Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett

67 TOP SECRET ARCHIVES AND s "NATIONAL SERVICE* RECORDS 58 February 19, 1951 At the end of a meeting which the Secretary had with Messrs. Rusk, Matthews, Nitze, Jessup re the memorandum on the subject of Rashin which had been addressed by General Marshall to the President, through the Secretary of State for his approval, the Secretary telephoned Mr. Lovett to ask him whether he was familiar with the memorandum. Mr. Lovett said he was familiar with the subject but had not seen the memorandum since he had been on the Hill. The Secretary said he wondered whether the matter had been thought completely through. He was particularly concerned about the alternative of naval gunfire, which the Secretary thought would be most dangerous. Mr. Lovett agreed, and said this alternative had not been in the previous draft, and that General Bradley had been inclined to rule it out in earlier considerations. The Secretary pointed out that this whole matter had re- ceived a great deal of most careful consideration last summer, and, he said, in reading over the present memorandum and attachments, he did not think that a strong case is made for changing the decisions made then. Mr. Lovett seemed inclined to agree, and pointed out that this place was not a marshalling yard in the strict sense, it was more of a depot. If we had blown the tunnels, the rall service should be useless. If we have not blown them, we should do so. If it is a dump and there are ships off-loading, those ships will belong to other countries, and the chances of "slippage" and damage to such ships is great. He did not think the photographs he had seen were sufficiently clear to identify the character of the target. Mr. Lovett said he thought that a very powerful case should be made out for the bombing. He did not think from what he DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) or (E) Dept. of State letter, 5-276 By NLT. HC NARS Dato6 23-76 TOP SECRET