Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Paul Hoffman, Milton Katz, and W. Park Armstrong

secment ban 352 5 905 RESPRICTED 21 January 17, 1952 Subject: Ford Foundation Plan for Developing High-Level Discussion of Disarmament Participants: The Secretary Mr. Paul Hoffman, The Ford Foundation Mr. Milton Katz, The Ford Foundation Mr. W. Park Armstrong (R) Copies to: G - Mr. Matthews S/P - Mr. Nitze UNA - Mr. Hickerson ARCHIVES NATIONAL SERVICK RECORDS AND E - Mr. Thorp P - Mr. Sargeant Mr. Hoffman began with brief references to the present programs of the Ford Foundation in India and Pakistan, which he thinks are moving along well and which have the enthusiastic support of Ambassador Bowles. He then said that he would like to inform me of some tentative thinking of his group on a plan concerning which he would appreciate having any views or guidance that I could give him. He had been present in Paris at the presentation of the disarmament proposals in the General Assembly and had thought that that had ven the West a decided opportunity, which Vishinsky by his action had enlarged. How- ever, he and his associates do not feel that much will have been accomplished if it is left at this point and that there is a genuine opportunity for realiz- ing further benefits from the disarmament concept if undertaken promptly. Mr. Hoffman went on to report that the Foundation has authorized Mr. Grenville Clark, with a small staff, to prepare a series of studies on various aspects of disarnament (which would probably subsequently be issued as a book) It was then thought that the studies could be used as the basis for discussion by high-level groups of people with the view to getting the intricacies and implications of disarmament more widely understood by the opinion-forming level of the country and in the anticipation that such understanding would trickle downward. He said that he places considerable hope in the method of discussion, and that the Foundation is considering whether it would be a proper activity for it to underwrite. He pointed to the time in the future when the military strength of the West has reached planned levels and to the increasing psychological problem of what to do then if the East has not capitulated or DECLASSIFTED E.0. 10501 RESTRICTEL