Note from Foreign Secretary Subimal Dutt on Heinrich von Brentano

FROM: Subimal Dutt

Date: 20-2-60

TO: P.M.

No Classification

Just before the German Foreign Minister left his country on his present tour of India and Pakistan, he was asked by Shri Kamath, Correspondent of the Times of India in Bonn, his view of the Polish proposal for a zone of limited armaments in Central Europe. The Foreign Minister gave the following reply:

“The establishment of a zone of restricted armament in Europe which would mainly affect German territory, is in the view of my Government not suited to diminish tensions or prevent conflicts. Along the eastern frontier of such a zone there would be the might territorial mass of the Soviet Union with its gigantic potential of conventional and nuclear weapons. Along its western frontier there would be, in contrast, only a narrow belt of Sates with a small defence potential and separated by an ocean from the principal Power in the free world, the United States. A zone unprotected in this way would be exposed more than ever to communist aggression. The example of Korea where there was also a zone of reduced armament and which was likewise unprotected on one side, is still before us today as a warning.”