Mr. Harold Stassen

4-29-77
This interview is being conducted with Mr. Harold Stassen in his office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 29, 1977. The interviewer is Dr. Thomas Soapes of the Eisenhower Library. Present for the interview are Mr. Stassen and Dr. Soapes.


DR. SOAPES:  I'd like to focus our attention here on your role in
the disarmament field.  When you assumed the position as chief of
arms negotiations in the Eisenhower administration, what basic
instructions did you receive from the President as to what type
of progress he expected to make in that field?

MR. STASSEN:  Well, first of all, of course, his first
instruction was to develop a recommended policy.  The situation
had been that there was a deadlock between departments in the
beginning of his administration which had made it impossible to
reach agreement on a policy and a program.  And so, actually I
think the cable came to me while I was doing Foreign Operations
work on a trip over in Pakistan.  The ambassador there called me
in and here was a secret cable which asked me whether I would
take on the matter of shaping up a policy in the arms control
field.  And, of course, having sat on the National Security
Council with him and the Cabinet from the beginning, I was well
aware of the issues that were there within the administration. 
So, as I recall, I cabled back saying, in principle I'd be
willing to tackle it, but I'd talk to him when I got back on a
certain day.
     When I got back to the White House he told me that he was
very much concerned, that he felt that to give a better chance of
world peace that we needed to be able to take some initiatives,
and that he would like, first of all, for me to proceed to
develop a recommended policy for the United States.  I then
proceeded to assemble a group of men, women of great distinction
in various fields.  You'll find in your records where, oh, there
must have been about thirty individuals from the various fields
like Dr. Ernest Lawrence and Dr. [Edward] Teller in atomic
energy, Bedell Smith and others in the Army, some of the admirals
in the Navy, General [Jimmy] Doolittle and others in the Air
Force, Dr. [James] Fisk and others in the scientific field, Dr.
Mouton in the economic field from Brookings Institute.  We
assembled this group and they started to study, and we went down
to Quantico, Virginia for an intensive session.  We developed a
group of documents which are still, as far as I know, top secret-
-they were in gray folders--which projected and analyzed what the
H-Bomb age and the missile age would be.  That is the beginning
of outer space missiles and then in effect in the realization of
those potential developments what the United States' policy ought
to be.  And then these were presented to the President and the
National Security Council.  And, contemporaneously with that
period, came the issue about meeting the Russian leaders.  There
was an internal difference of opinion in the administration about
whether or not a summit meeting should be held.  I was one of
those that felt that it would be good to hold a summit meeting
and--

Q:  Why did you think that that was a good approach?

MR. STASSEN:  That it would be one part of opening up exchange
between the two areas of the world.  And also that the image of
position of President Eisenhower and of the United States in the
world should be that we were seeking to find ways to improve the
opportunity for peaceful progress.  This was an intensive,
internal debate in that period of time and finally led to his
decision that, yes, he would go to a summit meeting.

Q:  Who else favored the summit meeting within the
administration?

MR. STASSEN:  C.D. Jackson, who was in the White House staff
group, Nelson Rockefeller.  I believe around the Security Council
table that--I believe Herb Brownell spoke up for it; I think
Milton Eisenhower was for it, speaking of the sort of your
initial stages of the unfolding of it.  And then of course when
the summit conference was set--must have been about July of 1955-
-then there was an urgency of reaching decisions on the policy
affecting arms control and disarmament.  Then those decisions
were made by the President in a series of National Security
Council meetings so that he went to the Geneva summit conference
with his mind quite clear as to what he would be willing to do
and what he would not do and how we'd approach the moving toward
an open world.  Of course you do have in mind historically, but
you get the perspective that up to this time the matter of what
you might call the "iron curtain mentality," the closed off area
of the Soviet Union and all the phobias that were connected with
that was very much a part of the scene.  So that a great part of
moving for that summit meeting and plans to use it to open up the
world and to open up the communication, having in mind that
Stalin had died and that new leaders were there in Russia.  The
world situation, of course, was changing.

Q:  Changing in the sense that the administration felt there was
a greater chance for accommodation with Stalin now departed?

