740.00119 EW/10–2144: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kennan)
2521. Reurtel 4030, October 21. The Bulgarian armistice terms and accompanying protocol have now been cleared by the EAC and referred back to the three Allied Governments. The Department, after consultation with our military authorities, accepts the text agreed [Page 476] upon in the EAC and is willing that this Government should be a signatory thereto. This text is given in the Department’s next numbered telegram,23 the different articles being arranged out of order for purposes of security.
You should accordingly inform, preferably by aides-mémoire, the Soviet Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and the British Ambassador that this Government accepts the text of the Bulgarian terms as reported out of EAC, subject to the reservations contained in identical letters regarding article XVIII addressed to his Soviet and British colleagues by the American representative on the EAC. These communications stressed our preference for the original compromise draft, giving the three Allied Governments an equal position on the Allied Control Commission during the period following the cessation of hostilities with Germany. It also reserved our right to raise at a later date the question of the implementation of this article during the second period, and made no reference to the Eden-Molotov exchange of letters.
The present telegram may be considered as constituting your authorization to empower the representatives of the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean and of the Soviet High Command to sign the terms of armistice and protocol for Bulgaria on behalf of the United States Government.
- Not printed.↩