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    "ocrText": "3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 1\nMR. ACHESON:\nOf course the EDC was all involved in this also. We had worked out in\nNATO resolutions about the exchange of guaranties, the participation\nof Germany in NATO meetings, et cetera. But it all hinged upon solving\nthese French troubles. And we met at 10 o'clock at night, the night\nbefore the conference was scheduled to adjourn, to get a report of a working\ncommittee on the remaining outstanding matters. That was made, and a\ndiscussion started. And it was quite clear that Mr. Schumann just didn't\nTRUMAN\nLIBRARY\nunderstand the matter at alli. We had to take an hour, which took from\nHARRY\nabout 10 to after 11, going all over this with Schumann and explaining it\nUS.\nto him. It wasn't really a task of trying to convince him; it was rather\na task of trying to get into his mind exactly what the problem was. We\nfinally got that done, and Schumann agreed. Everybody was agreed--Eden,\nSchumann and myself-and the task then was to devise two telegrams: one\nwas an official telegram from the three of us to Adenauer saying that\nhe had to make one last effort to raise what he was doing a little bit;\nand the other was a personal telegram from me to Adenauer saying that\nthis was it and he must do it. Schumann said-he was tired and going to\nbed. So he left, and we were all in the British Embassy. He left and\nwent on back to hisEmbassy and went to bed. Eden and I sat in the drawing\nparty\nroom of the British Embassy, and the went into the\ndining room to work out these papers, including the telegrams. The\ntelegram from me to Adenauer I'd already worked out. In about 20 minutes\nthey came back in hopeless disagreement, the French saying that they\ndid not understand that Mr. Schumann had agreed to what the British and\nthe Americans thought he had agreed to. Well, Eden and I said, \"Of course\nresult-the\nhe did; this was the/whole purpose of this hour's discussion. He under-\nstood it perfectly and agreed to it.\" Well, they said, \"He's gone off\nto bed; we don't think he did, and we can't take this responsibility and\ntherefore we can't do anything tonight.\" Well, if we couldn't do anything\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 2\ntonight, the whole business was in the soup because we were going to have\na meeting the next morning to get this thing wound up. At that point,\nAnthony Eden, who was catching a cold, blew up with a terrific report,\nactually lost his temper, and was tremendously effective. His opening\nstatement was, \"Every time a crisis occurs in the world, some damn\nFrenchman goes to bed!\" Well, this was so wild and so good, that it just\nshocked everybody into the necessary state of fright, and then we told the\nFrench-I said we were going to call up Mr. Schumann and get him back here.\nWell, great protests about that, so we said, \"All right, you go and see\nMr. Schumanh and tell him that Mr. Eden and I say he agreed to this, or\nwe'll call him on the telephone and get him right back here now.\" So they\nrushed over and pretty soon they came back and said tchuge we were right;\nthat Mr. Schumann had definitely agreed. At that point, Anthony, being\nvery angry and fed up and feeling wretchedly, said he was going to bed.\nHARRY TRUMAN -VATNIVAL ARCHIVES& REQUIROS LIBRARY\nAnd I said, \"Well, I suppose I could say that at every crisis some damn\nEnglishman goes to bed. But if you go, the only reason that I'll tolerate\nU.S.\nyour going to bed is if you'll give me a proxy to decide any issue that\ncomes up here as though you were deciding it.\" And Anthony said, \"Oh,\nall right, I'll do that.\" So I stayed in the living room until 4 o'clock\nthat morning and every dispute that came up, if it was a French dispute\nI was Mr. Schumann; if it was a British one, I was Mr. Eden; and if our\nfuss,\npeople raised any/deodex, I was myself, speaking for Harriman, Lovett,\nSnyder, everybody else. We finally got this thing done and we gotthe\ntelegrams off. We got a very prompt response in the morning from Adenauer\nsomewhere before 11 o'clcok, saying that he agreedto doing what we had\nasked him to do; and this whole business was settled. That night before\ngoing to bed I sent a telegram to the President saying that we had to wait\nuntil the morning to know, but my opinion was-a very strong guess was that\nthis was going to be a very great success, that everything worked out far\nbeyond our hopes, and that I hoped that when he got the final word he would\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 3\nsay something encouraging about it, which he did. And the one other\nvery frivolous entertaining thing--everyone in our crowd was elated as\na result of this meeting. We had worked together extremely well, and\nthis again was another example of the great utility of having the heads\nof all these departments present when you have to do very fast nego-\ntiating. It would have been impossible if Lovett and Harriman and\nSnyder had been in Washington and I was sending cables back. You never\nwould have gotinn agreement in a thousand years. When they were there\nand were participating and were under the same pressure that I was under\nTRUMAN\nVATHONAL\nand could see the importance of decisions, they joined with me in these\nHARRY\nARCRIVES\nrecommendations, which were a constant flow of telegrams to the President,\nU.S.