MR. STASSEN:  That's right.  Greater chance also of opening up
communication.  Moving on over you have to have in mind that then
at that Geneva Conference, you see one of our recommendations was
the proposal to open up to reciprocal observation--the "Open
Skies" approach came out of our studies.  And, of course, after
it hit so dramatically then more or less everybody started to
claim credit for it, but it came directly out of our studies,
it's in our studies, those secret reports.  The premises, of
course, were that you could not do any kind of a disarmament
approach unless there was inspection, that there was greater
danger of miscalculation on one part or the other and then
somebody moving.  You have to remember, too, that back in that
time there were some of the advocates of the so-called pre-
emptive war, to try to use nuclear weapons to obliterate the
opposition before it would begin.  And there were many extreme
doctrines proposed.  And I think that historically as you trace
it through--and now whether his files will have those top secret
documents--they were at that time classified top secret--or where
they would be I'm not sure--but from any study of arms control
and of Eisenhower's decisions, that group of reports which would
have been made in early 1955, shortly before the summit meeting,
would be a very key, basic document.  That is, he made the
decisions.
     I think this is in some of the other oral histories we've
taken for Dulles at the Firestone Library and for Columbia.  But
as he approached the summit meeting, Secretary Dulles, for whom,
as I've said all the time, I have great respect although there
were deep differences in approach, he took the view that the
summit meeting should not take up the subject of disarmament or
arms control.  And on that premise he did not want in the
delegation originally either myself or Nelson Rockefeller to be
present at Geneva.  President Eisenhower called me in just before
that session at Geneva and told me directly that Secretary Dulles
did not want me in the Geneva delegation because it would
indicate a readiness to talk about disarmament and Secretary
Dulles thought we shouldn't talk about it, shouldn't try to move
on it, but that he thought that it would probably come up and he
probably would want it up and we had a little study.  So he asked
if I'd mind going to Paris and standing by there with General
[Alfred] Gruenther, who was then over there in SHAPE, and Admiral
[Arthur] Radford so that if he wanted to call us up, we'd be
nearby.  And that actually is what happened.  
     In the opening sessions he became so convinced, the opening
day, that he wanted to go into this subject and that the Russians
were opening it, he sent the message down and we flew up from
Paris to Geneva.  Then, in the presence of all of them, of Dulles
and everybody else, this whole delegation, he told me what he
learned since he arrived and he asked me to prepare a speech on
the subject for the next day, working with everybody.  So it was
an intensive night of work with Secretary Dulles and everybody
else.  The next morning I presented to him a draft of a message
which included consideration of all the different views--that
included the "Open Skies"--and there was discussion and he made
the decisions.  Matter of fact, I think maybe I should dig out
for you, I think that original draft and his notes on it I have,
that I drafted and where he would delegate and adjust.  I think
that's in my papers.
     Then, in that discussion, Secretary Dulles said that on the
"Open Skies" that that should not be in the initial message
because that should be used in rejoinder.  I said to President
Eisenhower in Secretary Dulles's presence, I said, "Mr.
President, in all due respect to that view, as you know I've
negotiated a lot with the Russians all the way back into the
United Nations beginnings and," I said, "Bulganin is chairman of
this session"--they rotated the chairmanship--"in my judgment,
Bulganin will not wait to go around as you say.  He will take the
initiative right in his first speech and you won't have the
opening for two speeches.  You'll be next in the rotation and you
give your message and when it comes back to Bulganin he'll
adjourn.  There won't be any further discussion.  That's the way
they negotiate and the way they operate."  So he then sort of
hedged a bit toward Dulles' view.  He took some of the "Open
Skies" language from the draft that was prepared.  But when they
opened the session, Bulganin called the session to order and
said, "I have a statement to make on behalf of the Soviet Union." 
And President Eisenhower looked back to me with a smile and he
said to Foster, "I think Harold's right; we'd better go."  So
then you'll find that in his message in that Geneva meeting he
put the "Open Skies" in full blown on his first presentation. 
And the fascinating thing is when it came back around after
Macmillan and the French prime minister spoke, Bulganin said,
"We've now concluded our session."  It was ended.
     But that "Open Skies," as you may also know, was the
dramatic worldwide emphasis and it wasn't just in itself "Open
Skies" and it wasn't only designed that way--it was a part of our
endeavor which President Eisenhower fully took the lead in and
subscribed to from our internal discussions that it was a better
chance to move into the H-bomb age without war if we opened up
the world.  So "Open Skies" was the dramatization about, for the
sake of peace, open up the world.  And this became the great
thrust, had great publicity.  I think it would further show that
Eisenhower's popular following went up over eighty percent, the
highest point in August, September of that year, of the whole
eight years.  And a tremendous worldwide impact.
     And then, with that, Nelson Rockefeller had worked up the
concept of the exchange of delegations, so those exchanges, they
are still going on which have been renewed I believe every four
years since that.  I think that from that '55 meeting the
preliminary negotiations about the exchanges between the Soviet
Union and the United States took about two years to actually
negotiate out.  So I believe the agreement on first exchanges
came to fruition in '57.  Then there was the beginning of the
exhibition in Moscow and the weight lifters and the orchestras
and all this that began the exchange, and I think it's the very
same agreement that every four years has been renewed since that
time.
     So I've always felt that historically President Eisenhower's
leadership for, in effect, opening up the Soviet Union and
opening up the world and decreasing the danger of surprise attack
and the apprehension and miscalculations that could come up from
concern about surprise attack, having in mind the background of,
on the one hand, our Pearl Harbor experience and on the other
hand the Russian experience with the Hitler attacks and so on,
that sequence, that was, I think, a great historic moment.

