Mr. Herter
said he did not envisage much work on policy positions. At this stage,
the development of these should be left to working groups, particularly
if we try to set our new positions. These would leak to the press, and we
would lose any benefit from them. He thought the agenda should be
stated in very general terms. He outlined a series of topics, which in-
cluded "aid to the underdeveloped countries." The President said
he
had reservations about this formulation. First, he thought it should read
"relations with the underdeveloped countries," inasmuch as all
the obli-
gation should not be on the side of the industrial countries. He agreed
that disarmament should be a major topic for discussion.
    Regarding Berlin, he asked if there has been any softening on the
part of Adenauer. Mr. Herter said there had not-that there had been a


    Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diaries. Secret. Drafted
by Good-
paster on December 30. The conference took place on the train taking the
President from
Toulon to Paris for the Heads of Government meeting.