Office of the Historian

740.00119 EW/5–645: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)34

Washington, May 9, 1945—3 p.m.

3630. We promptly transmitted to the President and General Marshall a copy of your 4600, May 6,4 p.m. While we were glad to hear that there has been complete coordination and agreement in London on surrender requirements, we have been anxiously awaiting further information on the subject.

Please cable urgently the substance of your conversation with the Prime Minister and General Bedell Smith, and also what arrangements are contemplated for utilizing the surrender instrument negotiated by you in EAC and approved by the Governments. The War Department states it has no information on the use of the surrender instrument or why it was not used for the signatures yesterday in Berlin.

Murphy cabled from Paris on May 435 that he was asking you for the text and further advised that the British Foreign Office was sending a copy to SHAEF.

Your urgent comment on the foregoing would be greatly appreciated.

Grew
  1. Telegram 1950, May 9, 3 p.m., to the Ambassador in France repeated the substance of this telegram and asked the United States Political Adviser for Germany for any information he could supply on the surrender instrument (740.00119 EW/5–445).↩
  2. Telegram 2345, p. 775.↩