\none of\none asking for his intervention, because/the interesting things is that\nwhen the head of the department gets off at one of these meetings he\nseems to lose a certain amount of control over the department over which\nhe is the theoretical head. And Bob and Snyder and Harriman--everybody-\nwere getting very difficult cables from their own departments, and the\nPresident had to step in and tell whoever was acting that he was in touch\nit\nwith us and he wanted/this way. Well, we were all very happy and elated\nwhen we left that night. Bob left a short time before I did, but Snyder\nand Harriman and I went back together in the President's plane. Every-\nbody came down to the airport--all the Portuguese, all the Americans--\nto see us off, including Frank Nash, who was Assistant Secretary of\nDefense, who was very useful at this meeting. And they were all gathered\nround, making speeches and saying goodbye to one another; and Frank said\nthat he'd brought me a present. And he had a wicker Portuguese wine\nbasket that was off a little way; he said, \"It's over there.\" And I\nthought he had some of the Portuguese wine, which is not the best in the\nworld but good and nice to have; so I thanked him for it, and said, \"What\nwine is it, Frank?\" And he said, \"It's called 'Porto de Lisbon'.\"\nWell, there were a lot of people around and I didn't register for a moment,\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 4\nand then suddenly, \"Porco de Lisbon!\" I said, \"Have you got a pig in\nthere?\" And he said, \"Now don't get excited, Dean, don't get excited.\nThis is terrific. Now you think what happend when the President's going\nto greet you; the press will all be there; you'll be bringing home the\nbacon. It's terrific!\" Well, I said, \"It's terrific if it's bringing\nhome the bacon, but what about a pig in a poke?\" Well, in the meantime\nthe basket had disappeared, and I thought, \"Where is this thing?\" Luke\nBattle, my assistant, always worried to death, pale as a sheet, and you\nalways thought that Luke was going to collapse at any moment, which he\nnever did; Luke--it suddenly dawned on him that this had been put on the\nplane while we'd been arguing about it. So he rushed over to the plane\nto find a terrible argument going on between a colonel who was on Frank's\nstaff and our air force colonel, who was the pilot of the plane. And the\nTRUMAN\nLIBRARY\ncolonel with him (?) said, \"I won't have any god-dammed pig on this plane!\"\n(took it over to the\nHARRY\nSo Luke finally took the porker over to Lisbon and\nCOVERNMENT\nhimself\nSE\nEsplanade all by identify and the last we saw of this ink basket it was\nrocking (too much laughter-words indistinct) is there a porker in\nLisbon protesting... (indistinet) XXX Well, it was finally taken back and\nsomebody took it up to Frank's room, where it worked itself out of the\nbasket. And when Frank came up from celebrating this success, the Porco\nde Lisbon wasin his bed, having done a fine job! It was then turned over\nto one of the chambermaids, who took it on home. *(indistinct--\nWe've already the talked about the Franks episode. We came back to\nWashington and the next thing was the Bonn meeting.\nMR. JESSUP:\nAre you through with Lisbon? Could I just ask two questions? One, you\nspoke about the President's statement about the success. My recollection\nis that you got a very bad press out of Lisbon. The stories at first\nwere this is all a dismal failure. Do you remember anything about that?\nDo you want to comment on that?\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 5\nMR. ACHESON:\nYes. There was a very bad press because-in large part I think there\nwere two causes for this. One was that before we went all the columnists\nhad announced that this was bound to be a failure. I remember Walter Lipp-\nmann wrote several columns pointing out the stupidity of having conferences\nunless you had them all arranged in advance and the conference was\nsupposed to register decisions and not make decisions. There couldn't\nbe any decisions; therefore this was going to be a failure; therefore it\nwas stupid diplomacy to have it. That was the line which everybody took.\nThen when we got to Lisbon we had the problem which you always have in\nthese international conferences; you cannot tell the press what is going\non, particularly when whether this conference is going to be a success\nor a failure depends upon a decision which is going to be made in the\nHARRY INTNAN\nlast few minutes of the conference. If you start telling them, \"This is\nU.S.\n3\nreally in the bag because we've really got the French persuaded on this,2\nthen that goes to Paris and the French won't be persuaded on this; they\nwere\nwill be more difficult to deal with. Therefore there/wax of necessity\nvery few press conferences, very few opportunities to have unofficial\nwith\nleaks, such as you do--or official leaks, such as you do/when the meeting\nof the Foreign Ministers. Therefore this impression that it was going to\nbe a failure persisited. After it was over, everybody was writing columns\nsaying, \"Of course this was a success; it wasn't any trouble at all; every-\nthing was all set up in advance and all you had to do was to go over and\nstay in the hotel for a few days.