Eisenhower Library, Dulles papers, “Telephone Conversations”
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Radford)1
The Sec. returned the Admiral’s call, and the Adm. said he had sent a copy of a memo given to the President this morning and a paper re Ely.2 The Sec. said he had just gotten it. Radford said we are taking action to send B25’s [B–26’s?]—but only under circumstances where we can investigate why we don’t get better usage. Radford told Ely we would not send them unless Ely agreed. Ely stayed over at Radford’s request, and is leaving at 3:30 tomorrow. The Sec. said we should not answer their paper until we get a lot of answers from them. Radford said he thought the military could go ahead on that level and investigate and there would be no commitments. The Sec. agreed. The total implications involve such a commitment. The Sec. said he would not like to see us do it until we had better assurances from the French that we can work effectively together. Radford said they talked all day yesterday and a record is being prepared—they were very frank in telling what each thought. He will show the record to the Sec. tomorrow—probably when they dine in the evening.