Office of the Historian
Editorial Note

Secretary of State Dean Acheson and a small party of advisers arrived in London early in the afternoon of February 13, 1952 aboard the Presidential aircraft Independence. From the evening of that same day until midday on February 19 the Secretary of State held a series of meetings with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. These meetings were interrupted on February 15 when the Secretary of State served as President Truman’s principal representative at the funeral of King George VI. In the pages that follow, the editors have sought to present a comprehensive record of all known meetings of the Secretary of State including certain dinner meetings where substantive discussions were held.

Principal American officials participating with Secretary of State Acheson in the meetings in London were:

  • W. Averell Harriman, Director for Mutual Security David K. E. Bruce, Ambassador in France
  • Henry A. Byroade, Director of the Bureau of German Affairs, Department of State
  • William H. Draper, Jr., United States Special Representative in Europe
  • Walter S. Gifford, Ambassador in the United Kingdom
  • John J. McCloy, United States High Commissioner for Germany
  • Frank C. Nash, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
  • George W. Perkins, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs

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Other experts included in the Secretary of State’s party were the following:

  • Lucius D. Battle, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State
  • Robert G. Barnes, Deputy Director, Policy Reports Staff, Executive Secretariat
  • Helen P. Kirkpatrick, Public Affairs Adviser, Bureau of Public Affairs
  • Perry Laukhuff, Director of the Office of German Political Affairs
  • Samuel Reber, Director of Political Affairs, Office of the United States High Commissioner for Germany
  • Jacques J. Reinstein, Special Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of German Affairs

British officials joining Foreign Secretary Eden in these talks included:

  • Sir William Strang, Permanent Under-Secretary of State
  • Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, British High Commissioner in Germany
  • Sir Pierson John Dixon, Deputy Under-Secretary of State
  • Frank K. Roberts, Assistant Under-Secretary of State
  • William Denis Allen, Head of the Central Department (Austria, Germany), Foreign Office
  • Charles A. E. Shuckburgh, Private Secretary to Foreign Secretary Eden

French officials joining Foreign Minister Schuman in the talks were:

  • Hervé Alphand, French Deputy Representative on the North Atlantic Council and President of the Conference for the Organization of a European Defense Community
  • André François-Poncet, High Commissioner in Germany
  • Roland Jacquin de Margerie, Deputy Director General for Political and Economic Affairs, French Foreign Ministry
  • Jacques de Bourbon-Busset, Director of the Cabinet, French Foreign Ministry
  • François Seydoux de Clausonne, Director of European Political Affairs, French Foreign Ministry
  • Jean Sauvagnargues, Deputy Director for Central European Affairs, French Foreign Ministry

West German officials joining Chancellor Adenauer in the conversations were;

  • Walter Hallstein, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs
  • Hans Schlange-Schoenigen, Consul-General in London
  • Hans-Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld, Minister Director for Protocol, Foreign Ministry
  • Walter Becker, Director of the Division of Trade Policy, Foreign Ministry

The principal sources for the documentation presented in this section were the central files of the Department of State and the special [Page 38] comprehensive collection of minutes, papers, and telegraphic reports in the Conference files, lot 59 D 95. The single most complete collection of telegrams (Secto and Tosec) exchanged by the Secretary of State and the United States Delegation in London with the Department of State is included in the CFM files, lot M 88, which also contains certain other valuable papers on the London meetings.

The meetings in London were held in secret, but the outlines of their general course were reported in the world press, mostly on the basis of briefings by officers of the various delegations. Apart from the communiqués on pages 105 and 106, no formal, official reports on the meetings were published or made public. The single most authoritative account in print of the meetings in London appears in Chapter 64 in Acheson, Present at the Creation.