For Under-Secretary
Reference: Our Tel 1989 Sep 19.†

The meetings of consultation were held yesterday in the State Department under the Chairmanship of the Under-Secretary, Mr. Christian Herter. The members of the USA group were as indicated in my reference telegram. The meetings were conducted on an informal and friendly basis, but were interspersed with more formal briefings by representatives of the Joint Intelligence Group of the Chiefs of Staff. These service briefings produced a mass of detailed facts and figures which can best be reported when, as we hope, we can arrange with the State Department to receive copies of the papers on which they were based. It may be useful, however, in advance of the more complete record which we are planning to send you, to forward a series of summary reports of the highlights of these discussions, and these summary reports are contained in an immediately following group of telegrams.

2. After a warm welcome by Mr. Herter, the following items were discussed, roughly in the order given:

1. Welcome by Under Secretary
2. The external military threat to North America
3. Developments in Continental Air Defence
4. Outline of USA objectives in world's major diplomatic situations, including disarmament
5. The Far Eastern situation
6. Mideast situation
7. NATO matters.

3. While we had hoped that the meeting could pass off unnoticed by the press, as has generally been the case in previous meetings of this kind, you will have seen from our telegram 2074 September 30† that, arising inadvertently out of the State Department's practice of publicizing the Under Secretary's calendar, it was necessary for the "departmental spokesman" to confirm that the meeting had been held and that it was one of a periodic series of reviews of international problems that the two neighbouring governments held on an official level from time to time.

4. We are addressing this and succeeding messages to the Under-Secretary, so that Mr. Léger may have the opportunity of reviewing these messages before they are given a wider distribution. In particular, it would be helpful if General Foulkes could look at the message dealing with continental defence before it is distributed further.

[N.A.] ROBERTSON