ABSTRACT
The year 1948 began with clear signs that the west was heading towards a collective security arrangement. On 22 January Ernest Bevin delivered to the House of Commons the following message.
We are, indeed, at a critical moment in the organisation of the postwar world, and decisions we now take, I realise, will be vital to the future peace of the world . . . I hope that treaties will thus be signed with our near neighbours, the Benelux countries, making with our treaty with France an important nucleus in Western Europe. We have then to go beyond the circle of our immediate neighbours. We shall have to consider the question of associating other historic members of European civilisation, including the new Italy in this great conception. Their eventual participation is of course no less important than that of countries with which, if only for geographical reasons, we must deal first. 1
Bevin had already communicated these ideas to George Marshall after the conclusion of the last meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers in December 1947. Marshall, who had replaced Byrnes as Secretary of State in January 1 947, had been impressed and suggested that Bevin and himself should work together to determine immediate objectives. In a memorandum to the Cabinet dated 5 January 1948, Bevin presented his account of Soviet policy according to which British and American interests were undermined everywhere by Soviet tactics. There was a risk, he stated, that the communists would control France, Italy and Greece. If Soviet plans in Greece succeeded Turkey also would collapse. Consequently, the success of Russian expansionist designs would imperil the 'three elements of Commonwealth defence, the security of
the UK, the control of the sea communications, and the defence of the Middle East' . On 8 January Bevin discussed with the Cabinet his idea of forming, with American backing, a western democratic system which would include France, the Benelux countries and Britain and which would eventually extend to comprise Italy, Greece and possibly Portugal. At a later stage Spain and Germany could also be included. The cabinet endorsed the proposal and on 1 3 January Bevin communicated the idea to his French counterpart who agreed to co operate. On the same day Bevin sent his memorandum to Marshall and asked what the American attitude would be towards a European defence system. Marshall's reply was cautious but not discouraging. He said that the European states should first show what they could do for themselves and then the United States would consider sympathetically how it could help. The two Sovietologists at the State Department, Charles Bohlen and George Kennan (now Director of the Policy Planning Staff), were against a direct involvement of the United States and Marshall did not wish to complicate the still-pending Congressional authorisation of the European Recovery Programme. Nevertheless, other people in the Truman administration like John Hickerson, Director of the State Department Office of European Affairs, and John Foster Dulles were already supporting the idea of American participation.2
