July 15, 1952
S/S
Secretary of the Interior Chapman telephoned Mr. Acheson this morning and said he assumed the Secretary was going to Hawaii on August 4 to attend the Pacific Council meeting there. He said he would like to see the meetings held in the Governor's palace if it suited our program. Directly across the street from the Palace, he said, was a larger building for large gatherings which would be entirely adequate for our needs.
Mr. Chapman said that the reason he was making this suggestion was that in the islands and in the Pacific over the years there were certain problems involved in maintaining and establishing in the minds of the people our civilian government. For this reason Mr. Chapman said he would very much like the setting to be civilian in character as opposed to the military aspect it would have if we accepted Admiral Radford's offer.
The Secretary said he thought Mr. Chapman had a good point, and that while he did not know how far our plans had progressed, he would look into the matter and let him know.
(Mr./ Chapman said that Dr. Kelchner was working on plans for the meeting.)
J.K.
S ma