FOUR-POWER TALKS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27073, 23 June 1953, Page 9

FOUR-POWER TALKS

Bermuda Meeting On July 8

LONDON, June 21. The Big Three conference in Bermuda will open on July 8, it was announced today from No. 10 Downing Street.

The announcement stated: “The British Prime Minister (Sir Winston Churchill) will-leave in the battleship Vanguard on the night of June 30 with his advisers and secretariat, including cypher staff, and will reach Bermuda in time to welcome President Eisenhower and the French representative on July 7.” , The conference in the first place was called for the second half of this month but the search for a French government—still ' not ended—presumably caused the hold up. The conference is intended to coordinate Western policy on world problems, in particular in view of the Soviet “peace offensive” since the death of Mr Stalin.

In announcing the decision to call the Bermuda conference on May 21, Sir Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that he hoped it would produce a step towards a meeting “of far greater import”—presumably a reference to a meeting with Mr Georgi Malenkov, the Soviet Prime Minister. Relief in France Reuter’s correspondent in Paris says that the British and American agreement to postpone the Bermuda meeting until July 8 was greeted with relief in French Government circles today. All responsible French leaders attached the greatest importance to France’s Prime Minister being present at the Three-Power meeting in circumstances which will enable the views of France to be properly expressed with the full backing of Parliament. In particular, France wishes to raise the problem of what she calls the fairer sharing between the Allies of the cost of the war in Indo-China. H.M.S. Vanguard (42,500 tons), in which Sir Winston Churchill will travel to the. conference, is at present the flagship of the Home Fleet. In Washington the White House announced today that the present target date of the Bermuda conference was July 8. “It is the intention 'of President Eisenhower to leave by air for Bermuda on July 7, with a view to beginning meetings; with the Prime Minister of Britain and the Prime Minister i of France on the following day. This plan, naturally, is dependent upon its : acceptability to the French Govern- : ment. The French Ambassador to Washington has been notified accordingly,” said the statement.