Geneva Conference of the Foreign Ministers of the Four Powers 1955

a conference of the foreign ministers of the USSR (V. M. Molotov), the USA (J. F. Dulles), Great Britain (H. Macmillan) and France (A. Pinay), which was convened under the Directives of the Geneva Conference of the Heads of Government of the Four Powers (1955). The conference was held from October 27 to November 16 in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition to the foreign ministers, other officials of the countries represented at the conference participated in its work. The agenda included European security and Germany, disarmament, and the development of contacts between West and East.

In response to the Western powers’ refusal to accept the Soviet draft for an all-European treaty on collective security, the Soviet government, which was anxious to win the adoption of concrete measures to strengthen peace, proposed the conclusion of a pact with the initial participation of a nar-rower circle of states—the USSR, the USA, Great Britain, France, and other members of the Warsaw Pact of 1955 and the Western European alliance, including the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Federal Republic of Germany. Having agreed with the Western powers’ wishes regarding levels of armed forces and the sequence of putting into force a possible agreement banning nuclear weapons, the Soviet government proposed making a formal statement at the conference on the unity of views on these questions. The Soviet delegation submitted a constructive program for the development of economic and cultural cooperation between East and West.

The Western delegations endeavored to focus the work of the Geneva Conference on the unification of Germany on the basis of the Eden plan, which provided, in effect, for the absorption of the GDR by West Germany. The plan was resolutely rejected by the Soviet delegation. The position of the Western powers, who were attempting to secure unilateral concessions from the Soviet Union, made the adoption of any decisions impossible.