Editorial Note
Following the afternoon session of the North Atlantic Council on December 14, Secretary Dulles held a press conference at which the text of his statement (see footnote 1, supra) was circulated. At the beginning of the press conference Dulles commented in part:
“As we see it, the post-war planning of Western Europe is designed to correct some of these serious mistakes of the past and to create a situation where the Western nations will cease this suicidal strife in which they have been engaged in recent centuries. At the heart of that, of course, there are allied to the great powers, France and Germany, and we understand the policy of the Continental European countries is to create a union here which will make it impossible for that strife to break out again.
“We also understand that that action will be taken within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty, which will bring into association with the European Defense Community (E.D.C.) this strength which lies around the periphery of E.D.C.
“It is that policy, in regard to Europe, to which the United States is committed. In essence that is the European policy which we are trying to cooperate with, and we earnestly hope that that policy will be brought to a successful conclusion.
“If, contrary to our hopes and beliefs, it should not happen that way, it would force from the United States an agonizing reappraisal of its foreign policy.”
For the full text of Dulles’ opening statement and extracts from the press conference, see the New York Times, December 15, 1953, page 14.
On December 15 Achilles sent a memorandum to Dulles saying that the reaction to his press conference would be varied and sometimes violent. Achilles stated further that the only official reaction to that point was from de Margerie who said that the press conference had finished EDC, that it must have been deliberate, that the problem now was to save the Atlantic Alliance, that some new way would have to be found to tie Germany to the West, perhaps through NATO, and finally that France would now have to do some painful rethinking of its own policies. (Memorandum by Achilles, December 15; CFM files, lot M 88, box 166, “NATO Ministerial Meeting Paris, December 1953”)