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

740.00/7–752: Telegram

No. 55
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Gifford) to the Department of State¹

secret
priority

London, July 7, 1952—6 p.m.

97. Final form of covering memo which went to Eden with proposed Brit reply to Fr re Schuman proposals for Eur polit authority (Embtel 77, July 5²) contained para to fol effect:

“Schuman proposal presents this govt with some grave questions, particularly whether it is to the Brit interest to encourage the development of a powerful Eur state which might well become Ger-dominated, and whether Eur opinion is really ripe for such a venture. It has been Brit policy to encourage Eur integration in the belief that a Eur state which for some time at least will suffer from internal weaknesses owing to Fr-Ger rivalries wld not represent a menace to these islands”.

Memo goes on to say that “to oppose a Eur polit auth wld certainly earn us great unpopularity in Eur and the US” and adds the recommendation that Brit policy shld “try to ensure that it develops in a spirit friendly to us and in a form which permits close association with us”.

In response to question FonOff rep said that “form which permits close association with us” not intended to imply any particular form whether federal, confederal, or something looser.

With respect to statement noted reftel that Fr proposal “premature,” FonOff rep said that this referred to substantive proposal for creating Eur polit auth and not to proposal for studying ways and means to bring polit auth into existence and form which it shld take.³

Gifford

1. Repeated to Bonn and Paris.
2. Supra.
3. According to telegram 183 from London, July 11, the Embassy informed the Department of State that the British Foreign Office had delivered its reply to the Schuman proposals and that the reply was in the sense indicated by telegrams 68, 77, and 97 from London, Documents 52, 54, and 55, respectively.