Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Ambassador of Great Britain Sir Oliver Franks, Philip Jessup, Walton Butterworth, and Mr. Thompson

s/s DEPARTMENT OF STATE 307 Memorandum of Conversation 93 FOT SECKET DATE: March 27, 1950 SUBJECT: London Mestings corf PARTICIPANTS: The British Ambassador, Sir Oliver Franks The Secretary Mr. Jessup Mr. Butterworth COPIES TO: Mr. Thompson s/s S/P EUR - Mr. Perkins EUR - Mr . Raynor BNA 1-1493 The Ambassador referred to Mr. Bevin's desire to announce in the House of Commons tomorrow the meetings which were to be held in London in May. It was agreed that he could do so with- out mentioning dates. With respect to the NAT Council meeting, it was agreed he should say that he had extended an invitation to Mr. Acheson to hold the meetings there if the other members agreed. The Ambassador was shown a copy of the statement which we proposed to release March 28. It was agreed that the emphasis should be on the NAT Council meeting rather than on the tripartite and bilateral discussions. I gave the Ambassador our preliminary reaction to Mr. Bevin's suggestion for the agenda along the following lines: 1. Mr. Bevin's list was remarkably close to our own tentative thinking. for a RECORDE 2. As a matter of approach rather than of sub- stance, I pointed out that we had in mind considering various specific problems especially in the talks with Mr. Bevin and to a lesser extent also with Mr. Schumann, as well as in the tripartite discussions, from the angles of what our ob jectives were, what needed to be done which has not been done, and which of us was in the best posi- tion to undertake specific jobs most effectively. DECLASSIFIED We hoped STATE CTR. 6-12-79 E.O. 12065 TOP SEORED BYNLTH.CC NARS, Date 8.7.79