Q:  Did you get a feel for why Eisenhower changed his approach
and called you down and decided to go ahead with this proposal?

MR. STASSEN:  Yes, my feeling was that in his first contacts
immediately with the Russian leaders--and Zhukov, of course, was
alive and was there at that time--that he thought it was the
right time to do it.  I don't know as though he really changed
his mind.  My feeling always was, although this he never said to
me, that he left us behind originally in deference to Foster
Dulles, but that when the situation was there he called us on up. 
This is a characterization through the years, you know, just as I
had great respect for Foster Dulles but had differences with him
as to what the policy ought to be.  President Eisenhower had
great respect for Foster Dulles but when the clutches would come
there and he became convinced of something, he would overrule
Foster and then Foster would accept the decision and go forward. 
Historically there was another very dramatic thing about that on
the Suez Canal and so forth.

Q:  You've mentioned that significance of inspection and I think
historians have agreed that inspection was a key point in all of
this.  In the memorandum that General [Andrew] Goodpaster wrote
of the meeting which you had with the President and the others
right before the proposal was made--

MR. STASSEN:  He, by the way, was on the staff at the White House
at that time.  And he was in all of these sessions.  And probably
kept some pretty good minutes because he's that kind of a man.

Q:  Right.  He makes one note in his memo of that meeting that
you had advocated the exclusion of advanced technology from the
inspection procedure so that the inspection would be of a limited
nature.  And I was wondering if you remember that and why the
inspection would be limited?


MR. STASSEN:  I don't have any clear recollection of that point. 
I think that we said that you had to always be aware that you
couldn't really inspect what was going on in the laboratories on
either side but that opening up so that inspectors could move
around was a sine qua non of any sensible agreement.

Q:  Some of the commentators have said that Eisenhower was
holding out for a foolproof inspection.

MR. STASSEN:  He might have used that expression in a press
conference or something, but he was never so naive to believe
that an inspection system could be foolproof.  But it had to be
as good as we could design and there was work on that.  And of
course in those early stages, the immediate stages, the Russians
wouldn't agree to any inspection.  In the course then of the
negotiations from '55 on up, the follow-ups to '58, they did
gradually open up that they would be willing to provide for some
inspection.  There was a certain amount of opening and
development of openness, willingness to exchange inspectors.

Q:  Was a disarmament agreement tied to any political
considerations?

MR. STASSEN:  The beginning, that is the summit meeting, that
first summit meeting was set up on this basis, that President
Eisenhower made a speech about atoms for peace, the willingness
to meet anywhere provided there was some clear indication of a
readiness on the other side to do something toward peace and
mentioning various things that they could do--seems to me that
was about April of '55--like agreeing to have a mutual withdrawal
from Austria.

Q:  The "Atoms for Peace" speech was December '53.  And there
were some suggestions in there of--

MR. STASSEN:  Things to do.

