850.33/11–352
No. 135
The Under Secretary of State (Bruce) to the
United States Special Representative in Europe (Draper), at
Paris1
Dear Bill: Thanks for your letter of November 3.2 I talked to George Humphrey on the telephone as soon as he returned from Labrador. I explained to him as well as one can by that means what we had in mind and he said he would be sufficiently interested in it to come down and discuss it with me after the election. He thought that he would be here next week. If I have not heard from him by that time I will telephone him and try to persuade him to come in as soon as possible.
In regard to your idea about Henry Parkman, I think very highly of him. It so happens, however, that the day I received your letter John Kenney and Fred Anderson called on me. Fred talked about Lowell Weicker, who is a great friend of mine and who is anxious to take on some sort of government service since he has merged Squibb with Mathieson Alkali and is now inactive in business.
As between the two men, I think Lowell would suit your purposes better since he is very fluent both in French and German and has had a great many contacts with leading businessmen in both countries. In addition to that, he would like to live abroad indefinitely.
Therefore, we all thought it was better for Fred to talk this matter over with you upon his return.
The feeling here in the Department is that it would be quite impossible to name Weicker or anybody else with a title stemming from President Truman. The President does not intend to make any more appointments carrying diplomatic rank during his term of office. Moreover, until the new Administration comes in, it is quite impossible to predict what it will decide to do regarding this or any other representation. In addition, I understand that the new Administration may want to consider what eventual form they wish representation to all of the European integrated organizations—if they come into being—to take.
I think John Kenney, Fred and I are all in accord that, since Fred would like to have Lowell on his staff if Weicker likes the [Page 238] idea, he could go over as one of your employees and be assigned by you to work on the Schuman Plan or in whatever capacity you think for the time being would be most useful.
Although I do not know the situation well enough to have any special conviction about it, I should think that Weicker or someone else might be very useful to you in connection with your current responsibilities for keeping in touch with Schuman Plan developments. However, I think that it would be a mistake to give him any formal designation, such as the British have given to Weir, even on a temporary basis, and that we should avoid any further formalization of our relationships with the High Authority until after the new Administration has had a chance to consider the whole question.
You simply can’t imagine how much speculation about organization, personnel, and a variety of other matters is raging in Washington at the present time. Nobody knows nothing.
With kind regards,
Very sincerely yours,
- An earlier draft of this letter and suggested changes made by Perkins in a memorandum to Bruce dated Nov. 10 is in file 850.33/11–352.↩
- Document 132.↩