REGULATION OF ARMAMENTS6


Chinese participation. Mr. Gross expressed the opinion that the Rus-
sians would beunwilling to talk wit-hout a representative of China.
Mr. Rusk suggested that, instead of starting 1from the idea of Six
Powers and then eliminating one, we might go back to the Truman-
Attlee-King base5 and extend Three Power talks by inviting the
French and the Russians to join us. Pearson seemed to .hink ,this
might be useful. It seemed to be a general view that a beginning might
be made through informal talks perhaps at a dinner, but it was my
impression that the Canadians would like to resume more formal
conversations with the Russians, again largely from the point of view
of public relations. Pearson spoke of the question of the advantages
of a general prohibition on the use of atomic bombs as against the
importance of the bomb as a deterrent. He ifelt that with the develop-
ment of Russian atomic power we should have a new look at this
proposition. He said that their people in re-evaluating the evidence
wondered whether it was true the Russians really had the atomic
bomb. Mr. Rusk pointed out that it would be quite inadvisable to
proceed on the assumption that they dlid not.
                                                   PHILIP C. JEssU-P
  5 On November 15, 1945, President Truman, British Prime Minister Clement
  Attlee, and Canadian Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King signed in Wash-
  ington an Agreed Declaration proposing the establishment of a United Nations
Atomic Energy Commission; for text, see Department of State Treaties and
Other International Acts Series (TIAS) No. 1504; or 60 Stat. (pt. 2) 1479.
For
documentation on the November tripartite meeting and other aspects of United
States policy respecting atomic energy, see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol.
i,
pp. 1-98.

10 Files: *US/S/C.3/33
Memorandmn of Conversation, by the Deputy United States Repre-
   sentative on the Commission for Conventional Armaments (Nash)

CONFIDENTIAL                            [NExv YORK,] April 6, 1950.1
Subject: Commission for Conventional Armaments
Participants: Sir Terence Shone,2 Mr. Dennis Laskey, Mr. David
                 Cole, United Kingdom Delegation
               Mr. Harry M. Shooshan, Jr., UNP
               Mr. Frank Nash, Mr. Charles Russell, USUN
  A meeting was held at the United Kingdom Delegation this morning
to discuss the substance of a cable received from the U.K. Foreign
Office concerning the desirability of an early resumption of discussions
in C.C.A. (See US/S/C.3/32.3) In effect, the Foreign Office took the
  This memorandum, prepared on April 6, was circulated as US/S/C.3/33 on
April 7.
  2 Deputy to the Permanent British Representative at the United Nations.
  Reference is to a memorandum by Russell of his conversation with Cole on
April 4, not printed (10 Files).


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