Editorial Note
First Meeting of the Working Group Participating in the Washington Exploratory Talks on Security, July 12, 1948
The brief, unsigned memorandum of the meeting indicates that discussion was largely procedural, centering on ways to assimilate the thinking of the past five meetings of the ambassadorial group and to carry the study forward. Mr. Bohlen, who directed the meeting, suggested that the group develop papers on the three principal criteria mentioned by the ambassadorial group: 1) the general security needs of western civilization, 2) the geographical limits implicit in any regional security arrangement and 3) the differing, individual needs of each of the countries concerned. He agreed that discussion could be directed also to other questions and suggested for possible attention the effects of a North Atlantic pact on eastern European states, the nature of whatever threat menaced the states of the Atlantic community, and the present direction of currents and pressures in Europe. The memorandum of this meeting, not printed, is in the Department of State files, 840.20/7–1248.
The regular participants in the fifteen meetings of this so-called “International Working Group,” held between July 12 and September 9, 1948, were the following: for the United States, Kennan, Hickerson, Achilles, Reber and W. J. Galloway of the Division of Western European Affairs; for France, Bérard and Wapler; for the Netherlands, Reuchlin and Vreede; for Great Britain, Hoyer Millar and Henderson; for Canada, Stone and E. L. Rogers, Third Secretary of Embassy; for Luxembourg, Le Gallais; and for Belgium, Roger Taymans, Counselor of Embassy, and Robert Vaes, Attaché. There was also an American working group composed of the above-listed delegation and nine others.