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July 15, 1953 - Reel 1 - p.l DA. I thought that at this series of meetings what I would try to do is to pick up the discussions on the North Atlantic Treaty which are obviously a very important part of the 1949 history,then go on into the preparations for the conference of Foreign Ministers and the meeting of the Conference of Foreign Ministers, which took place in April 1949. Moving now to the North Atlantic Treaty the I think I mentioned before that the principal matter and indeed the only matter that B ob Lovett talked with me about before I came in as Secretary was what he had been doing on the North Atlantic Treaty. He told me with whom he was discussing this, how it had originated, and what the general outlines of the discussion were. These explorations that Lovett was carrying on began in the summer of 1948 with the Ambassadors of Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Q. (Aftor?) the Vandenberg resolutions? DA. Yes, the Vandenberg resolutions was on June 11, 1948 and these dis- cussions began after that. The people involved were Bobby Silvercruys who was Monet the Belgian Ambassador, Hume Wrong in Canada, Henri of France, Hugh LeGali. (?) of Lussembourg, van Klaffens and Oliver Franks. This was an extremely able and easy group with which to discuss any question and Bob had made considerable progress. The whole idea of the North Atlantic Treaty as I understood it when I came in grew out of the view which had become clearer and clearer through 1947 and 1948 that the Soviet Union was ready to use force in any situation in which force could be the decisive element without producing a general conflict. There was the Greek-Turkey business in 1946-47 going on into 148, the overthrow of Czechoslovalcia in 1948, and the intense Soviet pressures on Italy and France in their elections which had given rise to a good deal of speculation that if it were necessary to produce a coup in either one of those countries it might occur. Tn Jaruary 1948 Enie Bevin made a speech in the House of Commons in which he laid