5 September 1952: Conversation with the Americans

These notes describe discussions held over dinner, primarily between Pearson and US Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Pearson expresses concerns about the “announced cutback in the British defence programme” in line with the Global Strategy paper. Acheson agrees, believing that the cutbacks were for “political reasons.” In Acheson’s view, the British underestimated the threat of war from the USSR, and believed that the British argument assumed “the existence of new types of special weapons which could be used tactically in the land battle to compensate for the numerical superiority of the Soviet ground forces.”