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12/11/53 - Reel 1, track 1 - Page 1 MR. ACHESON: I think we ended up the last time with the talk about the NATO meetings in New York, in which we produced the idea of bringing Germany into the defense scheme. This was to be followed by defense meetings and financial meetings in Washington immediately following that, so the first thing to talk about this evening is meetings which took place between the 12th and the 18th of October, 1950, in Washington, with Mr. Mock and Mr. Petsch, Ambassador Bonnet on the French side, and I think Maurice Shuman was there; Snyder, Foster, General Marshall from time to time, Bissell, Finletter, Lemnitzer (and I?) all sat with us some of the time, and (George?) some of the time. This B.E.? series of meetings was interesting because I find some hand notes of mine - a whole folder - which brings out some of the worries like are they ? that the French had at this period, and it also developed into the typical misunderstanding which we had from then on, and still have, is B with the French on all financial matters. We just seem to be crossed the up before start in dealing with the French financés. This meeting we on Us. GOVE started out by Mock and Petsch laying out for us the problems of the French budget. According to my hand notes here, they told us that in the French fiscal year of 1950, which is. the calendar year 1950 - the two coincide in the French budget - their total military years expenses had been two hundred and eighty-two billion francs. Their problem for the year 1951 was that for French forces alone they had a budget which called for six hundred and ten billion francs, to which they had to add for Indo-China and overseas France two hundred and forty additional billion francs, making a budget of eight hundred and fifty billion as distinct from the preceding year of two hundred and eighty-two; and that they did not see how they possibly could finance, and yet Mock said that he couldn't take responsibility for the French