[Handwritten: Jan. 27] January 29, 1951
MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
Participants: Sir Oliver Franks Mr. Acheson
The Secretary called Sir Oliver Franks on Saturday, January 27, shortly before 11 a.m. He thanked Sir Oliver for his efforts to help clarify the rather confused situation at the UN. Mr. Acheson said that he had been talking with Mr. Rusk and Mr. Hickerson and others, and also with the President. He said with regard to paragraph 8 of the US resolution, he was authorizing them to add language at the end to the effect that the Collective Measures Committee is authorized to withhold its report if the other Committee is getting along well with its work. Mr. Acheson said that he felt we could go no further than that. He also mentioned that Mr. Jebb's proposals were not acceptable to us and we were not able to go along with them. Sir Oliver asked if there was anything we wanted him to say personally to Mr. Attlee. The Secretary said that he would not suggest that a lot of special messages fly back and forth between the President and Mr. Attlee. Sir Oliver agreed with that point of view.
Mr. Acheson said that he had raised this whole matter with the President and the full Cabinet on Friday and that the President and the Cabinet were unanimous in their agreement on our position on the resolution. Mr. Acheson said he thought the whole thing too serious for him to be taking positions without complete Cabinet backing, which we now had. He said that he felt he had reached the end of his elasticity and said that our position was not one taken by just a few people in the State Department but represented an entire government position. The Secretary also mentioned his appearances before the House and Senate Foreign Affairs Committees the preceding day and said that these committees were in support of the position he has taken. He said that some of the Committee members wanted to be
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more "rambunctious" than the US was being.
Sir Oliver said that he would do the best he could on this problem.
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