No. 868
Editorial Note
Beginning on May 18 the Austrian Treaty Deputies from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France began a series of tripartite meetings in London in order to reach agreement on negotiating tactics for the meetings with the Soviets scheduled for May 27. Telegraphic summaries of these preliminary meetings, as well as a series of letters from Dowling to Merchant providing more detail, are in Department of State file 663.001.
On May 25, Jacob Malik, the Soviet Ambassador in London, sent a letter to the Secretary General of the Austrian Treaty Deputies declining the invitation to participate in the meeting scheduled for May 27. The reasons the Soviet Government refused to participate were, according to the letter, that a meeting of the Deputies could be called only at the request of the Council of Foreign Ministers, that there were no grounds to suppose that the proposed meeting would be any more successful than preceding meetings, and that “it would be more expedient to consider this question through diplomatic channels by means of an appropriate exchange of opinions.” The following day a joint note by the Deputies from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France was sent to Malik criticizing the Soviet refusal to participate in the May 27 meeting. For the Soviet letter and the joint reply, see Department of State Bulletin, June 8, 1953, pages 814–815.