Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Europe: Political and Economic Developments, Volume IV, Part 2

No. 813

611.61/10–551

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs (Sargeant)¹

confidential

[Washington,] October 5, 1951.

Highlights of Discussion With Senator Brien McMahon, Congressman Abe Ribicoff and Administrative Assistant Eddie Roddan at Lunch on October Three, 1951

Participants:	Senator McMahon
	Congressman Ribicoff
	Mr. Roddan
	Mr. Lloyd, White House
	Mr. Barrett
	Mr. Bonbright
	Mr. Reinhardt
	Mr. Sargeant

The main purpose was to obtain ideas of Messrs. McMahon and Ribicoff as sponsors of the Congressional Resolution of Friendship with other peoples of the world, including the Russian peoples,² as to what the President should do in respect of further reply to Shvernik. Mr. Barrett summarized present thinking in Department and indicated feeling of Chip Bohlen and others that the President should be held in reserve and used sparingly except where there was a proposal of such importance in a substantive way that he was the logical person to make the proposal. Mr. Barrett said that although we had tried our hands at a number of drafts of such a communication from the President to Shvernik,³ to which he was committed both in his letter of transmittal of the original resolution from the Soviet Presidium to the Congress and in his several statements at his press conferences,⁴ none of these drafts had in fact incorporated substantive proposals of the importance we were talking about.

In the course of the discussion Senator McMahon asked for Mr. Reinhardt’s views on the probable course of Soviet policy over the next five years. Mr. Reinhardt replied with a carefully reasoned and thoughtful analysis. It was evident that Senator McMahon regarded the question we had posed on the Shvernik reply as a difficult one requiring a nice judgment. Eddie Roddan expressed a vigorous belief that the President might well attempt to use the exchange to make a much harder-hitting and denunciatory statement which we could force the Soviet Union to make known to the Russian peoples. He took as his illustration the open admission by Soviet organs of the current re-writing and falsification of history, with consequent attacks on the United States.

A good deal of attention centered on the upcoming session of the General Assembly.⁵ Mr. Barrett indicated that he was not authorized to disclose certain major proposals on which work was being done in preparation for the General Assembly. Mr. Barrett indicated it was by no means certain that such proposals would in fact be agreed to, not only within our Government but by those of our allies whose support and understanding would be necessary. The people at the table clearly indicated that they suspected such proposals would lie within the field either of collective security or of disarmament, with Senator McMahon pointedly saying that it was undoubtedly in the latter field.

The conclusion of the meeting resulted in Senator McMahon replying in response to a direct question from Mr. Barrett that his best judgment was we should proceed as follows:

1. The President should in fact make a reply to Shvernik and the main theme of the reply should be peace—the President’s own personal willingness to dedicate his life to the preservation and safeguarding of peace in the world and his desire to settle outstanding differences on a basis of decent and honorable solutions.

2. The President should outline in very simple and specific terms the steps he feels should be taken to reach peaceful solutions.

3. The President should go personally to Paris in the course of the General Assembly and make this as a dramatic and major presentation.

4. The reply to Shvernik should not be couched in denunciatory language but should maintain a reasonably lofty and conciliatory tone. However, the Senator views the Shvernik opening as a vehicle for providing a continuing exchange of views and sees no difficulty in having the President himself exploit these opportunities. He does not himself feel that there is much merit to the argument that the President would be wearing out his usefulness, or lessening his psychological value by engaging in a series of exchanges for which the opportunity is now provided.

Congressman Ribicoff said that he was in general agreement with what Senator McMahon proposed although he felt strongly that we should now shift ground and the next letter by President Truman should be directed to Stalin himself.

Other suggestions that were made in the course of the general discussion included one by Dave Lloyd, seconded by Senator McMahon, that the President’s proposal made last October in which he recommended that the two separate UN bodies dealing respectively with conventional armaments and unconventional weapons including the atomic weapon should be consolidated into a single body. Dave Lloyd and Messrs. McMahon and Ribicoff agreed that this might provide a useful peg for a Presidential statement at the General Assembly but both members of the Congress questioned whether any people in the United States or elsewhere really understood what this proposal meant or knew about it and they insisted that it had not been dramatized in such a way as to afford us up to now any real leverage.

As further background, Senator McMahon pointed out that he believed the Conservative Party would win the upcoming October 25 British elections and that he was convinced from personal talks with Mr. Churchill that Winston Churchill would try to seize the opportunities foreshadowed in earlier Churchill statements indicating his desire for a real showdown in face-to-face talks among the leaders of the Big Four and that it might be essential for President Truman to seize the opportunity we now had in the Shvernik exchange and the upcoming General Assembly so that we don’t become a mere appendage to the tail of the British kite. Mr. Barrett also indicated that a possible use of the Shvernik exchange at an appropriate time might be in connection with the Korean situation and the cease-fire talks.

1. Sargeant circulated copies of this memorandum to Barrett (P), Stephens (P), Bonbright (EUR), Reinhardt (EE), Davis (EE), Kirkpatrick (EUR/P), Bohlen (C), McFall (H), Nolting (G), and Fierst (UNA).
2. For text, see Document 786.
3. For one draft of the proposed message from President Truman to Shvernik, see the enclosure to Sargeant’s memorandum to Matthews, Document 806.
4. For text of President Truman’s communication of July 7 to Shvernik, see Document 788. Regarding the several press statements by the President, see Document 802.
5. The reference is to the Sixth Session of the U.N. General Assembly, scheduled to open in Paris on November 6.