Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
action and, in pursuance of the United Nations principle, has entered into regional security agreements with other nations. Examples are the Inter-American Agreement, the NATO Agreement, and numerous pacts in the Pacific. These arrangements are invariably to assure the peaceful security of the contracting nations and to prevent likelihood of attack; they are not arrangements designed primarily for waging war.
"The Geneva conference, now 9 days old, has produced no surprises. The expressed fears of some have proved unfounded.
"It has not been a 'Five-Power' conference as the Soviet Union tried to make it.
"It has not involved establishing express or implied diplomatic recognition by the United States of the Chinese Communist aggressors.
"The Korean phase of the conference has been organized. Here the Communists came up with a scheme for Korean unification which was a Chinese copy of the Soviet scheme for the unification of Germany. Under their proposal no election measures could be taken without Communist consent, and there could be no impartial supervision of the election conditions or of the voting.
"This scheme was rejected for Germany. Secretary Dulles tells me that is equally unacceptable to the Republic of Korea and to the United Nations members which took part in the Korean war under the United Nations Command now represented at Geneva.
"The Indochina phase of the conference is in process of being organized and the issues have not yet been clarified. In this matter a large measure of initiative rests with the governments of France, Viet-Nam, Laos, and Cambodia, which are the countries most directly concerned.
"Meanwhile, plans are proceeding for the realization of a Southeast Asia security arrangement. This was publicly suggested by Secretary Dulles in his address of March 29. Of course, our principal allies were advised in advance. This proposal of the Secretary of State was not a new one; it was merely reaffirmation of the principles that have consistently guided our post-war foreign policy and a reminder to interested Asian friends that the United States was prepared to join with others in the application of these principles to the threatened area Most of the free nations of the area and others directly concerned have shown affirmative interest, and the conversations are actively proceeding.
"Obviously, it was never expected that this collective security arrangement would spring into existence overnight. There are too many important problems to be resolved. But there is a general sense of urgency. The fact that such an organization is in the process of formation could have an important bearing upon what happens at Geneva during the Indochina phase of the conference.
