840.20/2–1449
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
| Participants: | The French Ambassador |
| The Secretary of State | |
| T. C. Achilles, WE |
The Ambassador called at his request to discuss various matters. On the subject of the North Atlantic Pact, he said that his Government was seriously embarrassed by the continuing seal of secrecy on the substance of the negotiations while Reston1 and other American writers were discussing specific language. He said that his Government considered it essential both to discuss the negotiations with the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Assembly and Council of the Republic and to give guidance to the French press which might involve discussing actual language of the draft.
I said that wise guidance would be useful. The American press had so far done most of the damage but the more that was printed at this stage about the language of the key Article, the more difficult it would be to obtain a really satisfactory text of that Article. I reminded him of the importance of this Treaty in linking the United States to Europe in security matters and suggested the wisdom of not rendering more difficult the task with the Senate, which must make the final decision as to whether the Treaty could be concluded or not. Unwise public discussion at this time might well make it impossible to conclude any treaty.
He discussed Article 5 only in general terms and I made no comment.
He reiterated the importance which his Government attached to including Algeria, but I did not comment.
[Page 108]In discussing Article 8, he indicated that the real French purpose was to set up a tripartite Chiefs of Staff body in Washington. He said he knew that the Combined Chiefs of Staff continued to exist. Mr. Achilles reminded him that General Marshall had previously assured him2 that the Combined Chiefs had not met for more than two years and that it existed on paper only in connection with cleaning up various residual matters left by the war. The Ambassador said he nevertheless knew that there were close relations between the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and the important British military mission here and that France considered itself of sufficient military importance to be included in such discussions. He referred to a previous statement of General Marshall’s that it would not have been possible to conduct the war through a “military parliament”, which France did not desire. It desired only to be in on a tripartite top level group. Mr. Achilles suggested that the French proposal to make Article 8 more specific concerning the Defense Committee would tend to establish a “military parliament”.
The Ambassador expressed the belief that it would be helpful if a ranking French General could discuss these matters with us. He suggested that General Juin3 come under cover of conferring a decoration on West Point. He was advised that the US military authorities were studying this whole subject and attached importance to making further progress in their own minds before discussing it with anyone. He was also advised that the timing of any such visit would be important since it might be embarrassing in connection with Senatorial consideration of the Pact if a French General were to come here in the near future.
- James B. Reston, newspaper reporter in the Washington bureau of the New York Times. ↩
- This assurance was given on August 17 and 20, 1948, by George C. Marshall, then Secretary of State; for documentation, see Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. iii, pp. 643 ff.↩
- Gen. Alphonse Juin, French Resident-General in Morocco, 1947–1951.↩