740.5/8–350
Memorandum by Miss Barbara Evans, Personal Assistant to the Secretary of State
On the Sequoia, when the Secretary had dinner with Secretary Johnson and Ambassador Harriman on August 3, 1950, the question [Page 183] of where we are on the Spofford mission and the large question of rearmament of Europe were discussed. The participants agreed that NAT Organization was absolutely hopeless and was not getting anywhere, and that it was imperative that something must be done.
The Secretary brought up the suggestion, which had been made by numerous others, that there should be a combined staff in Europe and that we must now make up our mind to accept the responsibility of a unified command and of additional American forces in Europe. The Secretary of Defense said that he was in favor of that in general, but that it was being opposed by the General Staff. He asked what the arguments were for it. Secretary Acheson said they went over these arguments, but he did not go into detail about this part of their talk. Mr. Johnson indicated that he was disturbed about what he thought was pressure to do this at once. Secretary Acheson said that was not what he had in mind; that what he proposed as the first step was to set up a “Cossack”1 arrangement, to get centralized planning, to set up a staff to carry out plans, give instructions, and pull the whole thing together in Europe. Probably after something along this line was set up and functioning, sometime in November or December, we should be ready to go into a unified command. We discussed possibilities of people. Mr. Johnson will explore this further.
Secretary Johnson talked with the Secretary this morning and said he had talked this over with General Bradley generally, and he seemed to be agreeable.
The Secretary said he was not sure how we proceeded from here. He thinks that Secretary Johnson will take the next steps, and that Mr. Harriman will pick it up on his return.
- A reference to COSSAC, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (Designate), a planning headquarters formed in 1943, succeeded in 1944 by SHAEF, Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force.↩