Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Eastern Europe; Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean, Volume VIII

750G.00/10–1453

No. 136
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant) to the Secretary of State¹

secret

[Washington,] October 14, 1953.

• Subject: Trieste

As a point of departure in your discussions of Trieste with Eden, I suggest that you inform him:

I. That you consider it vital that the U.K. and U.S. maintain a solid front and betray no evidence of weakening on the position taken in the October 8 joint communiqué.

II. That you have taken steps administratively to delay the delivery of any military assistance items until the situation clears up.

III. That the economic aid program is proceeding without interruption, although notification to the Yugoslavs of the amount of the fiscal ’54 allocation ($30 million plus an additional $15 million for wheat) has been postponed in the light of current developments.

IV. That you have authorized the USIS establishments in Belgrade to be closed temporarily at discretion of Wallner unless public order is restored.

V. That you are hopeful that the firm line taken by Mr. Eden with the Yugoslav Ambassador and that taken by you in your two sessions with the Yugoslav Foreign Minister² will have a sobering effect on Tito.

VI. That you called in the Italian Ambassador to Washington before you left and informed him forcefully that Pella was overplaying his hand to his own as well as our common jeopardy.³

VII. That in concert with his representatives at the UN, your instructions are that, after hearing Vishinsky speak, we seek to recess the Security Council for a few days before making a statement on the US-UK position in the matter.⁴

I suggest that you examine the following possible courses of action with Eden:

I. Requesting the French to talk firmly to the Italians.

II. Requesting the Greeks and Turks to seek to moderate Tito.

III. Dispatching some high level American or British official or officer to talk turkey with Tito.

IV. The feasibility of a Four Power meeting as suggested by Tito. I think this has real dangers since it would place the UK and the US directly and publicly in a cross-fire. I agree that it is wise to keep open as a possibility at least until you have the opportunity to see whether the British have any strong views on the subject. I believe it might also be desirable to keep the matter open until the visit to Tito of a high-level American or British official takes place, as suggested in the foregoing paragraph, if such a visit is decided on. If desirable, the British or American visitor might convey our objection to Tito.

I urge that you resist strongly any British suggestion publicly to repudiate the March 20 Declaration or to make a public statement stronger than the communiqué concerning the definiteness of the zonal solution. Repudiation would in all probability wipe out Pella and it might not be sufficient to accomplish our purposes with Tito.

I believe we will work out this situation by proceeding according to plan and offering Tito no appearance of weakening. He is further out on the limb than he should be or in fact than we had expected. I think annexation of Zone B is the method by which he can retreat without serious loss of face. The trick is to encourage him to take this step in the fore-knowledge that we will not protest it but avoid at the same time placing ourselves in the position where he could say that we had invited him to do so. The latter, I believe, would destroy Pella’s position. I am becoming increasingly persuaded that Tito was genuinely shocked by the abruptness of our action and is genuinely fearful of Italian further expansion and that we will not remain sufficiently steadfast in opposition thereto. Hence the importance I attach to the possible desirability of sending a personal emissary to him. Bob Murphy, who knew him during the war, occurs to me as a possibility though there are obviously advantages in sending a Britisher in view of the care they have taken to build up their relations with him and the general knowledge that they are not overly sympathetic with the Italians.

1. Attached to a memorandum from Merchant to the Executive Secretariat, Oct. 14, in which Merchant explained that the copy of his memorandum to the Secretary was for the information of Under Secretary Smith and for the Executive Secretariat’s files. He said that he had given the memorandum to Dulles that morning and the Secretary had retained it for his briefing file for the London talks. Merchant also said that paragraph IV had been amended slightly after discussion with McCardle. According to Merchant, he had also discussed the memorandum with Murphy, who had approved its contents an hour or so after he had given it to the Secretary. Also attached was a brief memorandum from Kitchen to Smith, Oct. 16, summarizing the contents of Merchant’s memorandum to the Secretary.
2. For the memoranda of Dulles’ conversations with Koča Popović on Oct. 12 and 13 see Documents 131 and 132.
3. A memorandum of Dulles’ conversation with Tarchiani on Oct. 14 is printed supra.
4. On Oct. 15, the U.N. Security Council placed the Trieste issue on the agenda for its meeting on Oct. 20. For text of the statement regarding Trieste on Oct. 15 by the U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., see Department of State Bulletin, Nov. 2, 1953, p. 609. When the issue was discussed on Oct. 20, the United States and the United Kingdom asked for a postponement of discussion. For the statement made by the Deputy U.S. Representative at this time, James J. Wadsworth, see ibid., Nov. 2, 1953, p. 610.