Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Eastern Europe; Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean, Volume VIII

State–JCS Meetings, lot 61 D 417, “April 1952”

No. 638
Memorandum of Discussion at the Department of State–Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting, Washington, April 9, 1952¹

top secret

Washington, April 9, 1952

Present

• General Bradley
• Admiral Fechteler
• General Hull
• General Twining
• General Bolte
• General Fox
• General Thatcher
• General Eddleman
• Admiral Fife
• General Cabell
• Admiral Lalor
• Colonel Carns
• Mr. Nitze
• Mr. Bohlen
• Mr. Perkins
• Mr. Allison
• Mr. Ferguson
• Mr. Barber
• Mr. Stelle
• Mr. Tufts
• Mr. Lay

Yugoslavia

Mr. Perkins: General Bradley, I believe you had something on your mind about Yugoslavia.

General Bradley: As we see it, there is no reason why the discussions cannot proceed at once.² There are some minor points of difference but on the whole I think we can proceed as the British suggest.

Mr. Perkins: We have a paper with us which brings the matter up to date.³

General Bradley: General Collins will be our representative. General Eddleman has done and will do most of the detail work. General Collins will be back late this week.

Mr. Perkins: I will get in touch with General Eddleman and will try to arrange with him for a meeting early next week. I will give General Eddleman a copy of our paper.

General Bolte: I might note that I saw Popovic last evening. He was feeling quite upset. He thinks that Yugoslavia is being left out in the cold.

Mr. Perkins: Was he referring to Trieste?

General Bolte: No, he almost conceded Trieste to Italy. He was upset about the relationship between Yugoslavia and the Western Powers in general—NATO, military assistance, etc. He was really very upset.

General Bradley: Did you ask him where Yugoslavia was two years ago?

General Bolte: I myself wound up in 1945 with my machine guns across from his.

Mr. Bohlen: They have tried to jump Trieste since then, too.

Mr. Perkins: Our paper sets forth the modifications in the previous position.

Mr. Nitze: I believe there are three points, two substantive and one procedural. In the first place I take it that we do not want to make a commitment one way or another with respect to the putting of ground forces into Yugoslavia. The second point concerns Albania. The third point is the procedural one of how to get talks going with the Yugoslavs.

General Bradley: One question which we will have to discuss is whether we ought to get this problem into NATO promptly. I don’t think we want NATO to take the problem up too soon—partly in order to protect the Yugoslavs. One of the difficulties with NATO is that so many countries hear about a matter that is discussed there.

Mr. Perkins: Putting it into NATO immediately involves the Greeks now and I am sure that the Yugoslavs wouldn’t like that.

General Bradley: The Greeks and the Yugoslavs logically ought to be tied together. They ought to be doing some joint planning.

Mr. Perkins: I don’t think we will have any difficulty in agreeing with you about the NATO angle. I do think we will have to talk with the Italians and the French before discussing the matter with the Yugoslavs. In my judgment we ought to go ahead with the Yugoslav staff talks promptly and I think we ought to separate the Albanian problem from it for the time being. We have a position on this latter problem which has now been almost cleared through the Department. We will send it over to you.⁴

General Hull: I take it Admiral Carney would be our representative.

General Bradley: Yes, he will. In the first instance he will wear his U.S. hat and subsequently his NATO hat.

(Mr. Dulles and Mr. Wisner of CIA and Mr. Nash entered the meeting.)

[Here follows discussion of Formosa.]

1. The meeting was held at the Pentagon at 11 a.m. A note on the source text indicates that it was a Department of State draft which had not been cleared with any of the participants.
2. Reference is to the politico-military talks with British representatives in Washington which took place Apr. 16. A summary transcript of the discussion at this meeting is infra.
3. Presumably reference is to the negotiating paper drafted by Marcy, Campbell, and Barbour for the politico-military talks with the British on planning for Yugoslavia. A copy of this paper, which bears the drafting date of Apr. 8 and also the notation that it was used in the Apr. 16 discussion, is in PPS files, lot 64 D 563, “Yugoslavia.”
4. Not printed.