740.5/4–2150
Memorandum by Mr. John Foster Dulles, Consultant to the Secretary of State, to the Under Secretary of State
I did not want to interject views this morning at your staff meeting, but I do want to say to you that I feel concerned at the thought of placing a major economic and financial body within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty.
My feeling is based on my sense of urgency of finding ways to draw Western Germany into the economic life of the West.
I do not think that the French will at any predictable date admit Gemany to membership in the North Atlantic Treaty. Schuman told me last June that he thought the French would never agree to this because they look upon the Treaty as a defense against Germany as well as against Russia. The French have, of course, a veto in this matter.
Any economic and financial body in which the United States takes part will automatically dim the importance of other bodies in which the United States is not a participant. It would, therefore, seem to me that for the United States to participate in an economic body set up under the NAT would not tend to solve, but tend to make more difficult a solution of, the very urgent and major problem of the future of Germany and whether it will become part of the fellowship of the West or whether it will bargain nationalistically between the East and West.