Memorandum from Secretary of State Dean Acheson to President Harry S. Truman

FOP SECRET 80 SECURITY INFORMATION March 13, 1952 MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT The following are a few comments on things which are going on in my field, which I thought might interest you: 1. We have now received from the British an aide mémoire which is the memorandum Mr. Churchill referred to in the last paragraph of his message to you. I have not forwarded it to you because it only further confused us and I did not want needlessly to worry you. We are trying through Franks to find out exactly what the British have in mind. It looks like some confused free - wheeling by Lord Cherwell. They appear to want us to finance a total of about 195 aircraft during fiscal 1952-53 and 545 planes for fiscal 1953-54. They speak of this as a "first" proposal. We are still uncertain exactly what the relation of these figures is to the commitment they made at Lisbon for approximately 1500 planes in 1952. Bob and Averell and I are getting together this afterncon and will discuss it further. I have talked to Oliver Franks twice and explained to him the seriousness with which we would view any apparent withdrawal from the Lisbon commitment. We would hope to get this request suspended or ended in some way until they know their whole position and we know what Congress will provide through MSA. 2. The JCS are considering today a proposed new instruction to Ridgway, the draft of which was prepared by Defense and State. This will, of course, be submitted to you for approval prior to any definitive action. I hope we can make progress on this in the next twenty-four hours. DECLASSIFIED E.O. 12065 Sec. 3-402 FOP SECRET ase 7:25:fi State Dept. Guideline, June 12, 1979 SECURITY INFORMATION PROJECT NLT 80.10 By NLT- HC NARS, Date 11.23.fl