840.00/2–648

The British Ambassador ( Inverchapel ) to the Under Secretary of State ( Lovett )

top secret
personal

Dear Bob: Mr. Bevin has asked me to thank you for your letter to me of the 2nd February about his proposals for a Western Union. He wishes me to tell you that he appreciates your difficulties and will await with interest the further communication promised in the last paragraph of your letter.

Mr. Bevin quite understands the preoccupations of the United States Government. At the same time he is conscious of a risk of getting into a vicious circle. Without assurance of security, which can only be given with some degree of American participation, the British Government are unlikely to be successful in making the Western Union a going concern. But it appears from your letter that, until this is done, the United States Government for their part does not feel able to discuss participation. In the case of the European Recovery Programme, Mr. Bevin based his action in Europe on Mr. Marshall’s forthright and encouraging speech at Harvard and upon the expectation of American aid which it aroused. But, as things stand at present, Mr. Bevin does not feel that, in the political field, he enjoys quite the same measure of outspoken support from the United States, and he holds it to be essential to the success of his plan that something of this kind should be forthcoming.

[Page 20]

Meanwhile the British and French Governments having proposed Dunkirk treaties to the Netherlands and Belgian Governments, with Mr. Marshall’s approval,1 are now faced with replies from both Governments rejecting the Dunkirk model and asking for a wider regional instrument under Article 52 of the Charter. In dealing with this new situation it hampers Mr. Bevin not to know how the mind of the United States Government is moving and what arrangements he could propose—out of various alternatives which have suggested themselves as a result of preliminary studies in London—with the best prospect of finding that they would commend themselves to Mr. Marshall from the point of view of possible United States participation at a later stage.

It was for this purpose that Mr. Bevin suggested talks in Washington. He, of course, never intended that these talks should be anything but informal and entirely non-committal. But he had hoped that, in this way, the British Government would be enabled to clear their own minds so as to be able to deal as effectively as possible with the problems in Europe.

Yours ever,

Archie [Inverchapel]
  1. See paragraph 5 of memorandum of conversation by Lovett dated February 7, 1948, which corrects this reference to Marshall’s “approval”, p. 21.