Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer

cort 7,494 TRONAE 12 RECORDS SERVICE' January 9, 1951 MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION Participants: Secretary Sawyer Mr. Acheson Secretary Acheson called Secretary Sawyer and said that, since he got back from Cabinet meeting he had looked into the matter of the British ships and the steel rails. In connection with the matter of the steel rails, the matter had been discussed with the French. He said that he had had a telegram in from Bruce (no. 3841) which he read to Secretary Sawyer over the telephone. Mr. Acheson said that the telegram showed that we were taking very vigorous steps on this; that we were expecting a telephone call from Paris that afternoon and would let him know the result of that telephone call. Secretary Sawyer agreed that all necessary steps would seem to have been taken at the moment on this matter. He expressed the hope that if this particular transaction could be stopped, others would not follow. Mr. Acheson said that he hoped this would be the case since Schuman was opposed to it he thought the chances of cooperation were good, but the French were very jittery about the possibility of provoking the Chinese to take action in Indochina, but we would pursue the matter vigorously and try to persuade them that all such shipments must be stopped. With reference to the ships, we will see the British and try to get them to do one of two things. The first and least preferable from our point of view, would be to persuade them not to have one of their ships pick it up. If they agreed to do this there would still be the question of some other ships picking it up. The second alternative, which Mr. Acheson thought the British were more or less ready to accept, would be for one of their ships to pick up the cargo and take it to Hong Kong and condemn it. Mr. Acheson said that the great difficulty was that the items in the cargo are not on anyone's list. The DECLASSIFIED E.O. 12065, Sec. 3-402 SECRER State Dept. Guideline, June 12, 1979 By NLT- NL NARS, Date 10-24-10