Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 2

742.5/1–1454

No. 983
The Counselor of Embassy in Canada (Bliss) to the Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs (Raynor)

confidential

Ottawa, January 14, 1954.

Dear Hayden: Last night at a dinner given by the German Ambassador, at which Pearson was the guest of honor, there was some discussion of Dulles’ policy speech of January 12 outlining our “new strategy”.¹ It seemed to me that Pearson went out of his way to observe publicly, in the presence of the German Ambassador and of several South American Ambassadors, that he thought it was a fine speech and that it outlined a policy with which Canada would be in accord. At the same time he felt that it might be misunderstood in Europe, where a strategy essentially of retaliation may be interpreted as confirmation of a basic and often denied but nevertheless genuine U.S. intention to escape responsibility for a share in defending non-Communist Europe along its existing borders. (He did not say just this but it is what he meant.) He expressed the hope that we would recognize this danger and take great pains to reassure European opinion.

Later in a private conversation he more or less repeated these observations, again insisting that we look carefully at the effect on European countries of this new policy statement. I observed that in my opinion we do indeed have a firm new policy, one aspect of which is our withdrawal of troops from Korea, although there were other factors present in that situation such that it might have been done anyway. I said that I hoped Canada would not take our action in Korea as justification for the withdrawal of Canadian troops, since the maintenance of a Canadian force in Korea is now more important than ever. Any Canadian withdrawal at this time might inspire others and lead to a dangerous disintegration of the UN forces in Korea. Canada is thus in a key position and a great deal depends on her attitude to this matter. Pearson replied that he realizes this and that Canada has no intention of withdrawing troops from Korea in the predictable future.

I am giving you two extra copies of this letter in case you wish to route them to others.

Sincerely,

Don

1. The address, made before the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, N.Y., centered on the proposition that the United States, in its consideration of the most effective safeguard from Soviet aggression at home and overseas, should end its exhaustive concentration on emergency build-up of full defensive land strength and, in its place, emphasize increasing dependence on the threat of instant and massive retaliation. The address is printed in Department of State Bulletin, Jan. 25, 1954, p. 107.