740.00119 Control (Austria)/4–2745: Telegram
The United States Political Adviser on Austrian Affairs (Erhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:37 p.m.]
1761. I have talked over with Generals McNarney and Flory Moscow’s telegrams giving Vyshinski’s reply concerning despatch of an American Mission to Vienna, and also the proposal advanced by Renner to form a Provisional Government. It seems reasonable to suppose that if the Soviet Commander in Vienna is to have authority to discuss zoning of Vienna only on the basis and within the framework of Soviet proposals advanced in the EAC, the US and Soviet positions are so divergent that there is offered no prospect for a meeting of minds, since the US cannot forego obtaining an airport and the Soviet proposals in the EAC, so far as I know, do not provide anything for us except the use of Aspern under Soviet control or the allocation to the US, UK and France of Tulln airport, both proposals being unacceptable.
The military view this latest information from Moscow as portending a repetition in Austria of some of the difficulties experienced in the Danubian area generally unless at the very beginning there is firmly established the principle of equality of status among the occupying powers.
Sent Department as 1761, repeated to London as 174. To Moscow as 150.