Office of the Historian

740.00119 Council/2–2346

The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Bevin) to the Secretary of State33

top secret
personal
[London, February 22, 1946.]

Many thanks for your message through Winant suggesting that the next meeting of the Three Foreign Ministers might be held in Paris during the Conference about the peace treaties with Italy and the satellites.34 I quite agree that no meeting of the Three Foreign Secretaries need be held prior to the Paris Conference, but don’t you think it would be impracticable to hold such a meeting in the French capital under the nose of the French Government if their Foreign Minister was excluded from the meeting? If therefore there are subjects which we wish to discuss between the three of us would it not be better to meet immediately after the Paris Conference at some accessible spot, for instance in Brussels?

  1. The source text, which is not signed, was transmitted to the Secretary of State on February 23 by British Chargé Balfour.↩
  2. The message under reference was quoted in telegram 1345, February 8, to London, p. 12.↩