London Embassy File
Memorandum of Trans-Atlantic Telephone Conversation Between the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant), in London, and the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Matthews), in Washington
W. Hello. Is that you, Doc?
M. Yes, Chief. Good morning.
W. Good morning. I wanted to talk [to] you about a conversation I had last night—or yesterday afternoon London time—and then also about one or two other matters.
M. I am sorry I am not familiar with the conversation yesterday afternoon.
[Page 62]W. And then about one or two other matters that I wanted to discuss in relation to the European Advisory Commission. Yesterday, I called General Marshall,25 because I thought he might be the only one I could find at the Pentagon Building. There was a statement in the press here that the office buildings had been closed in Washington yesterday out of respect to the President.26 The military advisors on the European Advisory Commission had just come back from France and they had some ideas in relation to unconditional surrender terms. I explained those to General Marshall and told him that I was not in a position to go forward with any suggestions that had been made until I could get clearance from the President and the Secretary of State. I told him in detail what the position was and he wired back to me this morning saying he consulted the Secretary of War and was clearing with the Secretary of State. I would like you to get a transcript of that conversation because it gives you in detail what the position is. At the end of that discussion, I referred to the negotiations in relation to zoning and control in Austria. I want to talk to you a minute, if I may, on that subject. In considering, however, the subject matter I took up with General Marshall, I wanted to refer you to Embassy’s 3405 of April 4 and Department’s 2662 of April 527 in regard to the Austrian matter. I received two telegrams today; one from the Department 2928 of April 1428 and a repeat message from Moscow 158 of April 13th.29 Let me restate that, that’s Harriman’s 1104 of April 9th. In those messages, he explains, and the Department also explains, that Stalin proposed that “American, British and French representatives proceed to Vienna to establish the zones in Vienna”. Harriman recommends that.
M. Yes. I recall the telegram.
W. And the Department acquiesces in it. That disturbs me because I wouldn’t want to see repeated what took place in Rumania and Bulgaria and the only reason for the delay in the European Advisory Commission is because the Russians have been unwilling to meet our wants. The difficulty has to do with their insistence that they want absolute control and occupancy of the central district in Vienna. We would have been willing to compromise, but because they were so unyielding, we have still held out for the larger Vienna, and our reason for doing that was because we wanted to be sure of air facilities [Page 63] and we further argued that we wanted to share with the Russians, the British and the French the central district in Vienna. You will remember that that small area contains most of the facilities in relation to—so far as hotels are concerned, public buildings, cinemas, and so forth. On the question of the larger district of Vienna, we proposed the following compromise: “The Schwechat Airdrome, together with all installations and facilities pertaining thereto, will be under the administrative and operational control of the occupation forces of the United States for the purpose of serving the requirements of the forces of the four occupying powers. The forces of the four occupying powers will enjoy free and unimpaired access to the Schwechat Airdrome from the city of Vienna.” In other words, that would allow us to go back and forth from our area within Vienna, and others to go back and forth from their areas to the Airdrome.
M. You proposed this yesterday, is that correct?
W. We proposed it yesterday.
M. At the EAC.
W. As a matter of fact, we took it up originally on Tuesday,30 but the Russians refused to consider it.
M. On Tuesday, or yesterday?
W. They refused to consider it either Tuesday or in the intervening time or at our meeting yesterday. Now, we have thought of another compromise in relation to the central district. I think it is fair to remember that Vienna is the central city of the Russian zone and that, therefore, it is reasonable that they have greater facilities than the other occupying countries, since we would manage our zones from central cities lying within those zones, but what we don’t want is to have our command put out into the poorer districts out of the central district and be forced to maintain their headquarters in inadequate buildings in the outskirts of the city within our zone district. Therefore, we felt that we could not agree to the Russian proposal of complete control in the central district. We were going to suggest the following compromise formula: “The district of Innerestadt will be occupied by the forces of the Soviet Union and the inter-allied authority (Commander Tourer [Kommandatura?]), will regulate the equitable assignment of its facilities among the staffs of the allied commission and the forces of occupation of the four powers.” In other words, what we ask is that they give us adequate facilities within that area.
M. You feel that that will give us adequate facilities?
W. Yes, I think it would, but I am certain for the reason for the shift of venire [venue?] away from the European Advisory Commission in London to Vienna is simply because we have been unwilling to [Page 64] compromise on what we believe to be minimum needs for our forces in Vienna.
M. You don’t think that there would be any more chance of reaching an agreement working out on the spot?
W. My thought was, Doc, that there should be no final agreement reached until we have been able to check back and forth with each other, because we have spent weeks now working on this problem and we have an awareness of what the wants are and also complete knowledge of the position of both the British and the French.
M. You have not yet complete knowledge of what the British and French want?
W. No, we have the complete knowledge.
M. Yes. It was always our thought that anything worked out, of course, out there would be referred to the EAC and possibly having someone on the spot would be helpful to you.
W. Yes, it might be, provided there is that contact.
M. There must be. The decision would depend, of course, still on EAC. There was never any thought of removing it from that. It was merely the belief that if we had somebody on the spot in Vienna, they might be able to work out some practical solution there quicker.
W. I understand. Now, You’ve got our thinking on that.
M. Yes, fine.
W. There is another message that has come in. It is 2927 April 14.30a It suggests that we would be willing to give way in the control machinery agreement the idea of establishing a Navy as well as an Army and Air Division. I believe it is a mistake to give that away at the moment because I believe they are about to concede it.
M. You think we are about to obtain it?
W. No, I think it is a mistake to give that away at the moment because I think the Russians are about to concede it and I think they would only assume weakness on our part in relation to that particular issue and two or three other issues in which we mean to hold firm.
M. I see. I think the thinking behind that message, which I haven’t seen (I was not at the Department yesterday afternoon) was the fact that our Navy Department itself might prefer not to have provision for a Naval Division.
W. I wonder if they realize that they [there] are naval installations in Austria.
M. I think they do. I think there is some difference of opinion within that department, but I will be very glad to look into it.
W. Would you do that and send me a clarifying message?
[Page 65]M. Yes, indeed. Now, the only thing I am not clear on is this subject of your earlier conversation with General Marshall last night. Is there anything that I should know about that?
W. It would be necessary to get in contact with the Secretary and get the whole story because it is a long story.
M. I see. All right. I’ll do it that way. Take care of yourself.
W. I will. Can we do anything for you here that we are not doing at this time?
M. I don’t think of a thing.
W. All right. Thank you, Doc.
M. Good luck, Chief.
W. Thank you. Good bye.
M. Goodbye.
- For transcript of the trans-Atlantic telephone conference between Ambassador Winant and Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, on April 14, see p. 223.↩
- President Roosevelt died on April 12.↩
- Post, pp. 216 and 219, respectively.↩
- See footnote 24, p. 61.↩
- The same as telegram 1162, April 13, midnight, from Moscow, supra. ↩
- April 10.↩
- Not printed; it reported that the Joint Chiefs of Staff perceived no objection to the draft agreement on Allied control machinery in Austria from a military point of view, subject to the deletion of the word “naval” where it occurs in articles 2, 3, 4, and 6 (740.00119 Control (Austria)/4–645).↩