740.00119 European Advisory Commission/64: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Winant ) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 27—3:15 p.m.]
725. Comea 18. The second formal meeting of the Advisory Commission took place yesterday.
Just prior to the meeting I had circulated to the Commission as a basis of discussion document WS 10a,86 explaining that it was not meant to be the limit of our proposals and that other and more detailed proposals might follow. In view of the short space of time which elapsed between the circulation of that document and the convening of the meeting, I did not consider it possible to invite a general discussion of the contents of the British and American documents, and we agreed to postpone that until next week. The Soviet delegation still has no material, and apparently no instructions on this subject.
Meanwhile, the Commission is making a compilation of the material in our document and the British draft, which can be used for a detailed study and comparison of the various proposals.
After the above matters had been discussed, I referred to paragraph 10c of the British memorandum of January 1587 enclosing their draft of the surrender terms, dealing with the question of the participation of other governments in the work of the Commission, and we discussed this matter in a preliminary fashion. A separate message will follow reporting some of the details of this discussion.
Strang then introduced the subject of dismemberment and proposed the establishment of a sub-committee to study this subject. He referred to the British minutes of the Tehran Conference and said that it had been indicated there that the Commission should make a study of this question, keeping in close contact with Washington and Moscow, and should make recommendations which would facilitate decisions on the part of the respective governments. As explained in [Page 164] my 529 January 20, 5 p.m., Comea 13,88 I can only accept the British statement on this subject. Strang also proposed a set of terms of reference for the sub-committee.
Both Gousev and myself accepted the proposal that the subject be considered by the Commission and agreed to the appointment of a sub-committee; but neither of us was prepared to accept offhand the terms of reference which Strang proposed until we had had a chance to study them further. A separate message will follow on the subject of these terms of reference.
It has been informally agreed that the next meeting will take place on February 2.