Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 1

Conference files, lot 59 D 95, CF 106

No. 29
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Personal Secretary to the Secretary of State (Evans)¹

secret

Washington, April 7, 1952.

The Secretary telephoned Mr. Harriman on another matter and during the course of the conversation asked him if Mr. Perkins had been in touch with Mr. Harriman about Mr. Stikker’s desire to see him on Thursday of this week.² Mr. Harriman said that Mr. Stikker was lunching with him on Thursday.

Mr. Acheson said that there were two points that he knew Mr. Stikker would want to take up with Mr. Harriman. The first one was EPU and Mr. Stikker would make a plea for the United States to put up more money. Mr. Stikker will say that the most important thing which should be done now is to check the tendency toward crisis which he sees in Europe. Mr. Stikker thinks that $250 million or $300 million should be added to the fund, of which he thinks the Europeans could put up $200 million. Mr. Harriman said he thought there was no chance that we could get Congress to go along with our supplying the difference.

The Secretary asked him if you needed specific authority, mentioned that a similar transfer had been made from ECA funds and asked whether that had been done under specific authority. Mr. Harriman was not clear on this point and said he would look into it. He said he thought it had been in the record of the hearings that they were going to use part of the appropriation in that case for the EPU.

Mr. Acheson said Mr. Stikker was also going to bring up the question of talking with someone about the possibility of a loan which would be endorsed by the EPU countries for the purpose of paying off creditors. Mr. Harriman made no comment on this point.

1. Copies were sent to Perkins, Scott, and Schaetzel. Attached to the source text was a memorandum by Evans to McWilliams, dated Apr. 7, in which it was noted that “Acheson did end his conversation with Mr. Harriman by saying if we could not do anything about either of these matters that we would be in ‘very bad shape.’”
2. Apr. 10.