Office of the Historian

740.00119 E.W./9–244: Telegram

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

London, September 2, 1944—6 p.m.
[Received September 2—3:51 p.m.]

7189. In accordance with instructions contained in the Department’s 6998, August 30, midnight, I have requested Mr. Schoenfeld to inform the Czechoslovak Government in London of the terms of the Bulgarian armistice and to invite them (1) to give their concurrence in the terms, (2) to consider them as applicable to themselves and (3) to authorize the representatives of the U.S. and U.K. Governments to sign on their [Page 389] behalf.53 This alternative procedure was adopted because the British have already taken this step in relation to the Czechoslovak Government.

I have also requested Schoenfeld to intimate to the Yugoslav Government that our Government invites it to consider the terms of the Bulgarian armistice as applicable to itself and to authorize the representatives of the U.S. and U.K. Governments to sign on its behalf. As you will have noted from my 7103 of August 31, 9 p.m., we had previously confined our action in this regard to requesting Yugoslavia’s assent to the terms in accordance with Department’s 6866, August 26, midnight. In this connection we had been acting under the assumption that any Allied Government which authorizes the U.S. and U.K. representatives to sign on its behalf presumably enjoys all the rights of an original signatory under the terms of the armistice. Here we had interpreted your telegram 6866, August 26 to mean that such rights under the armistice should be exercised only by the U.S. and U.K. Governments. In the absence of any agreement among the Allies signatory to the Bulgarian armistice as to the joint exercise of the rights acquired under that armistice, a legal basis will now be provided for unilateral Greek or Yugoslav action in real or alleged fulfillment of the terms of the armistice. It should also be pointed out that the British will probably be eager to make the multiple signature of the Bulgarian armistice a precedent for broadening the signature of the German surrender instrument.

Winant
  1. Jan Masaryk, Czechoslovak Minister for Foreign Affairs, gave oral and written assurance to this effect on September 4 and 6.↩