740.00119 EAC/10–1244: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 12—10:16 p.m.]
8680. Personal to the Secretary only. Please see my 8651 (Comea 110, October 12, 8 [9] p.m.) and read it in connection with my personal message to you.
When I was talking with Strang with regard to Eden’s conversations in Moscow, I further pointed out that the second sentence of Eden’s “interpretation”, which Strang suggested might be agreed upon in a separate protocol, contained what I thought was a limitation upon the Rumanian Armistice Control Commission4 as I understood it. I had thought we were to participate in the Control Commission for Rumania from the start, but from the texts of Eden’s messages to the Foreign Office it appears that the Russians were to operate the Control Commission and we and the British were merely to have liaison [Page 452] missions. Eden’s suggestion that the new Russian draft was an improvement is probably based on the inclusion of the word “participation”.
These messages also referred to various percentages of control, the exact meaning of which was not clear, and the Foreign Office has asked for further clarification. The percentages spoke of 75 to 25 for Hungary, and 75 to 25 for Rumania, and Eden insisted on a joint United Kingdom-Soviet policy for Yugoslavia, although the Russians referred to the 60 to 40 percent for the country, with Eden insisting on a 50 to 50 percent.
I have always been of the opinion that the British would be wiser if they sat in with us in working out policy and arrangements with the Russians, rather than attempting bilateral conversations. In this instance they have chosen to do otherwise. I was very grateful that the President intervened with the Prime Minister and asked that the discussion of any differences at Dumbarton Oaks5 be postponed until the three countries were represented. This request, I understand, has been strictly adhered to.
I realize that the arrangements regarding southeastern Europe are limited to what might be considered the military period, but they may well influence the final peace terms.
A casual evaluation of the conversations in regard to Bulgarian armistice terms, on the evidence I have seen, might suggest that our friend Eden was having his pants traded off. But when you stop to realize the advance of Russian troops into Yugoslavia, it is clear that the primary British purpose was to continue their relationship with Greece and to maintain a sufficient degree of control in Yugoslavia to protect British Mediterranean interests.
I remember when we were at the White House with Eden and others discussing the possibility of French Indo-China going back to the Chinese. The British seemed more willing to accept this proposal than other changes affecting the Far East. I never realized until I was in Cairo that if you eliminated the French from Indo-China they would have no justified interest in maintaining their position in the Levant. A French withdrawal would have increased British interests in that area. The prosecution of the war in the Middle East also evidenced the importance to the British of that area and of the Mediterranean as a life line of the British Empire.
I realize that so far as the Bulgarian armistice matter is concerned Eden in fact has been closing out the European Advisory Commission [Page 453] in attempting to reach agreement with Molotov on a bipartite basis, in spite of his insistence on having final recommendations arrived at in the EAC for submission to the three Governments. I am not sure whether we should accept this situation and have EAC simply register the results of Eden’s Moscow conversations or whether time would permit us to accept the collateral agreements and hold out for article XVIII as introduced by the United States delegation. If the object was to protect the European Advisory Commission, I would suggest that the armistice terms be concluded in Moscow, but I am afraid that that might react politically at home as an acceptance of areas of influence and as compliance with Russian demands.
I want very much to get your advice. I thought you might also want to talk this problem over with the President, as I understand the Prime Minister cabled him that he might bring up the Bulgarian armistice question in Moscow.
- For correspondence on this subject, see vol. iv, section under Rumania entitled “Post-armistice problems of occupation and control …”↩
- For correspondence on this subject, see vol. i, section entitled “Preliminaries to the establishment of an International Organization …,” part II, and Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, pp. 44 ff. For President Roosevelt’s telegram 626, October 4, to Prime Minister Churchill, see ibid, p. 7.↩