Editorial Note

In the pages that follow, the editors have sought to present the principal substantive papers considered or agreed upon during the meetings of the North Atlantic Council in Lisbon as well as during those meetings between Secretary of State Acheson and various other Foreign Ministers in Lisbon between February 20 and 26. Also included here is a selection of supplementary papers with direct bearing on the major issues considered during those meetings in Lisbon.

The editors have felt it possible and appropriate to include here only a very few of the many background and position papers drafted in preparation for the meetings in Lisbon by an interagency Steering Group for Lisbon Preparations. Between early December 1951, when the Steering Group first began meeting, and February 12, 1952, more than 40 separate background, position, and negotiating papers were drafted. These papers, designated “LIS–D” papers, numbered from LIS D–1 to LIS D–21 and comprised more than 300 typewritten pages. The papers covered all the topics likely to be taken up during the North Atlantic Council session, particularly those issues relating to the organization, financing, and command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The LIS–D series also included those papers on the German problem originally prepared in advance of the London meetings of the Foreign Ministers and designated Ger–LON documents (see the editorial note, page 35). The most complete set of LIS–D papers, together with sets of minutes, memoranda, and agenda papers [Page 177] of the Steering Group, is preserved in the CFM files, lot M 88, box 161. Another set of the papers only is included in the Conference files, lot 59 D 95, CF 101. Copies of a few LIS–D papers have found their way into the numbered central files of the Department of State.