Office of the Historian

740.00119 EAC/22

Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Matthews) to the Adviser on Political Relations (Dunn)

[Washington,] December 24, 1943.

Mr. Dunn: Mr. Michael Wright of the British Embassy telephoned while you were at a meeting and referred to your call earlier this morning. He said that you had explained to him that it is our feeling that the Anglo-Norwegian Agreement does not fall within the terms of reference of the European Advisory Commission but that the subject is one which should be cleared through discussions primarily with the War Department. Mr. Wright said that he wished to refer to item 14 of the Moscow Secret Protocol and to the British record of the Ninth Meeting of the Moscow Conference on October 27. It concerned itself in part with policy regarding Allied territory liberated through the advance of the Allied forces. He sent Mr. Hayter42 down with the British minutes42a which the latter asked me to read. These minutes in part are similar to our own with one important variation. They indicate that Mr. Eden specifically mentioned pending agreements which the British had negotiated with the Belgian and Norwegian Governments as the type of problems he had in mind in connection with liberated areas and they further purport to show that the Secretary was in accord that this type of problem [Page 815] should be referred to the European Advisory Commission along with the proposed Liberated Areas Declaration43 and the French Civil Affairs paper.44 In view of this apparent misunderstanding with regard to the discussions covering item 14 of the Moscow Agenda you may wish to look into the matter a little further before sending the attached telegram to London and letter to Sir Ronald Campbell.45

H. Freeman Matthews
  1. W. G. Hayter, First Secretary of the British Embassy.↩
  2. For the corresponding passage in the American minutes, see pp. 651–652.↩
  3. For text of this British proposal presented at the Moscow Conference, see p. 738.↩
  4. For text of this U.S. memorandum presented at the Moscow Conference, see p. 760.↩
  5. Neither document attached to file copy, but for the messages as sent on December 29, see pp. 817–819.↩