Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Secretary of the Army Frank Pace

NLT 822 356 386 TOP SECRET corf (?) December 13, 1950 MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION Participants: Mr. Pace, Secretary of the Army Mr. Acheson On the substance of the progress made at the Military Committee in London, Mr. Pace said that good progress had been made. His understanding is that there is a strong desire among the other countries that General Eisenhower not only is the man for the Supreme Commander but that immediate announcement should be made of his assumption of responsibility. We are not pushing an American Commander; rather they are asking for it. The Secretary then raised some questionswhich had arisen in his mind on reading the paper on the integrated force and the Supreme Commander (MC 2215). They were as follows: 1. He asked whether General Bradley or anyone had gone over the paper of General Eisenhower's terms of reference with General Eisenhower. Pace said the JCS had gone over it with TRUMAN him before Sherman left. After Sherman's return the JCS will ARCHIVES "NATIONAL SERVICE" AND meet with Eisenhower again to discuss the terms of reference RECORDS as set up. If there should be any major area of disagreement, Es Pace will work that out with the Defense Ministers at the mesting on Monday morning, so that there will be a complete package by the time of the Monday afternoon meeting. The Secretary said that in reading it over last night he wondered whether the requirement that the Commander must go through the National Chiefs of Staff when he wanted to talk to any country about what it was doing, might be an inhibiting feature. The Secretary said he had been impressed by Churchill's DECLASSIFIED STATE OFT. MEMO 8.1-14 TOP SECREI Project NLT we 82-4 By NLT- HL NARS, Date A-11-LY