Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 2

740.5/7–654: Telegram

No. 646
The Ambassador in France (Dillon) to the Department of State¹

secret

Paris, July 6, 1954—11 p.m.

68. The third subject which Mendes took up with me this afternoon was EDC. He said that he was becoming discouraged as it seemed less likely that he could arrive at a satisfactory compromise. He deplored the efforts of Spaak and particularly his statements in Belgium after his return from Paris.² He also said that Adenauer’s statements had had an unfortunate affect and had made it unnecessary for Guerin de Beaumont to spend two days going to Bonn as Adenauer had informed the French of his position via the newspapers.³ He said that both of these events had had the effect of stiffening positions here in France and had made it more difficult to reach a compromise position. He also regretted the fact that Anglo-American working group meeting had been made public.⁴

Mendes said that the reasons for his great concern were that he was convinced that the EDC would not be ratified in its present form and that if it was rejected by France, the result would be a catastrophe primarily for France but also for the Western alliance as a whole. He said that if the EDC treaty passed by a small margin, it would be decisively defeated in the Council of the Republic and could not possibly muster the necessary 314 votes to pass the [garble] on second reading.

This was the reason for which he placed such store in arriving at some sort of compromise solution. He said that the Bourges–Koenig talks would continue and he would still hope that something would come out of them. He said in a rather discouraged tone that he had hoped that the other countries would have allowed him to have the six weeks period of grace which he had asked but that had not been the case and their actions had complicated his problems in France. He said that he was not asking for anything but just wanted to bring me up to date as to his feeling on the subject as of now.

Dillon

1. Repeated to London and Bonn.
2. At the suggestion of Spaak, the Foreign Ministers of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg met in Luxembourg on June 22 and agreed to propose a conference of the six signatory powers of the EDC Treaty during which they would request immediate French decision on the treaty. On June 30 Spaak held a meeting with Mendès-France in Paris after which a communiqué was issued noting agreement on the usefulness of such a conference. For documentation on this initiative by Spaak, see vol. v, Part 1, pp. 571 ff.
3. For documentation concerning Adenauer’s statements about the EDC Treaty and the plans of Mendès-France to send Guerin de Beaumont to Bonn in order to keep Adenauer informed of developments in France relating to the treaty, see vol. v, Part 1, pp. 571 ff.
4. For documentation on the U.S.–U.K. Study Group on Germany, which met in London July 5–12, see ibid., pp. 997 ff.