Office of the Historian

740.00119 E.W./12–1144

The Assistant Secretary of State (Dunn)55 to the Assistant Director of the Office of Strategic Services (Buxton)56

Washington, January 11, 1945.

Dear Ned: I have given considerable thought to General Donovan’s letter of December 11 and the paper enclosed therewith on black propaganda treatment of unconditional surrender. We feel that it is important that no promises or commitments be made to the German people in official statements of this Government and that this is the only position which can properly be taken in the light of this Government’s policy. However, if for military purposes connected with the prosecution of the war and our operations against Germany, our Joint Chiefs of Staff desire to have the Office of Strategic Services undertake certain black propaganda programs, this would appear to be a matter for their decision and responsibility. The question is, therefore, presumably one which you would wish to take up with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sincerely yours,

James Clement Dunn

[No effort to modify the principle of unconditional surrender as applied to Germany came to fruition. In the communiqué issued at the end of the Yalta Conference, February 12, 1945, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Marshal Stalin expressed their views thus: “Nazi Germany is doomed. The German people will only make the cost of their defeat heavier to themselves by attempting to continue a hopeless resistance.” ( Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, page 970.)

For the activities of the Psychological Warfare Division, Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, directed at allaying the fears of German soldiers and civilians concerning surrender, see Pogue, The Supreme Command, pages 343–346.]

  1. Mr. Dunn became Assistant Secretary of State on December 20, 1944.↩
  2. Mr. Buxton was First Assistant Director of the Office of Strategic Services. On January 2, 1945, the Second Assistant Director, Mr. Cheston, had sent Mr. Dunn a letter (not printed), enclosing duplicates of the papers previously sent him by General Donovan on December 11, 1944.↩