Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, President Harry S. Truman, and Trygve Lie

727 CONFIDENDIAL 122 April 20, 1950. MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT AND MR. LIE I met Mr. Trygve Lie in the President's outer office and talked with him for ten or fifteen minutes while wait- ing for our appointment. In the course of our talk he gave me the attached memorandum, which he said had been prepared by him with the assistance of the Assistant Seere- taries General, including the Bussian, and had the approval of all of them. Also Mr. Feller had worked on it and approved it. He said he was going to leave another copy with the President, which he subsequently did. He said he would expect no comment from either of us at this time and that perhaps after his return from Europe he might request us to comment upon it. I read the memorandum hurriedly while I was sitting with him. The only comment I made was to draw his atten- tion to the sentence at the top of page 4, *Clearly dis- armament requires an atmosphere of confidence in which political disputes are brought nearer to solution. I said that all the problems and difficulties we had required for their solution an atmosphere of confidence, which clearly could not exist so long as the Soviet system was engaged in aggressive designs to subvert, giving as illustrations Eastern Germany, Austria, and Indo China. He did not dis- sent from this, but seemed to believe that in some way the steps suggested by the memorandum would help. I did not debate the matter with him. In our talk with the President, he said the following: 1. The UN was getting three portraits and it wished to get a fourth to hang in its new building. It had already arranged for portraits of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. They very much wished to obtain a portrait of the President. His request, which he asked the President to consider, was that the President should select an artist and that the UN would then employ the artist to paint a portrait of the President. The President said that he would be glod to consider this suggestion. DECLASSIFIED E. 11652, Séc. 3(E) and 5(D) or (B) Dept. O. of State letter, Aug 239755 Bey NLT- HC NARS Date 6-4-26 CONFIDENTIAL