Office of the Historian

740.00113 E.W./8–2644: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)57

Washington, September 5, 1944—midnight.

7191. Re Embassy’s 6946 August 26, 6 p.m.58 In connection with Penrose’s59 talks with Coulson60 it seems desirable that the initiative on the question of discussions with the British and Soviets should come from some source other than the United States. Accordingly it is felt that you should not press further for an early conference but wait for such a suggestion to come from the British or some other government. This is not intended to alter any of the views expressed in the Department’s 6485 of August 16, and you should, in your talks, be guided by that cable in all other respects.

The Department is agreeable to dealing immediately with problems of restitution of identifiable objects as proposed by the British.

Regarding economic security, a memorandum61 outlining the Department’s general position on the subject has been approved by the Executive Committee on Economic Foreign Policy and is now to be discussed with War and Navy Departments. This document will be sent to you as soon as at least tentative agreement is reached.

Hull
  1. Repeated as telegram 2136, September 5, 7 p.m., to Moscow.↩
  2. Not printed; it reviewed some of the general views of British Foreign Office officials on the matter of reparations and asked for information regarding the position of the Department’s work on economic security (740.00113 EW/8–2644).↩
  3. Ernest F. Penrose, Adviser and Special Assistant to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom.↩
  4. John Eltringham Coulson, Acting First Secretary of the British Foreign Office, Acting Head of the Economic Relations Department.↩
  5. Dated August 14, p. 278.↩