April 15, 1952
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
Participants Secretary Acheson Under Secretary Bruce Foreign Minister of Canada, Mr. Pearson Canadian Ambassador, Mr. Wrong
Last Saturday night, April 12, Mr. and Mrs. Pearson, Ambassador and Mrs. Wrong, and the Under Secretary and Mrs. Bruce dined with us in Maryland. After dinner, in my study, four matters of business were touched on, as follows:
1. Registration of Base Rights Agreements with the United Nations, under Article 102 of the Charter.
I mentioned this and discussed it briefly with Mr. Pearson. He thought that the State Department had somewhat changed its position on this matter. This I conceded to be the case. He was not prepared to agree as a matter of broad principle that anything having to do with these questions need not be registered because of Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty. He was inclined to believe that new long-term lease arrangements might have to be, but he believed that the best way to approach this was on a case by case basis and to try to deal with most things through the procedure of the Joint Board on Defense.
This led him to bring up the second point.
- 2 -
2. [Blank]
3. The Gut Dam and the High Water Level on Lake Ontario.
I pointed out the political difficulties which the damage being done to lake shore property on the US side was raising. Mr. Pearson said that our own engineers believed that if the Gut Dam were totally removed, it would take three years to reduce the water level eight inches. I said that this might be true, but what we needed now was to get the matter before the Joint Commission.
Mr. Pearson said that their concern was that they did not wish the consideration of this question to delay consideration of an application for the St. Lawrence Power Project, which might be the case. He was willing to cooperate with us in getting the Gut Dam matter before the International Commission if we could work out some way of assuring that it would not delay consideration of the St. Lawrence project.
I said that I thought that this could be done, and it was decided that we should try to work it out on this basis.
4. General Eisenhower's Successor
Mr. Pearson mentioned the matter of General Eisenhower's successor. He thought that there was no question that the Council would wish an U. S. officer. He said that the only officers he had heard discussed were Generals Bradley, Ridgway, and Gruenther. I said I had not heard of any others being mentioned. Mr. Pearson thought that any one of these officers would be entirely agreeable to the other nations, but he had made no inquiry.
He asked whether I had any ideas on procedure. I said it seemed to me to be a matter for the Council to originate, since the United States had not previously and was not now pressing any claims or requests. I assumed that in some orderly way the Council would determine that it wished an American officer and would communicate its request to the President. I assumed that the Council would not itself undertake to choose between American officers. I was sure that satisfactory procedures could be worked out, so that the President could ascertain whether his selection met with approval and that then the formal papers c---- be easily arranged. However, I had not discussed the matter with the President and was only giving a personal view.
Mr. Pearson thought that he might raise this question with the President. However, he did not do so at their meeting on April 14.
S:D.Acheson:be