Office of the Historian

611.41/3–753

No. 390
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Linder)
confidential
[Washington,] March 7, 1953.

Subject:

  • U.S.–U.K. Talks

Participants:

  • French Ambassador M. Bonnet
  • Pierre Francfort, Counselor of the French Embassy
  • Harold F. Linder—E

I had understood that the Under Secretary had promised the French Ambassador that we would keep him generally posted on our talks with the British. Accordingly, I saw M. Bonnet with Mr. Francfort, in my office a couple of hours after these conversations were concluded on March 7. I outlined the broad aspects on which we had talked following the lines of our communiqué and emphasized that we regarded the problem which the U.K. had been discussing with us as a multilateral one which went well beyond the British Commonwealth–U.S.

The Ambassador asked for elucidation on a few general points which I was able to give him and then asked particularly whether there had been any discussion of commodity stabilization to which reference had been made in the Commonwealth Conference communiqué. I replied in the negative. He also stated that much had been written about measures for making sterling convertible. This I acknowledged but said that I was not at liberty to comment on certain specific ideas which may have been touched upon in our talks with the British. I emphasized that the proposal was made by the U.K. and I thought it only proper that the details of it should be sought from them. The Ambassador confirmed the fact that he expected to see the Foreign Secretary before the latter left Washington.

At our final meeting with the British in the morning,1 I took the occasion to inform the British Ambassador that I would be talking to M. Bonnet. This he understood and stated that he hoped to arrange to have the French Ambassador see Mr. Eden before the latter’s departure.

  1. For a record of this meeting, see WET MIN–5, supra.↩