FOREIGN MINISTERS' CONFERENCE AT GENEVA (Hansard, 24 June 1959)

§ THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE)

My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I will make a statement that has just been made by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. For your Lordships' convenience, I will make the statement in the words of the Foreign Secretary.

"As the House knows, the Foreign Ministers' Conference at Geneva began on May 11. It recessed on June 20 and will reconvene on July 13. The first phase of the Conference was devoted to the discussion of problems affecting Germany and European security in general. The Western Foreign Ministers tabled the Western peace plan which was a phased plan for German reunification and European security. The Soviet Foreign Minister tabled the Soviet draft peace treaty with Germany which had already been published. They were both, in fact, package deals including in them attempts to solve a wide variety of questions. Mr. Gromyko went so far as to say that there were some acceptable ideas in our proposals. I would also say that in his draft peace treaty there are certain elements with which we would not quarrel. At the end of this phase of the discussion, however, it was still quite obvious that there was a wide gulf between the two 204 sides. It was also obvious that more time must elapse before there is the chance of a comprehensive agreement.

"At that point Mr. Dulles' much regretted death took place, and there was a brief intermission whilst the Ministers went to Washington.

"After our return from Washington, our attention was really centred upon the problems of Berlin. It is not the view of the British Government that we should seek to stay in Berlin for military, propaganda or intelligence reasons. We are there to maintain the right of 2¼ million West Berliners to choose their own way of life and to protect them from being forced or gradually squeezed into submission to a régime which they reject. An essential element in this is the right of free access for all forms of traffic between West Berlin and what Mr. Gromyko himself described as the outside world. The Soviet Government have also declared their willingness for the West Berliners to remain free to choose their way of life. To that extent both sides have had a declared common purpose in these discussions.

"The proposals which we put forward on June 16 suggested modification of the existing situation in certain respects. We offered to set a ceiling on the level of our forces in West Berlin and to continue only to arm them with conventional weapons. We were prepared on a reciprocal basis to try to ensure that activities should not take place in either part of Berlin which might disturb public order, affect the rights and interests of others, or amount to interference in the internal affairs of others. We wished to reach a new agreement that free and unrestricted access to West Berlin of all sorts should continue, that the existing procedures should remain applicable but that they could, where it is not already the case, be carried out by German personnel provided that it was without prejudice to the existing basic responsibilities.

"Mr. Gromyko said that he could not accept this Western plan for Berlin. For his part he suggested an interim status for West Berlin, including reduction of the Western Occupation Forces to symbolic contingents, the termination of what he described as subversive activities in West Berlin 205 against the D.D.R. and other Socialist States, and the "non-location" in West Berlin of atomic and rocket weapons. He suggested that a time limit of eighteen months should be set to that interim status, during which an all-German committee composed of representatives of the Federal Republic and the D.D.R. on a basis of parity should operate. This committee should promote contacts between the two Germanies and discuss measures for reunification and the preparation of a Peace Treaty. At the same time as Mr. Gromyko put forward these proposals, Mr. Khrushchev was making a speech in Moscow, stating that if agreement was not reached at the end of this period of eighteen months, all Western rights in Berlin would be extinguished. In other words he was indicating what seemed to be a reversion to the method of ultimatum. This was disappointing.

"We judged the time had come for a recess. In every negotiation there comes a moment when emotions are being roused, misunderstandings are temporarily increasing, and everyone is the better for a brief interval to take stock and decide what the other side has really been saying, or, perhaps more important, been meaning. I felt very strongly that that was the situation on Friday afternoon.

"I do not regard the Conference in any sense as having broken down. We go back a fortnight next Monday to resume our efforts to negotiate some agreement. Failure to reach agreement so far is of course disappointing, but I intend to go on trying to the best of my ability. If we are able to get an agreement On Berlin, it should open the way for agreements on wider problems. But we must not delude ourselves that these agreements can be easily or quickly negotiated. For agreement, patience and allied unity are both extremely important.

"With regard to a Summit Conference, I repeat what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said yesterday. It is also my hope that our resumed Conference will lead to a meeting of Heads of Governments.

"Although the various proposals and statements have in fact been published, I think it would he for the convenience of the House if I were to lay a White 206 Paper, putting them together in a single document. That I propose to do. The White Paper will be printed as rapidly as is practicable."

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH

My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships in all parts of the House will be grateful for the statement made to-day by the Foreign Secretary and repeated in this House. This subject matter of the Foreign Ministers' Conference at Geneva is of such vast importance—it becomes the worry as well as the daily deep interest of the majority of the whole world—that this preliminary statement is timely. We are glad to know from the end of the statement that the Government are to issue as soon as may be a White Paper which can be examined in more detail; it will he useful to your Lordships in all parts of the House if we have later to debate the question. I therefore do not propose this afternoon to put any question on the details of the statement, but hope that the House will permit me to say one or two brief words upon it.

I think that, as a whole, this is a good statement; and reading it through, and casting one's mind back over the last few weeks, I would say that rarely, perhaps, has a Conference of this importance been subject to such unfortunate interruptions and happenings. Perhaps it is well that we have come to the situation reached on June 20, when there is time for an adjournment and for a reconsideration of some of the matters interrupted by the death of Mr. Dulles and getting down to what is really necessary. I welcome, first of all, the emphasis which the statement makes upon the great necessity of unity between the Western Powers in dealing with the future stages of this Conference. I am also glad to see that the Foreign Secretary has again emphasised the importance that we over here, right through the country, attach to the maintenance of the independent and democratic rights of the 2¼ million people in Berlin.

We welcome, on the other hand, in spite of the unfortunate situation last week, which finally led to the postponement of the Conference until July 13, the fact that there have been indications of advances in some directions, here and there, in the attitude of Moscow. Certainly it seems to me that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation representatives have not been sitting back and 207 making no offers at all; there have been offers made of alteration and amendment. I am very hopeful, therefore, that the resumption of the Conference on July 13 will even yet lead to a situation in which all parties in the Western alliance will be willing to support, and support in unity, the idea of a Summit Conference. The Prime Minister put it, I thought, quite rightly and usefully yesterday; and so far as I am concerned—and I am sure I speak for my colleagues—I hope that that termination will nevertheless be as happy as that for this Conference.

I have great sympathy with those who have to represent us on such an occasion—I do not forget my period of just over a year at the Paris Peace Conference in 1946. There is no doubt that the negotiations are going on in a difficult atmosphere; but if we could go from stage to stage, with perhaps a little less interruption from outside the Conference—such as we have had from Mr. Khrushchev, for example, although I recognise that he has in the middle of his last statement extended the time—it would make things very much easier for all sides. It should be understood that this is a free Conference, met to consider objectively the agreement that we want to have, and not one that should be all the time under the threat of a kind of ultimatum. I am greatly obliged to the noble Marquess for this statement.