\"\nMR. JESSUP:\nIs there anything about Greece and Turkey that needs to be said? The\ntreaty had been ratified, I think, just before the Lisbon conference met.\nMR. ACHESON:\nI -don't think SO. I think the Rome meeting was the first one which they\nattended, and they attended that as observers. At the Lisbon meeting,\nthey attended as members. I don't think there's anything to be said about\nit. They were very quiet there with little to say, because most. of the\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 6\ndiscussion that was going on did not involve Greece and Turkey. The\nforces for the year 152-53 had not been taken up at that time by the\nHarriman committee. The--we got home in March and then we went off in\nApril to the meeting in Bonn. There's one thing in between, again of\na rather trivial nature, and there seem to be a lot of those this morning,\nthat occurred in Washington. And that had to do with the visit of Queen\nJuliana. In all these visits the routine was that they were met; they\nhad-the Chief of State had the triumphal procession from the airport,\nstopping at the District Building, and then they would stay at the White\nHouse. The President had a dinner for the visitor, and then the visitor\nhad a dinner for the President; and then I had a dinner for the visitor.\nAnd this went on every time. And we always tried to make our dinners\nTRUMAN\nDURARY\nmore informal and more fun. Everything that you could possibly think of\nHARRY\nUs.\nD\nto say had been said at these other formal parties, and so you couldn't\ngo back over anything. And I tried to make a speech which would be a\nlittle on the light side, and this wasn't too easy with Queen Juliana.\nShe wasn't--for various reasons, didn't lend herself to the light touch-\nin the first place, she was a lady, and you had to be careful about that;\nin the second place, her sense of humor wasn't her greatest point. How-\never, in the course of this, I sent for all the things they could find\nin the department that she had ever said or written, and there were quite\na lot of them. And I went over these to see if they gave anything. And\nthere was one workington speech which she made in Canada shortly after\nshe got there after the occupation of Holland, in which she thanked the\nCanadian people for receiving her and giving her such a pleasant home,\nand she talked about her children. And she talked about them in a very\nmoving and touching and beautiful way. And I said, \"Well, now this gives\ngreat\nme something.\" So I made this speech and went on about her qualities as\nsovereign and her mother's great qualities and her ancestors' great\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 7\nqualities and their part in America--not too much, because that had all-\na lot of that had been said before. Then I said one of the things which\nhad not been dealt with but which most certainly should be was that aside\nfrom all these other qualities, she was a great master of British prose\nstyle, English prose style, and what were the elements of mastership in\nthis field. There was simplicity and directness and talked about Leslie\nStephen and gave myself quite a build-up as a scholar in the humanities,\nand then I said, \"Without further argument, here is an illustration; as\nan example of English prose style, this can't possibly be improved on\nand very few can equal it.\" And I read this thing, and everybody cheered\nand clapped. And she was to get up and make a little speech. And when\nHARRY, TRUMAN U.S. 3 LIBRARY\nI sat down, this utter horror was on her face and she said to me, \"But\nthis is awful.\" And I said, \"What's awful?\" And she said, \"I didn't\nwrite this.\" And I said, \"Well, for the purposes of this evening, you\ndid.\" She said, \"But no, that isn't honest. I must say I didn't write\nit.\" And I said, \"Your Majesty, if you say that, you and I are through!\"\nI'll never speak to you again! You have to have written it; at least\nyou don't have to say you didn't write it.\" So she had a terrible\nturmoil of spirit; yes, she had been rpaised for something which she did\nwas\nnot do. Well, she got up and made this speech. I/terrified for what\nwas going to come in a moment of confession, but it didn't. We got\nthrough with that all right. In April we went off to Bonn. There had\nbeen a great deal of work done on what were known as contractual relations\nwith Germany. This was a matter of cdlossal complexity; there were vast\ndocuments; they dealt with the most involved matters; they wound up all\nthe unresolved points about the war and the occupation, the financial\nquestions, political questions, questions about the validity of laws\npassed by the occupation authorities, questions about the future-there\nwere-they just bristled with complexities. They had gotten down to\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 8\nall but a few outstanding points. We had, I think, a weekend. We hoped\nto sign the treaty on Monday, and I think we got there on Friday, and\nwe were very desirous to have these points brought up to the winisters\nand decided on. McCloy had done a most incredible amount of work and\nhad a great mastery of all the