Editorial Note
In letters to Foreign Secretary Morrison and Foreign Minister Schuman, transmitted by telegram on August 9 to the Embassies in the United Kingdom and France for immediate delivery, Secretary of State Acheson proposed a working program to enable the three Foreign Ministers to reach decisions on the problem of integrating a German contribution into the defense of Europe and establishing a new contractual relationship with the German Federal Republic. Secretary Acheson’s proposed program was partly based upon the hope and possibility that the European Defense Community Conference would succeed and that a German contribution to Western defense could be quickly obtained through the establishment of a European defense force. For the text of Secretary Acheson’s letter, see page 1164. The text was transmitted in a circular telegram of August 10 to Brussels, Ottawa, Copenhagen, Rome, Lisbon, Oslo, The Hague, Reykjavik, and Luxembourg, not printed. The Missions were to seek informal opportunities to express Acheson’s views to key personnel in the governments to which they accredited. (740.5/8–1051)
In his response of August 17 (see page 1174), Morrison agreed that the establishment of a European defense force might well offer an acceptable solution, but he felt that there must first be assurance that such a force was a practicable proposition and could be satisfactorily organized for the defense of Europe. In two replies of August 25, Schuman concurred in the need for an early agreement on a European defense community but raised a number of specific problems bearing on United States relations with such a community.