248 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



    Informed by Mr. Sylvester that he had been quoted following a
meeting on the Hill as having told a Congressional committee that we
were prepared to recognize East Germany in exchange for a free corri-
dor to West Berlin, the Secretary said this was not true. There had been
something like this informally tossed around in the Defense Depart-
ment; the proposal would have been for a hundred kilometer-wide cor-
ridor and if the Soviets refused that, we would fall back to sixty
kilometers; but the Secretary said he had not entertained any such idea
himself, and he did not know what Defense's quid pro quo would have
been.
    The Secretary acknowledged that the Soviets could always put ef-
fective indirect pressure on West Berlin through an economic squeeze.
The President has said that the situation in West Berlin is abnormal, and
this was misconstrued; but the fact is the situation is abnormal in that
Berlin lies one hundred ten miles inside hostile territory. Nevertheless,
the spirit of the people is wonderful; there is a great deal of new building
going on, including the construction of speedways through and around
the city.
    The Secretary said that something on the Middle East might come
up at the Summit, perhaps in the nature of a proposal by the Russians for
an arms embargo. The Russians might also propose a guarantee of the
status quo in the Middle East. That would raise the question of the bor-
der between Israel and neighboring States. The Arabs would scream at
such a proposal. We ourselves would go as far as anybody to keep the
peace, but we don't know what our attitude will be on this question as
yet.
    The 1950 Tripartite Declaration on the Middle East4 still stands as
far as we are concerned. The question of an arms embargo might also be
raised with regard to Africa, and in either case produces a real headache
because the nations of those areas, particularly the new nations, would
claim that any embargo on arms shipments to them was an infringement
of their sovereignty. Ben Gurion did not raise with us the question of
United States arms supplies for Israel.










    4For text of this declaration, May 25, 1950, see American Foreign Policy,
1950-1955:
Basic Documents, vol. II, p. 2237.