B. The Four-Power Exploratory Talks (the conference at the Palais Rose), Paris, March 5–June 21, 1951

Editorial Note

The Four-Power Exploratory Talks, sometimes referred to as the conference at the Palais Rose or Palais Marble (Marbre) Rose, began at Paris on March 5 and continued until June 21. The United States Representative was Philip C. Jessup, and his principal advisers were Charles E. Bohlen (Alternate Representative), Perry Laukhuff, Bromley K. Smith, and William R. Tyler. The British Representative was Ernest Davies, whose principal advisers were William I. Mallet and Geoffrey W. Harrison. The French Representative was Alexandre Parodi, and his principal advisers were Guy Le Roy de la Tournelle, François Seydoux, and Jacques de Bourbon-Busset. The Soviet Representative was Andrei A. Gromyko, whose principal adviser was Vladimir S. Semenov. The four Representatives were also referred to frequently as Deputies to the Council of Foreign Ministers.

The chairmanship for the meetings rotated with each session starting with Parodi for the host Government. No official quadripartite minutes were kept of 74 meetings that were held, but the United States Delegation kept its own record of the various sessions in a series of summaries indicated by the prefix ETUS SM. An official secretariat, consisting of one member from each delegation, handled the documents submitted by the delegations. Its papers are designated by the series indicator SUP/P/51/D.

In reporting on the talks, the United States Delegation filed four series of telegrams: (a) a report on each meeting giving a factual account of what had taken place, (b) a press guidance noting points to be stressed in the press releases of the Department of State, (c) messages transmitting Jessup’s personal insights and responses to the course of the talks, and (d) messages about the talks which dealt with tripartite preparations, generally at a meeting in the morning before each session and with other events not within the province of the first three series.

In preparation for the talks the Department of State drafted two sets of papers. The first, designated ETS (Exploratory Talks with the Soviets), consisted of eight series of papers dealing with the following topics: General Issues; Economic Issues; Europe; Germany; the Near East and Africa; the Far East; the United Nations; and various background issues. One of these papers is printed on page 1048. The second series of papers, designated by the indicator RPTS (Policy Review for Possible Talks with the Soviets), considered only problems that were possible of resolution directly with the Soviet Union. None of these is printed.

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The most comprehensive collection of materials dealing with the talks is in the Executive Secretariat files, lot 59D95, CF 54–87. It contains sets of the United States Delegation summaries, the ETS and EPTS papers, memoranda on various tripartite and quadripartite meetings, telegrams to and from the delegation and other posts concerning the meetings, and other miscellaneous papers relating to the talks. Two other repositories, the CFM files (lot M–88, boxes 156, 157, and 253) and file 396.1–PA, contain respectively the summaries, secretariat documents, sets of ETS and EPTS papers, and various memoranda and telegrams to and from Paris and other posts and the transcripts of the telecons (teletype conferences) held between the United States Delegation and the Department of State.

For additional information about the Four-Power Exploratory Talks, see Participation of the United States Government in International Conferences, July 1, 1950–June 30, 1951, publication 4571, pages 7–9.

Because of the great volume of documentation on the talks, the editors are presenting here only a small part of the papers available, documentation that illustrates the main points of United States policy, and the salient features of the more important meetings of the deputies.

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