Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, European Advisory Commission, Austria, Germany, Volume III

EAC File: Lot 52 M 64, File “306 EAC Report 1945/1946”

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Philip E. Mosely, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State (Dunn)

[London,] November 17, 1945.

1. Mr. Saksin called, at his request, to discuss the status of the final report of the work of the E.A.C. In this connection I had written to him on November l,¹⁷ as well as to Lord Hood and Professor Gros, approving, on behalf of the Ambassador, the suggestions for revision contained in Lord Hood’s letter of October 27.

2. Mr. Saksin urged strongly, on behalf of Mr. Gousev,¹⁸ that the draft report dated September 6 be approved without change. The first reason which he advanced was that the Commission had not met since September 6 and was now assumed to be defunct and that it would be embarrassing and inappropriate for the Commission now to appear to be renewing its activity through presenting a report to the four Governments. To this I replied that the completion of the report did not in itself involve any new activity on the part of the Commission since the report was merely a summary of its previous activity. The report itself could be dated September 11, the day following that on which the approval of the Agreement on Additional Requirements had been completed; thus it would be clear that the activity of the Commission, even in the matter of exchanging approval of that Agreement, had been completed on September 11, the date on which the Council of Foreign Ministers had begun its sessions.¹⁹

3. It soon became clear that Mr. Saksin’s real objection was to the inclusion in the report of the proposed U.S. amendment of September 8 (page 3 of the draft report) referring to the failure of the U.S. Government to approve Article 38 of the Agreement on Additional Requirements. Mr. Saksin implied that his Ambassador had not notified his Government of Mr. Winant’s letter of September 8²⁰ approving the Agreement with the exception of Article 38, and that it would now be most embarrassing for this reservation to appear in the final report of the Commission.

4. I emphasized to Mr. Saksin that the report would be incomplete and misleading unless certain changes were made in the September 6 draft in order to make it factually correct as of September 11. I pointed out that apart from the reference to the U.S. reservation on Article 38, certain corrections would in any case be necessary. In order to find out exactly what final changes Mr. Saksin had in mind, I offered to go over the text of the draft report with him and to write down the final changes as he would like them.

5. The changes would be as follows:

a) In the last paragraph on page 2 to read “20 formal” instead of “21 formal” meetings.

b) At the end of the next to the last sentence of paragraph 2 on page 3 insert the following words: “with the exception of the Agreement on Certain Additional Requirements to be imposed on Germany, which, as of this date, is under consideration by the Governments concerned (See Appendix II, paragraph 9).”

c) Page 9, final paragraph, should read as follows: “This recommendation was communicated to and approved by the Provisional Government of the French Republic” (as proposed by Lord Hood in his letter of October 27).

d) On page 9 the date would appear as “6th September, 1945”.

e) Appendix II, page 2, paragraph 9, omit any reference to French and U.S. approval of the Agreement on Additional Requirements, leaving only the references to U.K. and Soviet approval.

6. In conclusion I explained to Mr. Saksin that I would present his observations to Mr. Winant and would inform him as soon as possible of Mr. Winant’s opinion concerning them. I made it clear that I was not agreeing to the changes suggested in paragraph 5 above or to the principle of dating the report as of September 6.

P[hilip] E. M[osely]

[In identical letters to Viscount Hood of the British Foreign Office, André Gros of the French Embassy in the United Kingdom, and G. F. Saksin, Counselor of the Soviet Embassy in the United Kingdom, dated November 29, 1945, Mr. Philip Mosely suggested slight revisions of the textual changes proposed by Viscount Hood in his letter of October 27, page 540. In a letter dated January 18, 1946, Viscount Hood informed Mr. Mosely that Saksin, Gros, and himself agreed to the proposals set forth in Mr. Mosely’s letter of November 29. Viscount Hood stated that he had arranged for the report on the work of the European Advisory Commission to be printed.]

17. Letter not printed.
18. Fedor Tarasovich Gousev, Soviet Ambassador in the United Kingdom and Soviet Representative on the European Advisory Commission.
19. For documentation regarding the First Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers at London, September 11–October 2, 1945, see vol. ii, pp. 99 ff.
20. Not printed, but for an extract, see Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), vol. ii, p. 1011, footnote 4.