740.00119 EW/4–3045: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:15 p.m.]
4389. 1. Hall-Patch, in a conversation with Penrose this afternoon, expressed his personal agreement with the suggestion that the United Kingdom Delegation to the Reparations Commission should not leave for Moscow until the question of the composition of the Commission has been settled, and that its time of departure should be arranged to coincide with that of the United States delegation. He added that he would have to clear the matter with Ministers but he was almost certain that they would agree (reDepts 3347, April 28, 7 p.m.70).
[Page 1203]2. Hall-Patch said that United Kingdom officials consider it to be essential to concentrate first on obtaining agreement among the four controlling powers before bringing in any of the Allies. During this stage Hall-Patch thinks it would be undesirable to invite any other European Allies to Moscow. Since reparation affects all the other Allies in some degree so would be difficult to invite one or a few without inviting all of them. When four-power agreement is reached the question will arise what machinery for consultation with the other Allies shall be adopted to discuss the agreement with them and to decide (a) allocation among them of the overall allocation to be made available to them, (b) the organization and timing of deliveries. For both (a) and (b), Hall-Patch said, there must be some form of machinery on which all the Allies concerned are fully represented. For (b) he thinks that semi-permanent machinery will be necessary. Though the control authorities will deal with the extraction of reparation from Germany they cannot by themselves determine the organization of deliveries at the receiving end. As regards (a) he doubts whether allocation between the other Allies should be dealt with on the body about to sit in Moscow. Possibly, he added, it can be done on the body that will have to be set up under (b), but these matters will have to be considered carefully.
3. The conclusion from this conversation is that it seems probable that the United Kingdom will agree with all the points mentioned in Department’s 3347, April 28 including the points raised in Department’s 970 to Moscow with the exception of the last sentence in the penultimate paragraph of Department’s 970 to Moscow. We will inform you immediately when Hall-Patch has cleared the matter with Ministers.
Repeated to Paris as 229 and Moscow as 152.