Q:  Right.  Germany was one issue; Trieste, I think was--

MR. STASSEN:  Trieste, of course Trieste was mainly with
Yugoslavia and Tito.  There was sort of a constant issue of
whether or not political issues should be tied to arms limitation
and there was a view--I'd be inclined to put it this way,
although there's always very mixed reasons for many things--
generally those who did not want any kind of agreement whatsoever
affecting arms took the position that there had to be first an
agreement on the reunification of Germany before we could make
any kind of an agreement on arms limitations.  At some stages
President Eisenhower might have gone along with that kind of
thinking, but I don't think he ever really adopted it.

Q:  Who were those who were in that position?

MR. STASSEN:  Well I think mostly Secretary Dulles and Adenauer
of Germany.  They were so emphatic about a program for the
reunification of Germany that they wanted to put that ahead of
everything.  And, of course, way back there it was my view that
you just could never expect with the German war history that the
Russians would agree to that and that therefore you had to
realistically think that there were two Germanys and that we
ought to let both Germanys into the United Nations--took a long
time before that finally came about--and then negotiate on that
basis of how you withdrew part of the troops from each side and
Central Europe and so on.  I don't believe--although of course I
myself haven't, you know, haven't seen those top secret papers
since '58 so there may be things in there I don't recall--but I
don't believe that we had any political preconditions for the
policies that we were recommending.

Q:  One of the reasons I raise the question is because Eisenhower
did raise the question of some political concessions in the
December '53 "Atoms for Peace" speech--

MR. STASSEN:  To get the indication that they really wanted to
meet.  See there was the view, sincerely expressed by some men,
that there was never any use negotiating on any subject with the
Soviet Union, that you couldn't trust their agreements, that they
never wanted any real agreements, that it was a waste of time,
that it was deceptive to the rest of the countries of the world,
that their meeting had put a different sort of atmosphere of
recognition of them that wasn't otherwise there, and so that you
shouldn't go into these kinds of sessions.  That was a part of
the thinking behind the opposition to a summit meeting.  That is
that you raise their prestige by Eisenhower being willing to meet
with them.  These internal debates were pretty intensive about
this.  And so they took this view about not reaching any
agreement with them whatsoever, that it would be a harmful thing
for United States policies.

Q:  Did these people then, like Dulles, assume that the conflict
between the United States and the Soviet Union was to continue on
forever without resolution?

MR. STASSEN:  Well they looked more for internal deterioration in
the Soviet Union that would then cause them to, you know, pull
their armies back out of Europe and so forth.  It was a sincere
view, and you never know what history is going to unfold on
things like that.

Q:  Some documents suggest that Dulles began to change his views
in the second term.  Several of the oral history interviews in
the Dulles project suggest this.  There is a letter that he wrote
to Adenauer, I think about '58, where he's talking about not
tying a disarmament settlement to political changes.  Did you
notice a change or a softening of Dulles's position?

MR. STASSEN:  Some.  And of course this was a thing that I worked
on a great deal.  I spent a lot of my time in those years talking
with Secretary Dulles, trying to reason through the reasons for
his views and the other views that were to be considered.  And I
also in fact at some times would arrange for a joint conference
between Allen Dulles, who was head of CIA, Secretary Dulles, and
myself to sit down together on some of these issues on the basis
that Allen's intelligence information would be somewhat different
than Foster's conceptions of what the picture was.  And without
it being too blunt, I would try to bring that together in order
to, you know, move Secretary Dulles on these policies.  Never
moved him very far.  In fact, I got him to go along on having a
summit meeting, which I think in the sweep of the history was a
very important Eisenhower initiative.  And that was very
vigorously debated, as you must have in your files, in the early
stages whether Eisenhower should have such a summit meeting, and
likewise of what kind of proposals he'd make and what kind of
initiatives he'd make.  The issue on the exchange of delegations
with the Soviet Union, one of the big thrusts was that they will
load every delegation that comes over here with NKGB, the secret
police people.  And our response in the internal debate was not
to in any way deny that.  Say, "Yes, they will.  But anytime they
reach out, with whoever they reach out with, they can't avoid a
return communication back up that reach to give greater
information inside the Soviet Union than they otherwise would
have."  See I had the background of my own post-war contacts with
Stalin, the interviews which were recorded of just how much
misinformation they really believe on the top level about the
United States and about what was going to happen in the world and
things like that.  And in those years particularly, one of my
greatest concerns was a miscalculated plunge into a nuclear war.

