434 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



    The President replied that they involved progressive harassment of
the economic life of Berlin while not actually violating our access, and
the Chancellor had not answered these practical problems.
    General de Gaulle asked, "What answer could he give?" It de-
pended on what the Soviets really wanted. If they wanted a detente,
they would not torture the people of Berlin and we don't need to make
undue concessions. The Chancellor had indicated this morning that Ber-
lin had stocks that would enable it to carry on for a year.
    The Secretary pointed out that these stocks were foodstuffs, not raw
materials.
    General de Gaulle said that on the other hand if Khrushchev did not
want a detente he would go ahead and harass Berlin and sign his treaty
with the GDR.
    The President said that he would like to be in a position where we
had plans for such a contingency.
    General de Gaulle said that we all knew that the situation at Berlin
was awkward and that if the Soviets wanted to create difficulties and
make trouble it was easy for them to do so here. The whole question
came down to whether or not they wanted a detente. This was a test.
    The President said that Khrushchev had told him that he needed
ten years to educate the people of the GDR so that they would vote for
communism in a truly free election.
    The President said that the Chancellor thought he was weakening
on Berlin. He was not, he was merely trying to ascertain what the Chan-
cellor was thinking so he could prepare for it.
    General de Gaulle said that the Chancellor could not answer the
President because it depended on the Soviets.
    The President said that it was sometimes not right to refer to the
mistakes of those who had disappeared but that in 1944 the military
fighting in France and Western Germany had pled for a military occupa-
tion capital at the junction of the Soviet, U.S. and U.K. zone (the French
zone had not yet been set up) of a cantonment type, and they were told
to keep quiet, this was political, Berlin was the traditional capital and
that if orders came from the occupation authority other than from Berlin
they would not be carried out. But he had lost.
    General de Gaulle said that he had also lost, he had not had the
hearing then that the President had had, nor did he have it now, but he
had been opposed to using Berlin as the capital of Germany.
    The President said, "But now we have to live with it."
    General de Gaulle ruefully agreed.
    Mr. Macmillan said that he would now like to revert to an earlier
point where de Gaulle had said that it would be bad for the morale of the
West to lose Berlin. He agreed, but it would be worse to say that we