complexities of this matter. They had\nbeen up night after night, and one of the extmaordinary things about it\nwas the Chancellor's endurance. He was an old man but he would sit\nup until 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning going over matters and remain\nfresh and vigorous and on the ball all the way through. A good many\nquestions were open; some of them, as I said, required decisions by the\nMinisters. Many others--the matters were too complicated for the Ministers\nto discuss-but the function of the Minister was to coerce his staff so that\ninto\nthey would get on with it and not stick with arguments/which they had\ngrown over three or four years of constant debate. We met on Friday,\nSaturday and Sunday, and finally signed the treaty on Monday. When\nwe got there we found one very disturbing factor, and that was that\nSchumann was no longer really in control. He was there, as the Foreign\nMinister, but he had just come from-oh, what is that place where the\nCouncil of Europe meets—\nMR. JESSUP:\nStrasbourg.\nHANRI es GOVERNMENT ARCHIVES@ TRUMAN NATIONAL RECORDS ADMINT\nMR. ACHESON:\nStrasbourg. He had been meeting there on the EDC. He told us that he\nwas not at all sure he had his Ministry with him; he was constantly\nin communication with Paris and was very nervous and very upset and very\ndepressed. One of the great questions which we had out was the matter\nof the guarantees for the continued German presence in EDC; what would\nhappen if Germany joined EDC; they had armed contingents and then at some\npoint they moved out. The French had wanted treaty guarantees by the\nUnited States and Great Britain that we would take action if this occurred.\nBefore going to Bonn, and some time before that, we had talked this\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 9\nmatter over very carefully in the Department and with the President, and\nwe had decided that the United States could not go further than existing\ndecisions of policy which had some root in existing Congressional action;\nthat you could not go further than you could say Congress had already\nauthorized you to go. By this time the President had announced that he\nwas not going to be a candidate for reelection; his power was necessarily\nless than it had been before; an election was coming up; we couldn't\npossibly expect to go further than we already had Congressional authoriza-\ntion to go. And therefore we had worked out a formula which was that\nwe were deeply concerned as a matter of security, not only with NATO, but\nHARRY U.S. TRUMAN -NATHYYAL ARCHIVES GOVERNING LIDRERY\nwith EDC, because EDC and NATO were bound together; and anything which\nwith\none\ninterfered/or disrupted the integrity of either/of these organizations\ninvolved\nor their unity was a matter which directly/affackad the security of the\nUnited States. Now that, you could demonstrate, had roots in Congres-\nsional approval. Friday night we discussed this matter-Friday afternoon\nand Friday night-at great length. Every time we would produce something\nSchumann would have this telegraphed to Paris; and then we'd have to sit\nand wait for some kind of response back by telephone or otherwise, which\nwas a very serious thing to be doing, because communication was not\nsecure and it was a very time-consuming one. I put forward this proposal;\nEden picked it up and did very well with it. He said, \"This is colossal;\nthis is more than the United States has ever said before to anybody about\nanything.\" And he thought this was a great thing and if Schuman would\ntake hold of it and make the most of it instead of trying to find out\nwhat was wrong with it, this would satisfy French opinion. Schuman was,\nas I say, very depressed and nervous and worried. He kept going to sleep.\nWe sat there until about 3 or 4 o'clock doing this, and Schuman kept\ngoing to sleep. It'was quite an amusing situation at that point. As\nsoon as he would go to sleep, Eden and I would have quite a vigorous\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 10\nconversation in English as to whether or not we could do any better\nwith this, and there he'd be sound asleep across the table. If we could\nchange a word here and there we'd wake him up and read it to him, and\nhe'd telegraph that to Paris and then he'd go to sleep again. What came\nout of these meetings was finally put in a tripartite declaration, and\nthis is the heart of it: After reviewing the importance and of NATO and\nEDC, we said: \"For these various reasons, including the fact that these\nnew guarantees will apply to the states concerned only as members of one\nor the other of these organigations\"--that is, the guarantees between NATO\nand EDC**\"the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom\nin\nhave an abiding interest, as has the government of France,/in the effective-\nness of the treaty creating the European Defense Community and in the\nHARRY TRUMAN U.S. LIBRARY\nstrength and integrity of that Community. Accordingly, if any action,\nfrom whatever quarter, threatens the integrity or unity of the Community,\nthe two governments will regard this as a threat to their own security.