88 Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, Volume IX



34.  Letter From Foreign Minister Brentano to Secretary of State
      Herter


                                             Bonn, October 23, 1959.

    DEAR CHRIS: When a few days ago Ambassador Bruce called on me,
he recalled on your behalf the conversation we had in Bonn on 27
August 1959.1
    I did not forget about that conversation. I reported on it at the time
to the Federal Chancellor, and I also discussed it with my closest col-
laborators. May I try now to inform you of the result of my considera-
tions, and in doing so, I ask you to consider this letter as a confidential
and personal contribution to the discussion which is intended to help
prepare the forthcoming conferences.
    It is perfectly clear to me that the attitude of the Soviet Union during
the Geneva Conference as well as in all the talks since then and in all the
statements made since then offers no grounds for assuming that the So-
viet Union might be ready to change its viewpoint in the German and
Berlin questions. In his latest letter, too, to Chancellor Adenauer, Pre-
mier Khrushchev reiterated the well-known theses.2 He demands the
conclusion of a peace treaty with two German States which should then
be left free to conduct negotiations about a rapprochement or a union; he
writes that such a peace treaty would also be a prerequisite for a change
in the abnormal situation of the city of Berlin which according to him
should be given the status of a free city.
    I am sure we are agreed that a final solution to the Berlin problem
can only be found when the division of Germany is terminated. We also
agree-and you emphasized that viewpoint with great earnest in our
conversation of 27 August-that the situation in Berlin is dangerous.
Berlin's isolated position in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany offers
the Soviet Union the opportunity to exert a constantly growing pressure
and perhaps also by deliberate individual actions to undermine the
status of Berlin step by step. The threat concerning the conclusion of a
separate peace treaty between Moscow and Pankow probably finds its
explanation only in the intention of the Soviet Union to evade by means


    Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204.
Secret; Eyes
Only; Personal and Private. The source text is a translation. Delivered by
the German Em-
bassy at noon on November 6.
    1 Bruce saw Brentano on October 14, and in a brief telegram reporting
on the meeting
stated that the German Foreign Minister would soon be writing Herter a personal
letter on
Berlin. (Telegram 745 from Bonn, October 15; ibid., Central Files, 762.00/10-1559)
For a
record of the meeting on August 27, see Document 7.
    2 For text of this October 15 letter, see Moskau Bonn, pp. 595-600.