740.00113 EW/7–2044: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:23 p.m.]
5751. We have continued our talks with the appropriate Foreign Office officials concerning the urgent need for early discussions on the aspects of reparations and restitution outlined in Department’s 5266, July 4. Civil servants concerned with the subject are agreed on the desirability of early discussions and the delay in our reply has been due to questions of clearance at the Ministerial level. The substance of Department’s 5266, July 4, has also been taken up with the Foreign Office and they are taking up both at the Civil Service and as soon as possible at the Ministerial level the questions of procedure referred to in the last paragraph of that telegram.
The tentative preliminary reactions of Foreign Office officials are (I) that as an essential first stop an approach should be made to the Soviet in view of the substantial interest which it has in the subject; (II) that the matter closely concerns EAC but that if it were difficult because of the Soviet conception of procedure to carry on informal preliminary discussions in EAC the British would probably agree to any alternative procedure; (III) that it is unlikely that the Soviet will be ready to designate representatives for any discussions without giving them definite instructions on policy matters; (IV) that some tentative decisions will probably be made by the British on the extent to which in their view questions of economic security should govern the informal discussions of reparation questions.
We are now maintaining close touch with the appropriate Foreign Office officials and will keep the Department informed promptly of developments.
The matter has been discussed within the Embassy in connection with the work of EAC. We recommend that the first step should be to explore the practicability of the following procedure: (I) to obtain Tri-partite Agreement among the representatives on EAC on a statement of topics concerning reparation and restitution to be discussed [Page 251] informally by experts of the three countries: (II) informal discussions by experts the objective of which would be to analyze alternative forms of reparation and reach technical agreement on their probable economic effects: (III) submission of the results to EAC and to the three Governments: (IV) policy discussions by the representatives on EAC after the Governments had considered the technical reports of the experts: (V) discussions through appropriate machinery with other European Allies after Tri-partite Agreement has been reached.
Foreign Office officials asked informally whether we could let them have any reports or conclusions of the Committee which works on the subject in Washington. They thought it might save some time in preliminaries if they could study any such paper during the period in which they are waiting for Ministerial decision. We suggest that sections 2 and 3 of PWC–2221 might be handed informally to the British as a general but not binding indication of present thinking of experts in the Department.