PPS files, lot 65 D 101, “Germany”
No. 254
Memorandum of Conversation, by the
Secretary of State
At dinner last night the Chancellor and I had considerable discussion about the re-creation of the German military establishment.1 He expressed his concern lest it should be along the old Prussian lines. He said he wanted to dedicate himself very largely to superintending this matter, and to that end he expected to resign shortly as Minister of Foreign Affairs so as to deal with military and economic matters.
He particularly emphasized the importance of establishing firmly the principle of the subordination of the military to the civilian.
The Chancellor referred to some speech which had been reported in the German press made by some high United States military official, whom he could not identify, indicating that the United States favored following the German method. He deplored this because he said it made it very difficult for him to advocate adoption of the United States system while the United States was advocating adoption of the German system.
I said I thought there must be some misunderstanding about this particular incident.
The Chancellor asked whether he could have a chance to talk with General Ridgway about the situation and we subsequently arranged that he would meet at my office on Friday at 9:30 a.m.2
- The dinner was given by Secretary Dulles on Oct. 27 and was attended by members of the Chancellor’s delegation and various executive and legislative members of the U.S. Government.↩
- No record of this meeting has been found in Department of State files. However, the memorandum by GER/GPA, dated Nov. 10, states that the Chancellor went to the Department of State for two interviews between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 29, but does not indicate either the substance or the participants in the interviews. (033.62A11/11–1054)↩