Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1944, General, Volume I

740.00119 EAC/10–1044: Telegram

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

Washington, October 10, 1944—midnight.

8343. This is not an Eacom message. We are very glad to have your telegram no. 8495 [8485], October 7, 8 p.m., Comea 108, presenting us with a frank and forceful statement of the problem with which you are now confronted as a result of the failure thus far to provide you with essential official documentation for negotiation in the EAC.

We agree fully with your arguments showing the urgent necessity for such documentation and profoundly regret the series of circumstances which has resulted in placing you in this very difficult position. We believe that your telegram will be of great assistance in furthering our unceasing efforts to eliminate the stalemate which has developed here. In the meantime, we feel that you are entitled both to congratulations on the expeditious manner in which you have pushed forward the work of drafting the proclamations, general orders and directives, as well as to an explanation of the situation on this end as it now stands.

After carefully reviewing the proclamations and general orders, the Department some time ago completed its comment with regard to them and placed it before the WSC.² In the case of the directives, papers have already been prepared independently in the Department on many of the same subjects for submission to WSC and in those instances where no such parallel papers existed direct comment on the draft directives was ready.

The Department’s representatives on WSC were thus prepared to act promptly on all the documents submitted by your Planning Committee. Unfortunately the Army and Navy members of WSC were not in the same position. They stated that they had no authorization to take any decisions, that each individual paper must be cleared through the various branches of the War and Navy Departments before it could be presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for their clearance and ultimate dispatch to you as a WS document.

In an effort to circumvent the inevitably long delay involved in such procedure, the WSC devised the program of work outlined in Eacom 29.³ We hoped that once the Joint Chiefs of Staff had approved the basic documents cited therein, laying down the broad lines of American policy, it would not be necessary for them to pass on the mass of detailed documents necessary to implement these policies and that documents falling into this category could be transmitted to you for guidance in your conduct and negotiations in the EAC after summary approval by State, War and Navy.

This procedure had the advance approval of the War and Navy Departments, which officially cleared Eacom 29. In the latter part of August, however, the President as you know sent to the Secretary of War a sharply adverse criticism of parts of the Civil Affairs Handbook on Germany prepared by SHAEF, indicating that it envisaged an undeservedly lenient treatment of Germany and calling for its revision. The War Department and the Chiefs of Staff interpreted the President’s instruction as calling for a major revision of policy all along the line and felt they could not act on any documentation submitted by WSC until certain definite policy decisions had been obtained from the President.

At about this time the Secretary of the Treasury⁴ submitted a plan for Germany which, among other things, called for the complete de-industrialization of Germany and its reversion to a pastoral and agricultural country. This proposal conflicted in certain fundamental respects with the views of both the State and War Departments and, at the instance of the President, a Cabinet Committee, consisting of the three Secretaries, was informally set up to attempt to find agreement on a common policy. No agreed plan was forthcoming, however.

After a number of meetings with high officials of the War and Navy Departments, and the Joint Chiefs postwar planning group, however, they have now agreed to take up and endeavor to obtain Joint Chiefs of Staff clearance on the proclamations and general orders and on the 21 draft directives.⁵ We have all worked out a new procedure which we have agreed to try on the assurance by the military that it will expedite the clearing for transmission to you of officially-approved documents for negotiations in the EAC. We need hardly assure you that the Department will cooperate in every possible way with the military in order to achieve this result.

In the meantime, the interim directive forwarded to you informally as enclosure to instruction no. 4583, September 27,⁶ has been approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department and represents the views of this Government regarding the military government of Germany in the period immediately following the cessation of organized resistance. The final document is now on the way by air pouch.⁷ Although we realize that this interim directive by no means answers all outstanding questions, it should be used in your negotiations in EAC, as expressing additional official policy views of this government.

We hope to get full clearance on the first three directives, namely, draft proclamations and general orders, control of public information, and censorship of civilian communications within a few days.^7a

Hull

2. Working Security Committee.
3. Telegram 6315, August 10, to London, p. 267.
4. Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
5. See footnote 96, p. 350.
6. See bracketed note, p. 341.
7. Transmitted in instruction 4621, October 10, to London; neither printed.

8. Telegram 8641, October 18, to London, stated that comments had been prepared on the General Order and on 12 directives, that these directives were before the Joint Chiefs of Staff for clearance, and that the review and clearance were proceeding actively (740.00119 EAC/10–1844).

   By mid-November 1944, comments on 14 draft directives had been cleared by the Department of State and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and had been sent to the United States Delegation in London. These directives were promptly circulated by the Delegation to the European Advisory Commission.