740.00119 Control (Germany)/9–544
The Political Adviser to the United States Delegation to the European Advisory Commission (Mosely) to the Chief of the Division of Central European Affairs (Riddleberger)
Dear Jimmie:
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At present Control Machinery has been hanging fire for ten days, with no meetings. It is hard for us to judge exactly what is holding it up, although it may be the Polish matter.62 I think the Russian paper on Control Machinery63 is a promising one, although Wickersham seems to be much displeased at its failure to spell out the various sections under the Control Council. I shall let you know a little later about the extent to which my return should be influenced by the treatment of the question of Control Machinery. Meanwhile we might as well sit tight, especially as I have been able to help out quite a bit on the Bulgarian matter64 and the Hungarian65 may also be coming along.
I hope you will let us have some proposals or comments on Control Machinery for Austria. Having the British paper,66 you have all that we have on it. I hope the Department will consider carefully the question of disposition of German transport aircraft. There is no use putting forward an untenable claim, and one which looks completely selfish. I hope the JCS will clear the paper on “Principles of Military Government in Germany”,67 for I think it would be a very useful paper to put before the EAC or at least to have for our guidance in negotiation.…
Unless we can get some papers through the JCS our situation here is going to be desperate. As it is SHAEF has to go ahead planning for the first two months of joint Anglo-American occupation without any agreed tripartite policy to base its work on. One of these days we shall have to agree on a lot of policies with regard to Germany, and unless we can have some papers approved by the JCS we shall be in a position of merely commenting on the carefully prepared British [Page 332] papers or of charging with a feather duster at the carefully prepared but less elaborate Russian statements of policy. I am sure you are doing everything possible, but I think Jimmie68 and Doc69 ought to be reminded continually of the danger of a breakdown of tripartite understanding with respect to Germany if our EAC Delegation here cannot be provided in advance with statements of US Government policy. After all tripartite policy with regard to Germany is the real touchstone of Allied post-war cooperation. As far as the Russians express themselves their views fit in very well with ours, and I think the more we can show our policy to them the better we will get along. So far we are unable to show them anything except our WS–15c on Control Machinery,70 and the Russians are quite rightly more interested in policy than in machinery for its own sake. It was for this reason that I suggested to the Ambassador that it might be valuable to propose having reparation discussions in Moscow. By this flank attack we might work out some basic features of our economic policy toward Germany on the Russians’ home ground and thereby facilitate progress in the EAC work.
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With every best wish,
As ever,
- For correspondence regarding the interest of the United States in the Polish Government in Exile, and in its relations with the Soviet Union, see vol. iii, pp. 1216 ff.↩
- Ante, p. 299.↩
- For correspondence regarding the Allied armistice with Bulgaria, see vol. iii, pp. 300 ff.↩
- For correspondence regarding the Allied armistice with Hungary, see ibid., pp. 847 ff.↩
- Post, p. 455.↩
- Ante, p. 247.↩
- James C. Dunn, Director of the Office of European Affairs.↩
- H. Freeman Matthews, Deputy Director of the Office of European Affairs.↩
- Ante, p. 185.↩