[Interruption]

Q:  In these sessions that you had with Secretary Dulles and his
brother, are you telling me that Secretary Dulles's views were in
part based on misinformation or a misperception of military
realities or of political objectives of the Soviet Union?

MR. STASSEN:  The factual situations of the economy and controls
and so forth would vary on different issues, but to, you know, to
anticipate that the real solution of the whole thing would come
from the internal explosion--these could happen but they'd put
them down.  For instance, one of those times was on the--well of
course it came up on the Finnish negotiations which I was in on,
the Austrian negotiations.  See there was, for instance, the view
on Austria that it was just no use, and it was my view we should
persist; we should try to think through what the Soviet position
was.  They would be very concerned if Austria became a part of
NATO with its position so far in toward Russia geographically; so
we should make it clear that Austria could be independent.  It
could have its own, in effect, national guard; that it would not
be aligned on either side; that we'd both pull out and we should
persistently put that in.  And these were Eisenhower's decisions. 
He would say, "Why not keep at it?"  As you know it was, I don't
know, something like three hundred and some meetings and suddenly
they said they agreed.  And the experts still disagree as to why
did the Russians at that time agree to a mutual withdrawal from
Austria.  Nobody knows, and if you ever get the Kremlin minutes
opened up I suppose somebody'll find out.  But in any event they
finally agreed; we did that very careful reciprocal pull back
while the Austrians established their own forces.  There were
those that said that they will never withdraw the Red Army from
Austria, there's just no use talking.  And Allen Dulles did have
information about some of the unsatisfactory aspects of having
the Red Army in Austria, that there was some difference of view
in the Kremlin as to what they ought to do, things like that.
     Now it came up also in connection with Hungary,
Czechoslovakia.  There was the question of what kinds of
initiatives should the United States take to give them a chance
to let an independent Czechoslovakia, independent Hungary arise
and let it occur without it being such a devastating setback to
the Soviet Union that they just couldn't take it.  And this was a
part of some of the intensive periods when they'd say, "Well,
they'd send the Red Army in; they just won't take that much of a
reverse."  And these were the kind of issues on which I'd try to
get Allen Dulles and Foster together and then the President
himself.

Q:  In May of '55, just before the Geneva meeting, the Russians
made an offer which scholars have said appears to have accepted a
good deal of the American position on disarmament, and the United
States rejected it.  Why?

MR. STASSEN:  It's hard for me to be absolutely clear with the
different years and the different stages of negotiations, but I
think at that stage the, you might say, the internal strength
inside of President Eisenhower's administration was pretty strong
in the direction of making no agreement with them whatsoever. 
Now as Eisenhower began to make his decisions and to give his
emphasis, there was somewhat more of a recognition that that was
his policy and that they should go along with it.  Then there's
the stage in which, in effect, Adenauer was more adamant and one
of the French leaders--was it Jacques or something like that--
there were contacts with Radford, with Jacques and with Dulles
with Adenauer so that we would have that problem of allies being
more resistant than our own internal people because they'd been
partly overruled by Adenauer's decision.  So we went through that
kind of a stage.  And, of course, it finally reached a stage as
you know where the Secretary came to London and in effect ended
the negotiations.

Q:  Right.  That was in the fall.

MR. STASSEN:  Fall of '57 wasn't it?

Q:  Let's see now, I remember there was a set of discussions in
the fall of '55 after Geneva in which you withdrew, at one point,
a number of the pre-Geneva American positions.

