Editorial Note

At the conclusion of the national elections on November 4, 1952, the Truman Administration began to explore ways and means of insuring an orderly transition of administrations. The President invited President-elect Eisenhower to the White House for a briefing on the afternoon [Page 347] of November 18, 1952, and both before and after that meeting various high officials of the Truman Administration, including the Secretary of State, established close liaison with representatives of President-elect Eisenhower.

During the period November 7, 1952–January 20, 1953, a number of briefing and background papers were prepared in the Department of State on a number of topics, including the Tenth Session of the North Atlantic Council at Paris, December 15–18, 1952, whose approach and outcome intensely interested both Acheson and Secretary of State-designate John Foster Dulles and which was the subject of extended remarks by Acheson at the November 18 meeting between Truman and Eisenhower at the White House. Documentation on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a topic of interest in discussions and papers dealing with the transition of administrations in 1952–1953 is in volume I.