International: Visitors' Week

• Share

The international conference season was in full swing: ¶Barely 48 hours after signing the Japanese Peace Treaty in San Francisco, the U.S.'s Dean Acheson, Britain's Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison, and France's Robert Schuman sat down in Washington for a new round of talks. Stated agenda: "The world." Highest priority item: a postwar settlement with West Germany. The Western Big Three want to end the last occupation controls, substantially restore West German sovereignty. The U.S. hopes for a finished plan by late fall, France and Britain are in less of a hurry. ¶Also in Washington met U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snyder, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Gaitskell, French Finance Minister René Mayer and the representatives of 47 other nations. Gathered to give the World Bank and International Monetary Fund a fiscal year-end review, they were telling stories of inflation and dollar gaps. Gaitskell promised that Britain would continue its rearmament, asked for U.S. help in obtaining scarce materials, particularly steel. ¶In Ottawa this week, representatives of the twelve NATO nations, including the U.S.'s General Omar Bradley, will discuss how to shoulder the financial burdens of defense without wrecking Western Europe's recovered economy. ¶France's General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, brilliant commander in Indo-China, will arrive in the U.S. this week. Purpose: to ask more U.S. aid for his war against Indo-China's Reds.