Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Foreign Minister of Belgium Paul-Henri Spaak

162 18 ARCHIVES RECORDS *NATIONAL AND 20-a SECHET January 18, 1950 MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION Participants: Mr. Spaak, Belgian Foreign Minister Mr. Acheson During dinner last night I sat beside and had a long talk with Mr. Spaak. We talked first about the possibilities of action within the OEEC to bring about the appointment of a special representative and about the possibility of his being appointed to this position. It was his view that nothing would come of this until after the British election. In one way or another, he believed that the British, Scandanavians and Portuguese would find ways of stalling the matter until after the election. I told him that our latest reports were that the British and the Scandanavians were going to withdraw their objection but that the Portuguese were still strongly opposed. He thought that this was only a maneuver and that the Portuguese opposition would be taken by the British and Scandanavians as a cover for postponing action. He then spoke of the British attitude along the lines of his speech at the University of Pennsylvania and he thought that the great aversion to playing any close roll in Europe was deeply ingrained in the British by history. He thought that, if persisted in, it might well be disastrous. He based the importance of an integration of Europe upon the fact that without it it would both be impossible to have any sustained recovery and it would be impossible to deal with the problem of Germany. If progress were not made, he saw a revival of the position of Germany as an arbiter in Europe which could ask for bids from the East and West and attempt to play one off against the other. He thought that this recent exchange between Adenauer and Schuman was most unfortunate. He saw in it a very rapid revival of the German position. DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) of (E) 12.29.27 Dept. of State letter, Aug-9,1973 By NLT- HC , NARS Date 6.176 SECRET