740.5/12–1550
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by Miss Barbara Evans, Personal Assistant to the Secretary of State
Mr. Lovett telephoned Mr. Acheson to report on the talk yesterday between himself, Secretary Marshall and General Eisenhower. He said the following points emerged:
- 1.
- General Eisenhower was very unhappy at what he assumed was an effort on the part of the British and our Navy to remove the Mediterranean forces and the North Sea forces from the command of the Supreme Commander. The problem was removed from his mind, however, by the statement of the Joint Chiefs that they would recommend that every American soldier and sailor in that area be placed under him in case of need.
- 2.
- He was much concerned about the efforts of the countries in their own self-defense. He thought it utterly ridiculous to have contributions measured in thirds of divisions, such as 2⅓ divisions from Canada. That sort of penny-pinching made their efforts look quite hopeless. Mr. Lovett had advanced the suggestion that what was actually needed was an individual to rally round rather than a committee. That idea appealed to Eisenhower, and he thought that if we could get the Europeans going whole-heartedly a job could be done.
- 3.
- Eisenhower thought the crux of the matter was not the French, since they could be handled in a variety of ways, such as breaking up the German outfits into smaller units and attaching them to American groups for the time being. But the Germans are the crux. If we are going to fight east of the Rhine and if the Germans do not want to fight, this is an extremely bad situation.
- 4.
- With reference to mobilization and size of forces, Eisenhower feels, as do the Joint Chiefs, that we ought to have a good, solid combat force with immediate expansion possibilities, rather than the vague idea that a lot of bodies give you an army. The state of readiness is what counts. He thought we ought to be prepared to throw in ten divisions to give impetus, but only after the Europeans show whole-hearted efforts in self-defense.
- 5.
- Eisenhower does not think that, at Brussels, we should offer the Supreme Commander or any particular individual. He thought that Admiral Sherman had handled the matter well when the Europeans had insisted they wanted Eisenhower and Sherman had replied that that was up to the United States. Eisenhower’s feeling was that we ought to require an invitation to this Government, but with the responsibility resting in this Government to select an individual and then to ask the other Governments if that individual is acceptable. In other words, the appointment of an American as Supreme Commander should not rest on its being Eisenhower, who, as Mr. Lovett said, might fall in the sea. The announcement of the appointment should be withheld until the action on it had been cleared along the above lines.
In general, Mr. Lovett said, he thought Eisenhower had been reassured, was willing to accept the appointment, thought a job could be done, but that it will take a higher order of determination on the part of the Europeans than he has seen any indication of from the messages. He is obviously worried about the sincerity of the British and the French and the problem of the Germans.
Secretary Acheson asked if Eisenhower had discussed methods of handling the German problem or had just identified it as the principal question. Mr. Lovett said that the General had been shown a copy of a letter from Adenauer to Heineman, a Belgian utility man living in New York, who is a close friend of Adenauer, and with whom Adenauer had discussed the German problem. Mr. Lovett offered to show the Secretary the letter, who indicated he would be interested in seeing it. Mr. Lovett said that General Eisenhower thought the Germans would come in more rapidly once two things happened. The first was that they should get over the feeling that they were in command in a trading position, with which Mr. Lovett heartily agreed—not only that they should be disabused of this feeling, but that they were in a beautiful position now. Mr. Lovett thought we should ease up on saying how very important they were, so as to make them want to get in and not wait to be coaxed. The second was that when we have a build-up of strength, they will feel they have a chance to survive.
Mr. Acheson said he thought that in this connection we were planning to work along these lines. We have come to the conclusion that, without appearing to do so, we must put the German matter on ice for a little while. Mr. Lovett thought that this would fit in with Eisenhower’s ideas. Mr. Acheson said that we were now planning simply to tell Adenauer in general terms about arrangements at Brussels, not put a proposal to him, nor ask for a reply. We must get on with various things, such as the occupation statute, Schuman plan, Paris discussions, our own forces, and forget about Adenauer for a while.
Mr. Acheson asked if General Eisenhower had given up the idea that he will not accept the appointment until a large force is put at his disposal. Mr. Acheson said he thought we had gone too far in thinking we should insist on this. In view of the Truman-Attlee conversations and the general shape of things, Mr. Acheson believed that if we tried to bargain and say that more divisions must be put up, everything would go to pieces. Mr. Lovett said they had not specifically discussed that. They had talked about the rate of speed-up here; that while we were going “to notch this throttle up very fast,” we [Page 580] don’t want a mob of ten million people with nothing to use. There was discussion of Mr. Dewey’s speech1 calling for 100 divisions with 80 air groups, which Mr. Lovett said would mean that one-quarter of the army would have air support and the rest would not have any. He pointed out that the speech did not mention the ability to maintain sea lanes. Eisenhower thought this country should end up with ten or twenty divisions committed if necessary, but his point of view on this was elastic. He asked what percentage our contribution ought to be out of the total. Mr. Lovett had replied that he did not know. His best guess was that we would be called on for about three-quarters of the matériel.
Mr. Lovett suggested that Mr. Byroade should get in touch with the JCS and find out what the line of conversation was there, because Eisenhower had spent two hours with them, whereas this conversation here reported had taken only about thirty minutes. However, when the Secretary pointed out that he was meeting with Pace and Collins this afternoon,2 Mr. Lovett agreed that that was the place to get this information.