840.20/1–1349
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Hickerson)
| Participants: | Wilhelm Munthe de Morgenstierne, Ambassador of Norway |
| John D. Hickerson, Director for European Affairs | |
| Theodore C. Achilles, Chief, WE | |
| Benjamin M. Hulley, Chief, NOE |
The Ambassador came under instructions to give me the reaction of his Government to our talk of December 311 about the North Atlantic Pact. His Government desired first to finish its present discussions with the other Scandinavian countries on defense matters and believes they would end by February 1. At that time the Norwegians would want to discuss with us and the British the general question of Norwegian security after which it would give its views about joining the North Atlantic Pact. I thanked him for this information and said that this would fit in all right with our time schedule.
He said he had one question. He wanted to know what the President meant by “certain other countries” in his Budget message of January 11. I said this meant countries to which we had prior commitments for defense such as Greece, Turkey and Korea. It certainly did not mean any to which we do not have present commitments or which would not come within the meaning of the Vandenberg Resolution.2 [Page 25] He asked whether it might develop that the United States in a year or so, perhaps on the urging of our own military, might supply arms to countries which are not in a regional association of interest to US defense. If this happened, the Norwegian Government would be thrown out of office immediately. I told him that so far as I could judge such action would be out of the question.
The question arose of what nations would be included in the Pact and I asked what would be the attitude of Norway toward inclusion of Italy which is still an open question. He said his personal view is that there would be no objection as Norway is sympathetic to Italy.
- See memorandum of conversation, Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. iii, p. 348.↩
- Senate Resolution 239, 80th Congress. For text, see ibid., p. 135.↩