840.20/8–948
The Counselor of the Department of State (Bohlen) to the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)
Mr. Lovett: At today’s meeting,1 I propose first of all to invite the other representatives to express their views, and particularly Mr. Bérard on the grounds that he has just returned from Paris.
[Page 209]If the discussion turns to the question of immediate assistance to the Brussels Union countries, I shall say that that is not, as we understood it, a subject for the Washington conversations, but that the question of needs is being considered at the London staff talks; that obviously there would be no advantage in even attempting to consider the question in an exploratory fashion in Washington until the exact needs of the Brussels countries have been set forth, which would be contained in General Lemnitzer’s reports.
On the political side, I will suggest that the working party continue in an entirely exploratory fashion to consider the various possibilities of regional groupings in Europe with which the United States might consider association. I feel I should emphasize that even in the political field the United States would not wish to make a series of piecemeal associations with individual groups or individual countries in Europe; that there were really two aspects to the question: (1) the type of regional association in Europe which would provide the maximum security in itself to the European community, and (2) the relationship of that grouping to the security of the United States. I think I might reemphasize the exploratory nature of the talks in order to avoid any impression that we were expected to reach definite conclusions involving even indirect commitments during this stage of the Washington talks; that in effect these Washington talks are really, from our point of view, to find out how far the Europeans themselves have gone in the direction of mutual self help for the protection of the entire free European community, or whether there were further steps that the European nations themselves could take in the direction of enlarging the regional arrangement, or otherwise, before turning to the United States to supplement politically the European efforts.
If you approve the above line, would you please return it to me for use at this afternoon’s meeting.2