740.00119 Control (Austria)/4–1945: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the United States Political Adviser on Austrian Affairs (Erhardt), at Caserta
371. You will have observed from Department’s 350 April 19, 11 a.m. repeating its 907 to Moscow that the latter informs the Soviet Government, as suggested in your 1631 April 19, 8 p.m., that our representatives proceeding to Vienna will study and discuss on the spot the factors bearing on the Vienna zoning problem, but that we expect the actual agreement to be made on the inter-governmental level in the European Advisory Commission. We have discussed this with the British Embassy at Washington which assumes that the instructions which London will issue to the British element at Caserta58 will be in harmony with these premises.
This is not necessarily contrary to the British Chiefs of Staff notification to Marshal Alexander mentioned in your 1631 to the effect that the purpose of the meeting in Vienna is to negotiate (though not to [Page 80] close) a settlement of points relating to zoning of Vienna which have not (yet) been decided in EAC. It is true that EAC has not yet been able to complete a protocol on the zoning of Austria because of conflicting views regarding the zoning of Vienna. The purpose of an examination and discussion of the situation on the spot would be to find a zoning arrangement mutually satisfactory to all the representatives there which would facilitate completion of the inter-governmental agreement on it in EAC.
Although the American recommendations to EAC, based on the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and set forth in Department’s 321 April 5, 8 p.m. to you,59 are framed in terms of “Greater Vienna”, they are concerned primarily with the United States zone thereof, and your principal concern in Vienna will of course be to assist the U.S. military representatives in accordance with their instructions to seek an arrangement which will be suitable for the needs of the forces of the United States, whatever may ultimately be agreed regarding the limits of the rest of Vienna. We understand that instructions now going forward to them through military channels discuss U.S. requirements in terms of facilities and make it unnecessary to insist on the Gau line as such on which earlier JCS views were based.
The Soviet proposal would permit allotment to the American zone of the Vienna districts of Landstrasse, Wieden, Favoriten and Simmering, but would leave all five of the Vienna airfields in the Soviet zone. The original American proposal would allot these districts plus the district of Schwechat to the American zone. A proposal which allotted these five districts including Schwechat to American forces and gave them satisfactory access to the facilities of the Innere Stadt might be satisfactory to us regardless of whether the rest of Vienna was zoned on the basis of the pre-1938 city limits or the Gau limits. Our principal concern in insisting on the district of Schwechat was based on our desire to have the control and use of a Schwechat airfield. Whatever compromise may ultimately become necessary, it is imperative that the American forces in Vienna have unrestricted use of an airfield suitable for our big four-engined planes, with adequate space around it and facilities for housing nearby the personnel, work shops, recreational facilities, etc., associated with the airport. We can under no circumstances forego the unrestricted use of adequate airfield facilities for our forces.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff requirements referred to in the last paragraph of your 1631 were framed to meet this requirement. They proposed using the limits of Greater Vienna primarily because this placed the district of Schwechat in our zone, which appeared to be [Page 81] the most reasonable way of assuring an adequate airfield with facilities for U. S. forces. If the American representatives find that an adequate airfield with supporting facilities can be assured to U. S. forces by some zoning arrangement, whereby there is assured to the U. S. an airfield as a part of its zone preferably in the Schwechat District to meet requirements specified in paragraph 4, JCS will presumably give it favorable consideration.
(Sent to AmPolAd, Caserta as Department’s 371 for Erhardt,; repeated to London as no. 3149; Paris as no. 1619; and Moscow as no. 929.