Office of the Secretary
February 6, 1952
S/S
The Secretary called Sir Oliver Franks this afternoon to see whether Sir Oliver had received any information which would give us a clue to plans for next week. The Secretary asked the Ambassador if he knew when the funeral would be held. Sir Oliver replied that he did not. The only clues he had were that the last time (1936) the period in which the body lay in state was five days. He said this had been a cut from the time before that (1910) which was fourteen days. He said that he would guess that the funeral would be sometime next week, but he had nothing really on which to base this guess. He said no one could say until a conference was held with the Queen who would not arrive in London until tomorrow. He said he would know at the earliest on Thursday night or Friday morning.
The Secretary told Sir Oliver that the President had suggested that he attend the funeral as his representative. He told Sir Oliver that, of course, he would be glad to do so if it could be arranged.
The Secretary asked the Ambassador whether, in his opinion, Mr. Eden would want to hold the meetings scheduled for the 13th and 14th, if this came during the period in which the King lay in state. Sir Oliver said that he would guess, although again he had nothing to base it on, that work would go on during the period, although all social functions would be avoided. He said that he imagined that 1952 being 1952, we could expect some arrangement of this sort. He concluded that Mr. Eden would probably hold the meetings although he again stressed the fact that this was purely a guess.
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