Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams

NLTCNaval Aide) 65 DEPARTMENT OF STATE $ OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY all WASHINGTON August 10, 1950 IOP S SUMMARY OF TELEGRAMS BURMA The Burmese Prime Minister has expressed to Embassy Rangoon his concern over the southeast Asian reaction to Indian Prime Minister Nehru's effort to mediate the Korean crisis. While expressing his personal derstanding of the impossibility of US acceptance of Soviet "conditions" for a Korean settlement, the Prime Minister stated his fear that the peoples of southeast Asia, many of whom he described as "politically naive", would lose sight of the principles involved and accept the Communist line that the reaction to Nehru's move marks a split between India and southeast Asia on the one hand and the "Anglo-American imperialists" on the other. The Burmese Prime Minister offered to undertake to offset the growing concept that a rift has developed be- - tween Nehru and the western democracies. GERMANY Ambassador Bruce in Paris has indicated his general agreement that the essential point in the creation of a European army is the reenforcement of US and UK combat troops on the continent. Bruce points out that while our ultimate objective is to build up military strength in western Europe sufficient to repel aggression, such strength cannot come into being for several years; consequently, our immediate aim is to instill con- fidence in the Europeans of the eventual success of such an effort in order to steady the political scene and ensure that a common front will be presented to Soviet pressures. Bruce consequently suggests that, in addition to the augmentation of US-UK forces on the continent, the problems of a strategic plan and an overall command are the most pressing. In this connection, Ambassador Kirk in Moscow states that, in view of the uneasy balance in Europe, we cannotleave West Germany "naked and defenseless" without increasing the risk that the whole country may fall into the hands of the USSR. On the DECLASSIFIED E.O. 12065, Sec. 3-402 State Dept. Guidelines, March 6, 1932 By DEB NLT, Date 6-5-81