MR. STASSEN:  Pre-Geneva, that was, for instance, the matter of
an abolition of nuclear weapons.  One of the parts of our study
was that you could not cancel out the nuclear age.  That is, when
you once had discovered how to make nuclear bombs, you couldn't
just wipe that out of existence, and, therefore, to put down any
kind of a proposal in which part of it's going to be the
elimination of nuclear weapons is just not sound, not right.  And
we pointed out that a country could have a large stockpile of
nuclear weapons and shield them off with the proper shielding and
no way you could discover that they were there.  With the then
most sensitive instruments you had, you could be a hundred feet
away from the stockpile and you wouldn't know they were there. 
So that to have a potential of anybody to say, "We know that two
years ago we were to destroy all our nuclear weapons, but we got
news for you; we got a couple hundred of them stowed away and you
better do so-and-so," that was just an unthinkable position to be
in.  So we withdrew any proposal that we would wipe out the
nuclear age and destroy or eliminate all nuclear weapons.  That
was the important part of that.  
     There was quite a lot of turmoil and misunderstanding and so
on as to our position at that time, but you'll find that in those
top secret papers.  As I said, there's no way that you could
inspect the elimination of nuclear weapons, therefore you should
not take a position that you've eliminated them, but rather you
took the approach of how you limit the, quote, danger of their
use, limit the potential of reciprocal surprise and so on.  I was
part of working that out.

Q:  So one of the limits to a broadly gauged agreement at this
time was simply the technology of inspection.

MR. STASSEN:  That's right.  No way that you could inspect the
elimination of nuclear weapons on this earth once it had been
discovered, and that's still the case.

Q:  Of course one of the Russians' standard responses to some of
Eisenhower's initiatives was to propose a world disarmament
conference and to discuss the immediate elimination of all
weapons, and so this was part of the background of the rejection
of that approach.

MR. STASSEN:  Come down to the realistic thing and particularly
put the thrust on the reciprocal openness of the whole world as
being a better direction, and then, as I said, the other
exchanges to open up the world and unite through exchanges of
people, and the mutual economic development of peoples, and
opening of trade.  Those were all a part of his policy so that we
can have a better chance of having the world evolve.  And of
course remember, you undoubtedly do, that in 1955 we begin a lot
of bets that the world wouldn't reach 1977 without a nuclear
blowup.  And a lot of these things since then have so much
sustained the studies that we'll obviously better be able to look
at it in another fifty years from now and know more about it than
we know now.  But there have been many times when both sides,
since that time, have seemingly headed toward a confrontation and
then both have kind of pulled back.  And we used to, in those
studies, say that there was a time when duels between individuals
were very frequent, were even countenanced by the laws and by the
church, and then you came to a time when the handgun became so
efficient that both duelists were carried off the field dead and
then they lost their enthusiasm for duels.  So the nuclear age
means that we're going to have mutual destruction.  And as
leaders think that through--I have always felt that our work and
Eisenhower's work in those years, a lot of it was a kind of an
educational penetration to the thorough awareness and analysis
and consciousness of other leaders of the world to what a nuclear
war would mean.  Then do everything else you could to work the
problems out without blowing up in that direction.

Q:  Was the Department of Defense as adamantly opposed to a
nuclear disarmament agreement as some of the scholars have been
suggesting?

MR. STASSEN:  No.  You know we had participation of the
Department of Defense in all of our sessions.  Even in the
session we were criticized for in London, the working paper,
which I trust are in your files somewhere that was handed to the
Russian delegation in the United States' ambassador's home, was
in a session in which the Department of Defense, the atomic
energy department, intelligence units, Department of State, were
all present in a working session in which we explained that
policy.  And I've always also looked at that paper as having
quite a sort of a penetrating educational value to leadership on
all sides.  That you analyzed and you [unintelligible] Russia all
new bases and you analyzed everything that came down with those
force level considerations of bases and so on.
     I'll put it another way.  In the original studies we had a
lot of top military people, granted they were retired, but they
had great prestige.  I mean like Doolittle, and Bedell Smith and
so on.  And then right through all of our working we had military
participation.  It was frequently difficult to convince them that
we were ready to take a step, and they would present their views. 
But when Eisenhower decided it, they went along quite well except
for some of this business about, you know, what was the Radford-
Jacques axis with France and the Dulles-Adenauer axis on base
policies.  To what extent--and these are difficult to drop.
     Of course another real sixty-four hundred dollar question
for research--a little later when Eisenhower was going to meet
Khrushchev in Paris--was that May Day fly over Russia completely
an accident?  In other words, I'm sure from my contacts at the
time that Eisenhower did not approve that specific flight that
day.  Now whoever gave the okay for that flight to go that day,
how high up was that approval and how much were they aware that
this would be such a deep insult to the Russians that it would
blow up the coming summit conference?  There are always some who
sincerely believe--I've respected their sincerity while I
disagree with them--that Eisenhower should never sit down with
any Russian leader at any time.  That was a sincere conviction.

