Council of Foreign Ministers Files: Lot M–88: CFM London Minutes
British Record of the Twenty-Fourth Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, Lancaster House, London, September 27, 1945, 4 p.m.63
[Here follows list of participants identical to the list of participants contained in the Record of Decisions of the Twenty-Fourth Meeting, printed supra.]
1. Germany: Control and Administration
(Previous Reference: C.F.M.(P) (45) 23rd Meeting).64
M. Molotov asked that this question should be postponed to the following day by which time he hoped to be better prepared to discuss it.
The Council agreed to resume on the following day their discussion of the memorandum by the French Delegation on the Control and Administration of Germany (C.F.M.(45) 1765).
2. Restitution
(Previous Reference: C.F.M.(P) (45) 22nd Meeting, Minute 2).66
M. Bidault said that he had prepared a draft resolution designed to amalgamate the proposals made by the Soviet and French Delegations on the previous day. He hoped that the Council would adopt this resolution, which was as follows:—
- “1. The question of the restitution of United Nations property shall be settled on the basis of the Declaration of 5th January, 1943.
- 2. The question of the restitution of gold shall be settled on the basis of the declaration made on 22nd February, 1944 by the Secretary to [of] the Treasury of the United States, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom and the People’s Commissar for Finance of the U.S.S.R., to which declaration the Provisional Government [Page 423] of the French Republic later adhered, and also on the basis of Article 10 of Section IV of the Protocol of the Berlin Conference.
- 3. The Allied Control Council shall be given instructions to expedite, with the assistance of the Reparations Commission, the enforcement of restitution in the conditions mentioned above.
- 4. The determination of the property to be restored shall be effected at the earliest possible moment and the restitution completed, apart from reasonable exceptions, within the period of two years laid down in Article 6 of Section IV of the Protocol of the Berlin Conference.”
M. Molotov said that he was grateful to M. Bidault for taking account of the Soviet proposals, and his study of the French proposals convinced him that there was much in common between them. Experience had shown, however, that it was easier to secure agreement on shorter drafts, and he was prepared to withdraw the Soviet draft and to take as a basis a shortened version of the French draft of the previous day. He proposed that the second paragraph of that draft should be omitted, and that the first paragraph should be amended to read:—
“The Allied Control Commission is requested to consider the question of the restitution of property of the United Nations or their nationals, taking account of the principles of the Declaration of 5th January, 1943”.
M. Bidault said that this draft omitted two important elements in the French proposals; first that the work should be speeded up, and secondly, that a time-limit should be fixed.
M. Molotov said that before the Control Council were asked to accelerate their work on this question, they should first be asked to undertake it. Later on, if it were found that they were not going fast enough, they could be told to accelerate. As regards the time-limit, the Council had no data on which to judge: the period necessary for restitution should possibly be even shorter than the two years proposed; but this should be determined by the Control Council. He was, however, prepared to refer this point to the Deputies if M. Bidault was not satisfied.
Mr. Byrnes asked whether M. Bidault would be satisfied if there were added to M. Molotov’s draft the words “and the determination of property to be the subject of restitution shall be settled as soon as possible”.
M. Bidault pointed out that the Berlin Conference had fixed a time-limit of two years for reparations. The Declaration of January 5th, 1943, said that reparations should be levied on enemy property only. If, therefore, reparations deliveries where to be made within two years, it followed that the determination of the property on which reparations could be levied must also be made within that time; and consequently that the property subject to restitution must be determined within that period. He would, though reluctantly, agree to [Page 424] refer to the Deputies the question of the time-limit, but he thought that the Resolution which he had just put forward should be adopted at once as it included nothing apart from matters on which all Delegations had agreed. At a previous meeting the French Delegation had shown their goodwill by agreeing that reparations should be discussed before restitution though that was not the logical order. He hoped therefore that the draft resolution which he had put forward might now be accepted by the Council.
Mr. Byrnes said that he feared that failure to agree on this question might delay the execution of the reparations plan which had been approved by the Berlin Conference. The Allied Control Council had to proceed by common agreement; and, if one of the Allied representatives on that Council dissented, it would be difficult to make progress with the reparations plan on which Allied Governments had agreed. From that point of view, therefore, it would be of advantage if the Council could now agree upon the terms of a resolution on the question of restitution. He suggested that M. Bidault’s point might be met if the draft resolution proposed by M. Molotov were amended so as to require the Allied Control Council to examine the question of restitution urgently.
M. Molotov said that he would accept the addition of the word “urgently”.
M. Bidault pointed out that the third paragraph of his draft resolution, to which M. Molotov objected, was exactly parallel to the second paragraph of M. Molotov’s own resolution on reparations which the Council had approved at their meeting on 25th September (C.F.M. (P)(45) 21st Meeting, Minute 267). The Soviet Delegation considered that work on the reparations plan should be accelerated; and, as the property on which reparations should be levied could be determined only after the question of restitution had been settled, it seemed reasonable that the Council should use the same language about accelerating the determination of restitution as they had used about the execution of the reparations plan.
M. Bidault said that he would be ready to accept the amended wording proposed by Mr. Byrnes if it were made clear that the time-limit already fixed for the reparations plan should also be kept in respect of restitution.
M. Molotov proposed that the Council should at once adopt his draft resolution, with the amendment proposed by Mr. Byrnes; and should further agree to refer to the Deputies the second paragraph of the draft resolution put forward by the French Delegation on the previous day.
[Page 425]M. Bidault said that he would agree to this proposal if the Deputies were instructed to report, on the question referred to them, before the end of the present Conference.
The Council—
[Here follow the decisions of the Council on this subject as contained in Minute 2 of the Record of Decisions of this meeting, printed supra.]
3. Repatriation of French Nationals
[Here follows an exchange of statements between Molotov and Bidault.]
The Council took note of the statements by M. Molotov and M. Bidault on the repatriation of French nationals.
4. Further Meetings
The Council agreed—
- (1)
- that the Deputies should meet at 10.0 a.m. the following day to consider the outstanding question on restitution (see Minute 2 above), and the memorandum by the United Kingdom Delegation (C.F.M. (45) 55) on Austrian Food Supplies:68
- (2)
- that the Council itself should meet again at 11.30 a.m. the following day.