840.50/2196⅛
The Minister Counselor of the Canadian Legation (Pearson) to the Assistant Secretary of State (Acheson)
Dear Mr. Acheson: May I refer again to your letter of June 12th, which dealt with certain points arising out of Canada’s association with the proposed United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. In the second paragraph of your letter you state that representatives of the United States, United Kingdom, U.S.S.R., and Chinese Governments at a meeting on April 12th took cognizance of the statement that the Canadian Government’s acceptance of the proposed plan was based on their understanding that the proposed form of the Central Committee was not regarded as a precedent in other connections. I have been asked to point out that the understanding in question, as stated in my letter of April 13th, covered the attitudes of the Governments of the United States, United Kingdom, U.S.S.R., and China; not that of the Government of Canada. This is confirmed by sentence 2 of paragraph 3 of your letter of June 12th, which refers in this connection to the representatives of the four Powers and not to the Canadian Government. To make sure, however, that there will be no misunderstanding over the matter, I wish to point out that the position of the Canadian Government in this matter remains as stated in my letter of April 13th.
Yours sincerely,