Q:  These were both civilian and uniformed?

MR. STASSEN:  And military, that's right.

Q:  We've made several allusions already to differences you had
with John Foster Dulles.  Could you, in some way, capsulize or
summarize how you differed with the Secretary?

MR. STASSEN:  Well, it was just a different concept of what was
the best way to move the world toward world peace.  It was
basically that.  I was convinced, and we talked it through, that
if you opened up exchange in the world between the communist
areas and the non-communist areas and you got an exchange of
people and ideas and information, and you would maintain a very
alert and powerful military position at the same time, and
develop trade, that you had a better chance of a gradual
modification of the communist system away from absolute
dictatorships, and that you had a better chance of evolution of
the world without the tragedy of a nuclear war.  And I always
felt that when you once had the nuclear age upon us, that you
couldn't contemplate a world war without it going nuclear; so
that it would be very unlikely that you could ever get a war
between major powers without it winding up as a nuclear
destruction.  Therefore, it should move that way.  
     I think Secretary Dulles's views moderated some, but I think
he was sincerely convinced of a very righteous tough position of
being opposed to any real communications with the Soviet Union
other than in a formal, diplomatic exchange.  That would lead to
their ultimate interior deterioration and a better world
position.  This, of course, applied also in the China side, you
know, going way back.  I advocated two Chinas and I think we took
now the other extreme, you know; we've gone all the way over
toward the mainland and shortchanged Taiwan and Formosa.  I've
always believed that we could have a universality approach and
open up towards both Chinas, both Vietnams, both Koreas, both
Germanys, and that's always been my view.  I respected those that
had different convictions, but I've always said too, "You wait a
hundred years before you know who's really right."

Q:  Did the United Nations play a significant role at all in
disarmament proceedings?

MR. STASSEN:  Well, they, of course, were the umbrella framework
within which those negotiations and contacts could take place. 
And they followed on up on the openness and things of that type.

Q:  I think there was a disarmament subcommittee that--

MR. STASSEN:  In those days, most of those negotiations were
under the United Nations subcommittee.  That's where we
negotiated. 

Q:  Was Hammarskjold playing any major role? 

MR. STASSEN:  Not a major role, but constructive role.

Q:  Your tenure in the Eisenhower administration was as a
controversial figure.  Eisenhower, however, appears to have
stayed with you.  Did you feel that you had his complete support
throughout your tenure on the White House staff?

MR. STASSEN:  Well we talked it over frankly, of course, many
times.  I realize that he was in a, you know, conflict of
positions.  He told me of--which of course actually was present
also in the Cabinet meetings--of the difference of my economic
views with Secretary Humphrey's views for example, and the
foreign policy views with Secretary Dulles's views.  And I
frequently asked him, "Do you want me to speak up in Cabinet and
security council meetings on these issues?"  He said, "I need it. 
I do want you to speak up; that's why I've got you there."  And
it was kind of a tough picture in the sense that, you know,
sometimes we'd have one of those hot policy debates and he would
come to the end of it, "Well I think Harold's right and I think
we'll do x-y-z."  He knew that around that table that that was
going to make it tougher for me to get another issue carried
through.  And so actually I'd talk with him about ways in which
he became convinced I was right on some things, that he could
develop the motion that way without directly going.  But you see,
with a different background and a different philosophy and a
whole different idea of what the policies of the country ought to
be, it was inevitable that I was in pretty stiff debates in the
Cabinet.  And so often I'd be the only one to speak up for a
different view, and that was particularly true in the early years
of the administration. 

