Lot 54D423
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Consultant to the Secretary (Dulles)
| Participants: | General Omar N. Bradley |
| Mr. John Foster Dulles |
I had told Deputy Secretary Lovett that it might be useful for General Bradley and me to speak together in view of the impression gained by the foreign Affairs Committee that we had give somewhat Pacific security. General Bradley subsequently telephoned me and I met with him at his office at 12:15 p. m., July 18.
General Bradley said he had told the Committee that if there were political reason why the present unilateral arrangement with the [Page 224] Philippines should be changed by bringing the Philippines into the trilateral arrangement with Australia–New Zealand, the Joint Chiefs would have no serious objection, although they preferred the present arrangement. I recalled to General Bradley the statement contained in paragraph 2(b) of the memorandum from the Joint Chiefs to the Secretary of Defense of April 11, 1951,1 that there would be “serious disadvantages” in a new arrangement with the Philippine Republic and any “enlargement” of the arrangements presently in effect “would be contrary to U.S. security interests”. General Bradley said that he perhaps had not had this fully in mind when he testified before the Committee, but that the considerations in the Joint Chiefs of Staff statement referred to were not sufficiently strong so that they would object to an alteration of the present arrangements if there were political reasons therefor.
I stated that at the time in question (April) there had not seemed to be political reasons of sufficient importance to outweigh the military viewpoint expressed. However, I said that situation might be changing as a result of the strong public emotion in the Philippines against the U.S. because of what they considered to be the leniency of the proposed Japanese Peace Treaty. This emotion had led them to look for every pretext for criticizing the U.S. and one point that had recently emerged was the apparent discrimination in treating with Japan’s security and Australia–New Zealand security on a treaty basis of mutuality, whereas the Philippines was dealt with on a unilateral basis. We did not think that either the Philippines or Australia–New Zealand wanted to be linked together by the same security treaty, but it might be desirable to have a bilateral treaty between the Philippines and the U.S. which would contain mutual declarations of the Monroe Doctrine type. I said that it might be unnecessary to have a “council”. However, General Bradley said there would be no military objection to a “council” if it was essentially of a political character and avoided the interchange of military planning information.