Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Ambassador of Great Britain Sir Oliver Franks, and George Perkins

S/S s DEPARTMENT OF STATE ARCHIVES 'NATIONAL RECORDS AND 671 322 SERVICE* DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and S(D) or (E) Memorandum of Conversation Dept. of State letter, Aug. 9, 1973 By NLT- HC , NARS Date 4.29.66 DATE: December 14, 1949 SUBJECT: Proposed Bilaterals Under MAP Confidential PARTICIPANTS: Sir Oliver Franks, The British Ambassador Mr. Dean Acheson, The Secretary of State Mr. George W. Perkins, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs COPIES TO: s, U, G, S/MDA, EUR, BNA, American Embassy, London. -1493 Sir Oliver stated that the British Cabinet was deeply concerned about the proposed bilaterals in connection with the Military Assistance Program. He explained that since the war the United Kingdom had made substantial contributions to the defense of other European countries, the total running to approximately 1400 million, nore than half of which was in the form of gifts, loans, or sales at greatly reduced prices. In addition, they were proposing to continue such expenditures at the rate of about 140 million a year for the next two years. They felt that they had done and were doing all that they could do in assisting other countries. He stated that the British Government had originally misunderstood the amount of assistance which would be available to the United Kingdom under the Military Assistance Program and that this was now reduced to B-29 airplanes (which some part of the British air force is not too keen to have)* and about $25 million worth of machine tools. This was far less than they had expected and did not make a substantial contribution to their preparedness program. He stated that there were two difficulties presented in the bilaterals which he wished to enumerate: (1) the provision in Article I, paragraph 4, of the proposed bilateral covering the transfer *Material in parentheses is additional comment not contained in conversation. confidential