Dear Swede:

To my mind, Turkey and Greece are nations that must be brought into our defensive structure very definitely and soon. Whether or not they should be militarily attached to my command, or should be divided—possibly with Greece under our particular umbrella and Turkey under another—are problems that are susceptible of several solutions. The main thing is that they, with us, should make common cause against a common enemy and make this job one of top priority in each country.

As to Iran, I think the whole thing is tragic. A stream of visitors goes through my office, and some of the individuals concerned seem to consider themselves as authorities on the Iranian question. Numbers of them attach as much blame to Western stupidity as to Iranian fanaticism and Communist intrigue in bringing about all the trouble. Frankly, I have gotten to the point that I am concerned primarily, and almost solely, in some scheme or plan that will permit that oil to keep flowing to the westward. We cannot ignore the tremendous importance of 675,000 barrels of oil a day. The situation there has not yet gotten into as bad a position as China, but sometimes I think it stands today at the same place that China did only a very few years ago. Now we have completely lost the latter nation—no matter how we explain it, how much we prove our position to have been fair and just, we failed. I most certainly hope that this calamity is not repeated in the case of Iran.

Dear Swede:

One single observation about Korea-Iran-Egypt-Germany-and all the other spots on the earth in which we now sometimes find ourselves embarrassed. They are all part and parcel of the same great struggle—the struggle of free men to govern themselves effectively and efficiently; to protect themselves from any threat without, and to prevent their system from collapsing under them, due to the strains placed upon it by their defensive effort. It is another phase of a struggle that has been going on for some three thousand years; the unique feature about it now is that it is much more than ever before a single worldwide conflict with power polarized in the two centers of Washington and Moscow.

Dear Swede:

In the international field the record is not all that we could hope, but it still shows tremendous improvement. In January of ‘52 Korea, Indo-China, Iran, Egypt and Guatemala all presented problems of the most acute character, some even carrying the possibility of major war. There is no need to recite here what happened in each case, but in at least three we had definite victories and of the others, a stalemate in one and limited loss in the others.

Added to all these there is the great accomplishment of the ratification of the London Agreements. The record is one to give ground for hope of greater things still to come.

Personally I do not expect any spectacular results from the forthcoming “Big Four” Conference. Nevertheless, I should think that Foster and I should be able to detect whether the Soviets really intend to introduce a tactical change that could mean, for the next few years at least, some real easing of tensions. [Sec. of State John Foster Dulles] If we do not obtain some concrete evidence of such a tactical change, then, of course, the effort must be to determine the exact purpose of recent Soviet suggestions for conferences and easing of tensions and so on.

In any event, the general world and domestic outlook is better than it was two and a half years ago.