740.00119 Control (Germany)/4–2145
Memorandum by the Secretary of State to Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
You have requested the views of the Department of State on message no. 7 from Prime Minister Churchill to the President.63a They are as follows:
Certain implications in the message are disturbing. The zones of occupation for Germany were the subject of long and careful study and negotiation. They were definitively and formally agreed upon by the American, British and Soviet Governments just prior to the Yalta Conference. Following a deadlock lasting many months, the British obtained the northwestern zone which they were so insistent upon having. The general area of the zone allotted to Russia was not in dispute and in fact follows the general lines of a proposal informally advanced by the British as early as 1943. The fact that the Russian zone contained the greater portion of German food producing areas, and that the zone the British sought and obtained was a deficit area was well known throughout the negotiations. The formal acceptance by the three Governments of their zones of occupation was in no way made contingent upon the conclusion of satisfactory arrangements for an equitable distribution of available German food resources. A position taken by this Government (or the British Government) of refusal to withdraw to the agreed boundaries of its own zone pending either (a) some modification of agreed zone boundaries or (b) an agreement on more equitable food distribution would, in the Department’s opinion, have serious consequences. The Russians would certainly consider such a bargaining position as a repudiation of our [Page 236] formal agreement and the resultant Soviet course of action and Soviet policy would be difficult to foresee. Furthermore, as a practical matter, any tripartite agreement for food distribution throughout Germany arrived at under such circumstances would probably prove impossible to implement in practice. The Department of State believes that every effort should be made through the Allied Control Commission to obtain a fair interzonal distribution of food produced in Germany but does not believe that the matter of retirement to our zone frontiers should be used for such bargaining purposes.
The question of the tactical deployment of American troops in Germany is largely a military question. In so far as the question has political implications, the Department believes that General Eisenhower should be given certain latitude and discretion; that where time permits, he should consult the Combined Chiefs of Staff before any major withdrawal behind our zone frontiers. In order to avoid incidents between local Russian commanders on the one hand and British and American commanders on the other, the results of which cannot be foreseen, the Department suggests that messages might be sent by the President and the Prime Minister to Marshal Stalin urging that the date and procedure for withdrawal to the respective zones of occupation should be fixed by mutual agreement between the three Governments (since the anticipated French zone of occupation will not be contiguous on the Russian zone there seems to be no need for consulting the French.)
The views of the United States Chiefs of Staff expressed in connection with CCS. 819/17 [805/17?]64 were discussed informally with the Department of State and have its concurrence.