Office of the Historian

840.20/4–1948

Joint Message From the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Bevin) and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs (Bidault) to the Secretary of State1

top secret
[Paris,] April 17, 1948.

You will recall that on the 17th March we informed you that we would be ready with a Benelux representative to discuss with you what further steps might be desirable in the direction of the organisation of further defence arrangements in which the United States might play a part. On the 25th March you replied that you agreed that quadripartite conversations might begin in Washington very shortly.

2. The communiqué published today after our meeting2 will have informed you that the five Foreign Ministers reached agreement on the organisation of the Consultative Council and on the early initiation of military conversations.

3. So far as we are concerned, we realise that we must take all possible steps to prepare measures of defence as contemplated in the Treaty and that consequently the machinery created at Brussels must be developed and reinforced in every way. We have therefore made arrangements for military talks to be held in the near future. But it is clear that simultaneously we shall require the assistance of the United States, in order to organise the effective defence of Western Europe which at present cannot stand alone.

4. It seems imperative that the United States should now take an initiative and at least begin the conversations referred to above, if the situation in Europe, of which the recent incidents in Berlin are symptomatic, is not still further to deteriorate.

5. Despite the difficulties which confront the American Administration, we urge strongly that if a favourable opportunity is not to be missed and if a fresh impetus is not to be given to the cause of communism, it is essential to initiate without delay the conversations contemplated by the Government of the United States.2

  1. Transmitted to Lovett by Inverchapel in a note dated April 19, not printed, with the request that it be forwarded to Marshall at Bogotá.↩
  2. For text of this communiqué on the first meeting of the Permanent Consultative Council of the Brussels Treaty powers, see Department of State Bulletin, May 9, 1948, p. 602.↩
  3. For text of this communiqué on the first meeting of the Permanent Consultative Council of the Brussels Treaty powers, see Department of State Bulletin, May 9, 1948, p. 602.↩