Editorial Note
The Foreign, Finance, and Defense Ministers of the six nations actively participating in the Paris Conference for the Organization of a European Defense Community (France, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) and their principal advisers met in Paris from December 27 through 30 for a series of meetings to pursue the discussions begun in Strasbourg on December 11 (see telegram 3533, December 13, from Paris, page 963). On the basis of a previously agreed upon agenda, the Ministers discussed institutional questions including the structure of the executive and the respective role and powers of the institutions of the community, the use of armed forces, common budgets, armament programs, the composition and organization of military forces, and the duration of the treaty and its transitional period. Although the meetings were closed, detailed information on them was made available to American officials on a personal and confidential basis. The Embassy in Paris reported in some detail by telegram to the Department of State and interested Chiefs of Mission in Europe on the seven meetings of the Ministers, two separate meetings of the Finance Ministers, and a single separate meeting of the Defense Ministers. All these telegraphic reports are included in the 740.5 segment of the central files of the Department of State. For a summary review and analysis of the results of the meetings, see telegram 3957, January 3, 1952, from Paris, page [Page 981] 985. For the communiqué issued by the Ministers at the conclusion of their meetings on December 30, see Folliot, Documents on International Affairs, 1951, page 255, or L’Année politique, 1951, page 692.