     That changed quite a bit after the heart attack because then
we couldn't have those kind of debates.  You know, in the early
years if you had a real tough issue, you could say or he would
say, "Well, now we'd better get together on this issue on
Thursday morning," or even sometimes of an evening, "talk it
through.  I want to get it thoroughly--."  Then he'd make his
decision and go on.  But after the heart attack, you really
didn't feel you could have that kind of a debate in his presence
because of the potential problem of it.  So then it tended to go
out where each secretary, each Cabinet department, would do more
as they saw fit with less supervision from Eisenhower himself. 
It was a different stage of the administration after that heart
attack.

Q:  You think this changed approach had a significant impact on
policy decisions?

MR. STASSEN:  Oh, definitely.  I think historically that there's
two different stages of Eisenhower's policies and administration. 
One is the first years, which I would call more thoroughly
Eisenhower as President, and then the second stage where it was
more the matter of all the individuals that he had out doing
this.

Q:  So that in economic policy, for instance, George Humphrey's
views might become--

MR. STASSEN:  --would be more predominant after the heart attack
than they were before and likewise on other issues, nuclear ones
Strauss more after than before and foreign policy was Dulles more
after than before.  The first years, that Cabinet meeting session
and the security council sessions were, and of course with Bobby
Cutler working with him on planning board really were, you know,
Eisenhower decisions, Eisenhower policies with him encouraging an
input of those with different views.

Q:  Where did Admiral Strauss fit on this spectrum of interest in
getting a nuclear arms agreement?

MR. STASSEN:  Well pretty much the same as Secretary Dulles. 
Although sometimes he would, you know, he would be a source of a,
you might say, a more accurate presentation of nuclear facts than
you'd get otherwise.  He was very brilliant and you always felt
that if an issue was right there, on the factual basis he would
lay out the facts, but he would tend to be more withdrawn when it
moved toward an agreement.

Q:  The reason I raised the question is I noted in looking at the
documents surrounding the "Atoms for Peace" proposal that he and
C.D. Jackson were the main figures in drafting that speech in the
fall of '53, but then as it got close to the date for giving it,
Strauss tended to back off.

MR. STASSEN:  That's right, yes.

Q:  That was generally his pattern, when it got very close to
making a proposal he would then be more conservative in his--?

MR. STASSEN:  Right.  Yes, see "Atoms for Peace," that came out
of the OCB and C.D. Jackson drafted it.  C.D. was a very strong
individual.

Q:  In what ways do you think he influenced the administration
most strongly?

MR. STASSEN:  Well with, you know, an imaginative approach to how
to move major issues in a constructive way.  Of course he had
President Eisenhower's confidence, had worked with him in Europe
and so forth, so he had both ability and confidence himself, so
he was a very important person.

Q:  As kind of a summarizing final question to put to you:  How
do you think that the historian should evaluate Eisenhower's
performance on the nuclear issue?

MR. STASSEN:  I think very high.  I think the fact that we are
talking in 1977 without there having been a nuclear blowup should
give him very high grades.  But I do believe that that summit
meeting in 1955, the very forthright talking which he then did--
what a nuclear age means, what would happen in a nuclear war.  It
was unprecedented plain talking, and it was very, very important.

Q:  Important as an education of the public and world leaders as
well.


MR. STASSEN:  That's right.  And also to, in that stage, you
know, to reject any of the kind of extreme policies that were
advocated.  Just as an example, there was that advocacy of the
pre-emptive nuclear war which some seriously urged in those early
days of the H-bomb, on the theory that in a nuclear war--some of
them said that a nuclear war is inevitable in ten years and we
better hit first and do it.  And we talked through, Eisenhower
talked through, what kind of a world would it be, what would be
our own moral status within ourselves if we ever did a thing like
that?  And those kind of extreme advocacies were thought through,
faced up to, and he made what, in my view, were just superb
decisions.  Or, likewise, the other kind of advocacy of, you
know, in effect war's terrible therefore you just keep backing
away.  And I've always felt that he certainly reached those kinds
of conclusions that that wasn't the way to peace either.  You
don't just back away because then an aggressive element like the
communist element would be pushing out until finally you had to
fight, and you'd have all of the devastation of war.  So that I
think that his balanced judgment in those very unusual times led
the country and the world along in such a way that we can meet in
'77 and still not have had any experience of a nuclear war.  So I
continue to be very much devoted to him and his memory and
believe that the passage of history will gradually bring that
home more and more.

Q:  Thank you very much.

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