Department of Defense Files
The Department of the Army to the United States Military Governor for Germany (Clay)
priority
W 85524. From Voorhees. Reurad CC 7998 March.1
- 1.
- I have discussed your comments with Murphy and he has asked me
to send the following message from, him to you:
“I feel that you are unduly disturbed over a technical position which results from an impasse in which we find ourselves in respect to the Humphrey Committee Report. As you know the United Kingdom and France had been adamant in their determination to link the 2 conversations. The Department has been unwilling over a period of time to do so. Douglas believes that he sees an opportunity to make some progress in both fields without yielding firm positions which have been taken in respect of PRI. You have known right along that the discussions regarding the Humphrey Committee Report were taking place in London and in respect PRI you took the initiative to return that negotiation to a Governmental level. In the present instructions sent to Douglas2 the positions adopted on the specific industries correspond to those given you with which we thought you were in accord, except that regarding shipbuilding. There the United States Government position has not yet been established. The proposal included in the telegram to Douglas is a tentative one formulated on a technical level on which we asked for your reaction. As you know there had been a difference of opinion in our Government regarding this problem involving both the Navy and the Maritime Commission.
I do not anticipate that Douglas will succeed in arriving at definitive solutions of these 2 problems but do expect that with the possibility of discussing the Humphrey Committee Report we may achieve at least a narrowing of the area of disagreement. I expect that there will be Tripartite discussions in the near future in Washington where the negotiation of these 2 items will be continued. Those discussions which [Page 566] will probably first be on a technical level will be followed by some form of conversations among the Foreign Ministers. I think your conclusion that the present instruction to Douglas constitute a fundamental change of policy really is not justified and I would appreciate your reexamination of the telegrams which have been sent in that connection. Please remember that the consistent position here is that PRI is of greater importance than the Humphrey Committee list.”
- 2.
- We are instructing Crook to act as liaison with Douglas on this matter and to advise you and ourselves daily on the progress of the negotiations.