DEPOSITED BY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 7-19-54 THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON July 1, 1954 FOREWORD At this meeting in the Nation's Capital arranged by request of the Governors' Conference, my advisers and I welcomed the opportunity to share with state governors information on problems of mutual concern, including plans for the common defense. By promoting responsible, cooperative relationships between federal and state governments as contemplated in our constitutional system, such meetings add to the strength and vitality of the nation's entire political structure. I greatly enjoyed meeting again with the governors of our states, and I look forward to other such meetings in the months ahead. DueightMan Presiding HON. RICHARD M. NIXON Vice President of the United States Gov. DAN THORNTON OF COLORADO HON. HAROLD E. STASSEN Dirrctor, Foreign Operations Administration HON. SHERMAN ADAMS The Assistant to the President The Vice President and the Honorable Allen W. Dulles, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, also addressed the Conference. Remarks of General Walter Bedell Smith, Under Secretary of State Gentlemen, I will ask that my comments be off the record, at least until the experts at the State Department have a chance to censor the text. It is very rare that a senior officer of the State Department is allowed out where he may be tempted to orate without having a chaperon or two along with him. How it happens that I am alone this morning, I don't know, but I am. And since we are in a real crisis of foreign policy, it would be useless for me to take your time unless I did speak to you very frankly, which I would like to do. The last time, on one previous occasion, when I had the opportunity to address the Governors was in 1948. I had just returned from three years in Moscow where the then Secretary of State and your present colleague, Governor Byrnes, had sent me. I recall on that occasion-and some of you may recall because a number of you were there-I said that at the time I went to Moscow in 1946 it would have been rather dangerous for any American official to have said publicly that we were going to have difficulty in getting along with the Russians. Had he done so, he would have been denounced by a very large segment of American press and public opinion as a man of ill will who could not be trusted with the conduct of public affairs. By the time I returned, the pendulum had swung so far in the other direction that it would have been equally dangerous for anyone to say possibly we can work out a modus vivendi with these people. American common sense usually asserts itself, and the mean lies somewhere between the two extremes. We are at Geneva again trying to work out some sort of a tenuous modus vivendi but against what we assume will be very bitter opposition. In order to get that background, I think we might well take a look at Europe and particularly the keystone of our policy in Europe, which now is France. At Geneva it is to be assumed that the Russians will try to accomplish four things: First, on the cardinal principle of their foreign policy, is the disruption of the Western Alliance, the separation of ourselves and our allies. And they will concentrate on that one of the free western nations which seems to offer the best target. At the moment that is France, for reasons which I will go into later. They want to break up this coalition, and they want to destroy the theory and the final culmination of our plans for the European Defense Community. They will certainly try to get some sort of a deal on the war in Indochina which will give the Communists a strong |