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Transcript of Princeton Seminar Discussion, Reel 6, Track 2
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- Parte de Dean Acheson Papers, Princeton Seminars Files
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OCR Page 1 of 133/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 1
MR. ACHESON:
Of course the EDC was all involved in this also. We had worked out in
NATO resolutions about the exchange of guaranties, the participation
of Germany in NATO meetings, et cetera. But it all hinged upon solving
these French troubles. And we met at 10 o'clock at night, the night
before the conference was scheduled to adjourn, to get a report of a working
committee on the remaining outstanding matters. That was made, and a
discussion started. And it was quite clear that Mr. Schumann just didn't
TRUNAA
understand the matter at alli. We had to take an hour, which took from
E
about 10 to after 11, going all over this with Schmann and explaining it
us
to him. It wasn't really a task of trying to convince himg it was rather
a task of trying to get into his mind exactly what the problem was. We
finally got that done, and Schumann agreed. Everybody was agreed--Eden,
Schumann and myself-and the task then was to devise two telegrams: one
was an official telegram from the three of us to Adenauer saying that
he had to make one last effort to raise what he was doing a little bit;
and the other was a personal telegram from me to Adenauer saying that
this was it and he must do it. Schumann said-he was tired and going to
bed. So he left, and we were all in the British Embassy. He left and
went on back to hishnbassy and went to bed. Eden and I sat in the drawing
party
room of the British Embassy, and the went into the
dining room to work out these papers, including the telegrams. The
telegram from me to Adenauer I'd already worked out. In about 20 minutes
they came back in hopeless disagreement, the French saying that they
did not understand that Mr. Schumann had agreed to what the British and
the Americans thought he had agreed to. Well, Eden and I said, "Of course
resulto-the
he did; this was the/whole purpose of this hour's discussion. He under-
stood it perfectly and agreed to it. " Well, they said, "He's gone off
to bed; we don it think he dd, and we can't take this responsibility and
therefore we can' it do anything tonight." Well, if we couldn't do anything
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