Letter, C. D. Jackson to Merlo Pusey of the Washington Post

whenter V February 5, 1955 Dear Mr. Pusey: My apologies for this long delayed reply to your January 19th letter, but unfortunately I have been out of tow so much that my correspondence has suffered badly. Here are the answers to your specific questions: Where did the plan originate? o 3 The plan of an atomic pool for peaceful purposes originated in a memorandum by the President to Levis Strauss in August 1953. The President vas then in Denver. How long vas it under discussion before the President made his fumous speech to the deneral Assembly: The idea of the President's making a major speech on the general subject of the atomic age started as fax back as early April 1953. However, the "pool" idea was not injected until August. Why did he decide to make the speech to the United Nations? Because it seemed to be the perfect world audience before which this plan could be launched. There had been a certain amount of discussion as to when and where the speech should be made, but when the intimation came that he might be invited to address the closing session of the UN 8th General Assembly, everyone agreed that that was it. As a matter of fact, it turned out not to be the actual closing day because of a pile-up On the UN agenda, but as I remember, it was within 48 to 72 hours of the actual close. Had other countries approved the plan before the President made the public announcement? No countries were asked for "approval". However, a draft was shown to the French and the British at Bermuda as a matter of courtesy. It vould have been embarrassingly rude after having