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Transcript of Princeton Seminar Discussions, Reel 5, Track 1
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- Parte de Dean Acheson Papers, Princeton Seminars Files
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OCR Page 1 of 1312/13/53 - Reel 5, Track 1, Page 1
MR. ACHESON:
Now, as I recall, the question of the Middle East Command was tem-
porarily put to one side and we said more work will be done on that
and this will be reported back to NATO, but you do not have to get
concerned about it as a NATO problem. It may be a problem outside of
need
NATO. Therefore, all you have to think about now is how we will deal
with Greece and Turkey and Greece and Turkey will be incorporated into
the NATO-Eisenhower Command. So for the time being, at least, we had
a
little peace on that. Then we got going on a Mediterranean naval
THUMAN
B &
situation. And at that point this matter came up that George has
referred to. That the French said that if the British have an inde-
us
and
pendent naval command, that is the supreme commander in the Mediterranean,
who is quite as supreme as Eisenhower is, then the French must have a
supreme commander in the Mediterranean. That was impossible because
you couldn¹t--this thing wouldn't work at all. So some way it was, me
had a series of meetings at which Herbert Morrison was being very
difficult and causing a great deal of annoyance to the French. I think
Bidault was there, wasn't he? -- maybe not. There was some other
cabinet officer, some Frenchman.
MR. PERKINS:
Well, Schuman was being very stuffy about it too, hecause he was under
strict instructions from Paris
MR. ACHESON:
As I recall it, we made a concession to the French that they were
to have a separate naval group, the mission of which was to keep open
the communication between metropolitian France and North Africa. That
command, as I understand it, as I recall it now, was to report directly
to
Eisenhower and not through Carnay, is that right? Or was that
under Commander South?
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