740.00119 Council/6–1449: Telegram

The United States Delegation at the Council of Foreign Ministers to the Acting Secretary of State

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Actel 71. For Webb from Acheson. The Conference will end on Thursday. Bevin, Schuman must go Luxemburg on Friday1 and we [Page 1007] all agree this fortunate. So we must make some broad decisions. If the President has guidance for us we should be grateful. The problems are these: The Russians want to accept 150 million to buy some but not all of their claims against Austrian industrial property. This is a way of raising the ante after they seemed to have agreed. I think we should stick by this point and if necessary throw the whole matter back to the Deputies for a detailed accounting.

On Germany the issue is also simple. We can, we think, get language which will go a good way to state Russian assurance that they will not attempt to reimpose the blockade, if we give reciprocal assurances against counter measures. We must be careful here to protect A and B lists.2 But the question is do we want this and are we willing to pay the price?

In view of NSC papers on this general point3 I should think something to make the blockade less likely was important. Since our real protection against the blockade is our own and Western European strength we all understand that NAP and MAP are more important than Russian promises. So an illusory agreement is worse than none. On balance unless President disapproves we shall try for Austrian agreement on lines above and for an agreement on Berlin which in our judgment adds something more than we now have to difficulty of reimposing blockade. If we are not satisfied that we have these we shall leave these matters for further discussion.

We are meeting Wednesday at 3:30 Paris time, therefore any message should be sent by telephone.

Acheson
  1. For documentation on the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Brussels Pact Powers, June 22, see volume iv .
  2. Under reference here are lists of goods and materials whose export to the Soviet Union and its satellites were prohibited (A) or limited (B) by the United States; for documentation on United States policy on East–West trade, see volume v .
  3. For documentation relating to consideration by the National Security Council of possible courses of action if the Soviet Union were to reimpose blockade, see pp. 818 ff.