Editorial Note
Secretary Dulles and the United States Delegation which included Secretaries Humphrey and Wilson, Director for Mutual Security Stassen, General Bradley, and their chief advisers, left Washington on April 21 for the Eleventh Session of the North Atlantic Council in Paris, beginning April 23. In a statement at Washington National Airport just before departure Dulles stated that the main objective of the meeting would be to reach agreement on the NATO defense program for 1953. Subsidiary to this issue would be discussion of the current world situation and development of plans for future years. For the full text of Dulles’ statement, see Department of State Bulletin, May 4, 1953, page 646.
[Page 369]In preparation for the Council session and meetings with individual NATO Foreign Ministers on matters of mutual concern, the Department of State drafted two series of papers. The first series, designated NAP D–1 through D–11, corresponded to the 10 points of the agenda for the Council meeting (see below). The second series, designated TIP D–1 through D–3, was drafted for talks with the British and French. D–1 papers, for bilateral talks with the French, were drafted on the Saar, EDC, Indochina, and North Africa; D–2 papers, for bilateral talks with the British, were also drafted on the Saar and EDC plus Egypt, Iran, Buraimi, and United States support of the British defense effort; D–3 papers, for tripartite talks with the British and French, were also drafted on the Saar and EDC as well as on a political Standing Group, the Suez Canal, Middle East Defense Organization, Soviet moves, Korea, Southeast Asia and the Far East, and German unification. None of the papers from either series is printed, but sets of both are in the CFM files, lot M 88, box 164, and Conference files, lot 59 D 95, CFs 142–147, passim.
The agenda for the ministerial meeting was as follows:
The documentation that follows presents materials on the Ministerial meetings and the talks with the British and French.