\nNorth\nThey will act in accordance with Article IV of the/Atlantic Treaty; more-\nover, they have each expressed their resolve to station such forces on the\ncontinent of Europe, including the Federal Republic of Germany, as they\ndeem necessary and appropriate to contribute to the joint defense of the\nNorth Atlantic Treaty area, having regard to their obligations under the\nNorth Atlantic Treaty, their interest in the integrity of the European\nDefense Community and their especial responsibilities in Germany.\" Now\nevery word of this was argued about for hours, particularly \"They will\nact in accordance with Article IV of the North Atlantic Treaty.\" This\nis the article which calls for consultation whenever the vital interests\nof any country are threatened. The French wanted to say they will act\nin accordance with the Treaty; we said that the whole purpose of doing\nthat is to confuse and deceive somebody; you want to give the impression\nthat we will act under Article V, which isn't what we are talking about.\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 11\nWe might just as well make this thing clear as raise doubts-raise hopes\nwhich will not be borne out by what we intend to do, because all of this\nwill be gone over very carefully in the United States Senate, when they\ncome to ratify the contractual relations, and whatever you gain by a\nvague phrase now you will lose by excessive clarity when this gets before\nthe Senate. Well, that was argued about. We had a curious situation\nabout reparations, which resulted in a French reservation in the treaty.\nTRUMAN\nCOMMARY\nWe said, as we had all said previously, that we were against reparations\nHAMPY U.S. RECORDS\nout of current production. We explained to the French that we had to\nsay that, because if you didn't say that, when you came to any final\npeace treaty you opened the door to the Russians. We had been fighting\nthe Russians for years on this; we were all united on it, and quite\nobviously we weren't going to get any reparations out of current produc-\ntion. And therefore we had to put that in. The French were not willing\nto do this. Their basic reason was that they wanted to play it both\nways; they wanted to be against it when the Russians wanted it and they\nwanted to hold open the possibility in case this was brought up in the\nFrench Parliament. It finally resulted in a French clause, the wording\nof which I have forgotten now, but wicklockine which has the exact opposite\nmeaning of what the French were trying to say. They put this forward.\nIt utterly puzzled Eden and me; we attempted to find out what they meant,\nand then it occurred to me that there was no point in trying to find out\nwhat they meant-if this pleased them, for heaven's sake leave it in there.\nSo we did. I have forgotten what it was, but it's quite puzzling. All\nof these discussions, including the financial parts of the settlement,\nwent on all through Saturday morning. We were supposed to meet with the\nGermans at 10 o'clook; we had to postpone that until 2 o'clock; we\nhadn't finished our own discussions, so we had to postpone it until\nstill\n4 o'clook, and finally we had a meeting, with some matters undecided,\n3/14/54: Reel 6, Track 2, Page 12\nbetween the three of us. I was made the Chairman of the meeting of the\nfour powers. The reason for this was that it was held in the American\nbuilding; in fact it was that no one else wanted to be, because no one\nelse had done enough work on the thing to keep in their mind what the\npoints were. Eden didn't want to do it; Schuman didn't want to shock\nhave any more responsibility than he had to have; Adenauer couldn't be,\nand therefore I was by default. And it was quite a touchy thing to do,\nbecause quite often the very complexity of the matter would result in\nTRUMAN\neither Schuman or Eden arguing against his own interests and against his\nTHRARY\nHARRY U.S. J\nown position, simply because he didn't understand the point well enough.\nAnd you had to get them out of that without any loss of face or, of course,\nresentment. Adenauer was superb at this meeting. He had quite a lot of\ntrouble with his own people. His Minister of State, who was not a Cabinet\nofficer, whose name-what was his name--\nMR. JESSUP:\nHolsstein (sp?).\nMR. ACHESON:\nHolzstein, yes. Holsstein was very technical. Sometimes I thought quite\nslippery and very cute; he wanted to raise every single possible technical\npoint, and in the course of the technicality--discussion on the techni-\ncality--he would gradually switch the position around so that it was\ndifferent from what Adenauer had agreed to. Adenauer was very good and\nquite-he was on the ball at every moment. He was quite ruthless with\nHolzstein, and he would just make decisions right at the table, contrary\nto the arguments of his own group. And we got on to one point, which\narose at a recent Berlin meeting, and this came up on Saturday. I think\nit was finally settled at a private meeting which Adenauer asked me to\nhave Sunday morning, with von Brentano and two other members\nof the coalition group. 16 had to do with the future of Germany. There\nwas in the treaty, as drafted, at contractual relations, a provision\nsaying we were for a united Germany and we were all going to do what we\ncould to bring that about, but that the untied Germany was going to be\nbound by this treaty\n(END OF REEL)"
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