Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume I

740.00119 Potsdam/7–1445

No. 140
The Assistant Secretary of State (Dunn) to the Secretary of State ¹

[Extracts]²

secret

Potsdam, July 14, 1945.

Memorandum for the Secretary

Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, called this afternoon and discussed for two hours in a preliminary way a number of matters on the agenda of the Conference.³

. . . . . . .

2. Procedure of the Conference.

Sir Alexander asked whether the Conference would follow the procedure of Yalta, where meetings of the Foreign Ministers were held daily from 12 to 1, followed by meetings of heads of governments in the afternoon. It was agreed that at Yalta the Secretaries’ meetings had been too brief to be of maximum usefulness.

It was pointed out that at Tehran President Roosevelt, on Stalin’s proposal, had served as Chairman, by virtue of being the only Chief of State present, and that at Yalta he had almost automatically continued in this role.

. . . . . . .

James Clement Dunn

1. Printed from a carbon copy on which there is an uncertified typed signature.
2. For other extracts from this memorandum, see documents Nos. 218, 234, 258, 319, 351, 379, 404, 470, 519, 635, 645, 678, and 708.
3. For a list of persons present at this meeting, see document No. 234, footnote 3.