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

742.5/10–1353

No. 978
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant) to the Acting Secretary of State¹

top secret

[Washington,] October 13, 1953.

• Subject: Political-Military discussions with Canada on the world situation and continental defense.

Background:

At various times since December, 1950, we have held political-military consultations with Canada on developing world situations which might or might not lead to general war and the use of atomic weapons. It has become increasingly urgent to resume these discussions, which were last held in January 1953. Ambassador Heeney recently indicated to Mr. Arneson and Mr. Bowie that the Canadian Government would welcome renewed talks on the general world picture and particularly on our current thinking on continental defense.

The conversations in the past have revealed a remarkable similarity of views; have been without commitment on either side; and have some great advantages to the United States: (1) They have facilitated arrangements with Canada for the operations of the Strategic Air Command (SAC); (2) the discussions reveal current thinking of each country and promote the mutual confidence and trust which is necessary for the granting of consent for SAC operations in event of hostilities.

Discussion:

In addition to the above reasons, it is necessary to hold discussions devoted largely to continental defense, to prepare the ground for obtaining Canadian cooperation in carrying out NSC 159/4 (improved continental defense against air attack).² The Canadian attitude is that the United States may be making decisions on continental defense based on information not available to the Canadians and which directly affects Canada. We propose to correct this situation by giving the Canadians a full and frank exposition of our thinking, of our intelligence estimates, and of the studies which have been made in the United States leading up to the directive in NSC 159/4.

Participants on the United States side will be Messrs. Murphy and Matthews, Co-Chairmen, Merchant, Bowie, Arneson, Raynor, and initially at least, Admiral Radford. The Canadians have proposed Ambassador Heeney and a member of his staff, General Foulkes, Chairman of their Chiefs of Staff Committee, and a senior official from the Department of External Affairs.

October 20 or 21 has been proposed for the first session which should last approximately two hours.³

1. Drafted by W. L. Wight and cleared by Arneson and Savage. Jeffrey Kitchen, Deputy Director of the Executive Secretariat, through whose office this memorandum was addressed, indicated in the heading and top margin of the source text that he was routing the memorandum to the Acting Secretary and that per his conversation with Horsey, the tentative date of the conversations discussed in the memorandum would be changed to Oct. 23 because of Smith’s desire to participate.
2. Document 976, paragraph 12.
3. The meeting took place in Washington on Oct. 22. Smith, Under Secretary of State, opened the meeting with a brief reference to the continuing purpose of this series of meetings and introduced Bowie for an appraisal of Soviet action and strength since the last meeting in January.