740.00119 EAC/4–45: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
2656. We are telegraphing to you tonight3 as the position of this Government the text of a statement by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the British proposal for zoning in Austria.
Your 3449 April 4, midnight, arrived too late to receive JCS consideration in connection with the above. The Department has taken up the Soviet proposal of amendments with the military authorities but we shall probably be unable to give you official views on it in time for Friday’s meeting of the EAC.
We anticipate that JCS will be agreeable to placing in the Soviet zone that part of Upper Austria situated left, i.e., northeast, of the Danube as proposed by the Soviet representative.
We believe, however, that the pre-1938 boundaries of Vienna will not be acceptable to JCS since they are deemed inadequate to meet our need for airfield, billeting, communications, and other facilities.
This Government has already approved the inclusion of the whole of Burgenland in the Soviet zone (Department’s 117 of February [January] 5, 8 p.m., Eacom 41), and that approval has not been canceled.
Time does not permit clearance of this telegram with the military authorities and it therefore represents merely the preliminary informal views of the Department.
- Telegram 2658, 8 p.m., infra. ↩