740.00119 Council/10–545: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
London, October 5,
1945—4 p.m.
[Received October 5—12:03 p.m.]
[Received October 5—12:03 p.m.]
10384. Sargent,88 superintending Under Secretary for Russian questions, has commented to us as follows on the behavior of the Russians at the sessions of the Council of Foreign Ministers:
- 1.
- In spite of the stand taken he personally believed that the Russians still want to cooperate and collaborate with the western countries but they want to do this if at all possible on their own terms and they are engaged now in trying to get themselves in as strong a position as possible and get as many as possible of their own terms established and accepted.
- 2.
- He thought that the Russians in taking the position they did on the preparation of peace treaties with Rumania and Bulgaria constantly had France in mind. The Russians must have reasoned that if they should succeed in eliminating France they would succeed in stamping France as a second or third rate power, cause discord between France on the one hand and Great Britain and the US on the other and gain for themselves a freer hand in Europe.
- 3.
- The present tactics of the Russians could, he thought, also be explained by the wholly understandable desire of the Russians to [Page 559] drive hard bargains while their military strength in Europe was still strong. The Russians of course realize how difficult it will be to provision large numbers of troops in Europe this winter and they may even fear that among some of their troops in occupation during the coming winter the food problem might become so acute that a measure of “disintegration” among these troops might develop.
Sent Dept as 10384, repeated Moscow as 342.
Winant
- Sir Orme Sargent, Deputy Under Secretary of State in the British Foreign Office.↩