The men's coxed pair competition at the 1952 Summer Olympics took place at Meilahti, Finland.

[2] The event was won by French team Raymond Salles, Gaston Mercier, and coxswain Bernard Malivoire; it was the nation's first victory in the event (though a French boy had been the cox for a mixed team that won gold in 1900).

Sweden, the defending champions, had an all-new crew of Svend Ove Pedersen, Poul Svendsen, and cox Jørgen Frantzen; they took bronze.

[2] Three of the 28 competitors from the 1948 coxed pair event returned: one of the rowers from Italy's silver medal team, Aldo Tarlao, and the coxswains from Hungary (bronze medal winning Róbert Zimonyi) and Greece (ninth-place finisher Grigorios Emmanouil).

Favorite status went to the winners of the last three European championships, the Italian team of Tarlao, Giuseppe Ramani, and Luciano Marion.