Office of the Historian

740.00/5–1353:Despatch

The Consul at Strasbourg (Andrews) to the Department of State 1

confidential
No. 271
Strasbourg, May 13, 1953.

Ref:

  • Consulate’s Despatch No. 65, September 26, 1952.2

Subject:

  • Conversation on the Saar problem with Mr. Van der Goes van Naters, Netherlands Delegate to Consultative Assembly, Council of Europe, and Rapporteur of General Affairs Committee.

In a luncheon conversation on May 12 with Mr. Van der Goes van Naters, Netherlands Delegate to the Consultative Assembly, Council of Europe, and Rapporteur of the “Programme of Work for an Examination of the Future Position of the Saar by the Committee on General Affairs” (see Document AS/AG (4) 34 of September 24, 1952, transmitted with the Consulate’s despatch under reference),3 I asked him how he was getting along with his report to the General Affairs Committee.

Van der Goes van Naters replied that he had finished the sections of his report on the history of the Saar problem and its economic aspects and that he was still working on the political section, which would contain recommendations for the solution of the Saar question on the basis of the Europeanization of the region. The entire report would be finished by August 15 next for presentation to the General Affairs Committee, which would draw up a Report and Recommendations for a full scale debate by the Consultative Assembly during the third part of the 1953 session, to open on September 15. Contrary to the opinion held in some quarters that such a delicate and explosive problem should not be openly discussed in the Assembly, he believed that a debate by representatives of the twelve “neutral” countries, whose only aim was to help in finding a solution, would be most beneficial, (He did not imply that representatives of France, the German Federal Republic, and the Saar would be excluded from the debate.)

The Netherlands Delegate said that political and moral guidance and support from the United States Government was, of course, necessary in any settlement of the Saar issue. In this connection, he mentioned a report on the Saar which he had given to our Embassy in The Hague last month.4 An effort will be made here to obtain a copy of the Van der Goes van Naters report before the opening of the Consultative Assembly in September.

George D. Andrews
  1. Distributed to Paris, The Hague, London, Rome, Brussels, Athens, Dublin, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Vienna, Reykjavik, Ottawa, Wellington, and Canberra.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Council of Europe document, not printed.↩
  4. Not found in Department of State files.↩