Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and the Officers of the State Department Press Association

to 149 TOPSCONE January 26, 1949 MEMORANDUM . RECORDS 'MATIONAL ARCHIVES AND Subject: Germany all After luncheon in Mr. Royall's office, he asked Secretary Snyder, Secretary Forrestal, Assistant Secretary Voorhees, Under Secretary Draper, Mr. Saltzman and me to remain to discuss Germany. Secretary Royall then asked that the committee to which he referred in his letter to the President be established at once and that it meet on Friday morning to consider some urgent problems. He went on to say that he hoped the committee through the principal members or through their deputies would continue to meet until most of the German problems were settled. I said that I was not prepared to enter the committee as proposed by Secretary Royall except on express direction of the President; that I had, talked with the President about it, and that I believed I had his ap- proval in saying that the proper procedure was to act through the Na- tional-Security Council. The effect of this change was more than pro- cedural. It brought into the deliberations of the Clabinet group as the secretariat a staff service of the President, that is, the secretariat of the National Security Council. In this way, the President could be kept continuously advised of the deliberations of the group, have his wishes made known at all stages and have its final recommendations go to him in an orderly way under established procedure. I said that I was quite prepared to have the National Security Council designate as a working subcommittee the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Army, Mr. Hoffman and anyone else whom the President desired. The recommen- dations of this subcommittee would undoubtedly be accepted for for- warding to the President by the full Council. I said also that I thought this committee should undertake as its task a restatement of our policy toward Germany in the light of our obligations and policy in Western Europe. The statement need not be wordy but should be complete. I thought that it was unwise to try and compromise differences where real differences existed. In these cases alternative statements should be forwarded so that the President might be free to accept, modify or rewrite any or all the proposals. DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) or (EE) FOP SECRET Dept. of State letter, Bx NLT- He NARS Date 4.20.76