Office of the Historian

600.0012/4–3054

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant)

top secret
[Geneva, undated.]
  • Participants:
  • Mr. Pearson, Secretary of External Affairs of Canada
  • Mr. Livingston T. Merchant, US Delegation

Time: 1 p.m., April 30, 1954

Place: Mr. Pearson’s Suite at Hotel de la Paix, Geneva

During the course of a talk with Mr. Pearson on another subject, I asked him if the Secretary had yet had a chance to speak to him concerning the contents of the Soviet reply to our note of March 19 on the President’s atomic energy proposals. Mr. Pearson answered in the negative, but said that Sir Harold Caccia of the British Delegation had let him read the informal translation which we had given the British. I told Mr. Pearson that the translation had been done very hastily and that we had sent it back to Washington for checking. I also said that their people in Washington would be brought into this matter as usual through the normal channel there. I said that the copy we had given the British of the rough translation had been due to their request. Mr. Pearson did not indicate in any way that he had been miffed but merely said that the reply was just about what he had expected.