740.00119 EW/5–1445: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:35 p.m.]
1578. Pursuant to instructions contained in Department’s 1061, May 13, 1 p.m., I called on Maisky this afternoon and transmitted to him the invitation to accompany Pauley and Lubin on tour of German industrial areas. Maisky replied by raising questions about the purpose of the trip. What was it proposed he asked, that the participant in the tour should ascertain? The Crimean decisions for example, had foreseen the removal from Germany of certain German national property for the purpose of destroying Germany’s military potential. Were the participants in the tour to examine German industrial plants from the standpoint of their possible removal or from the standpoint of their possible reconstruction? Before we could decide what plants should be removed, we would have to decide what constituted Germany’s military potential.
I said that while I did not have instructions on this point I thought I could speak for those concerned in our Government in saying that there was no intention that the persons participating in the tour should be limited in their examination by any specific questions. I said I was sure that the tour would be entirely without prejudice to subsequent discussion of any and all questions relating to reparations in the Commission; that it was merely to give the members of the Commission a vivid first-hand impression of the physical facilities which [Page 1214] they would later have to discuss and of the conditions surrounding their possible use or removal; and that each member would be free to make such utilization as he cared to of his individual observations in the subsequent deliberations of the Commission itself.
Maisky inquired when the tour would begin and how long it would last. On this point too, I told him I had no definite information; that I assumed it would begin sometime between May 20 and the end of the month. I gave it to him as my guess, subject to confirmation from Washington, that it could be completed in 10 days or 2 weeks at the outside.
Maisky undertook to let me know his answer on this subject when he had had an opportunity to discuss it with his Government.
The talk then turned to the question of the delay in the convening of the Commission and to the question of its composition. Maisky expressed the view that it had been a mistake to introduce the question of widening the composition of the Commission after it had once been decided at the Crimea, and he reiterated the proposal recently made to the British that the Commission should undertake its work as a tripartite Anglo-American-Russian Commission, and that the question of the admittance of the French and other powers could be examined while the Commission was working.
I replied to this by repeating our view that it was desirable that the Commission should have the same composition as EAC, to which its work was closely related, and as the Control Council [in Berlin. I pointed out to him that the Control Council would have to work, as far as I knew, as a Council; that its decisions would require the assent of all the participating governments; that if the French Government were not represented on the Reparations]88 Commission it might not be willing to recognize the decisions of that Commission in its own zone of occupation or to cooperate in making them valid for Germany as a whole through the Control Council. I said I thought if we were to have full cooperation of the French in this respect, it was desirable that they should have a part in forming the decisions in the execution of which they, as members of Control Council, would be asked to cooperate.
To this Maisky replied by asking me whether it had been decided what the French zone of occupation was to be. When I said that I was not informed on this point, he said that he thought it would be very small and implied that he did not think it was very important whether the French cooperated or not. He pointed out particularly that the French zone would probably include the Saar Basin and that the Saar industrial facilities would in point of fact revert to the French anyway, no matter what formal decisions might be taken. [Page 1215] He implied by this that they were not so important from the standpoint of a reparations agreement. (I invite particular attention to these statements in connection with the German industrial districts which have been allotted to Poland in the east.)
Maisky showed considerable concern at the delay in the convening of the Commission and expressed the fear that if this delay continued, a number of the countries interested in receiving reparations from Germany would take unilateral action to get what they could. In this respect he mentioned particularly Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. He thought it highly undesirable that this sort of thing should begin. I told him that I agreed with him thoroughly on this point, but thought the danger greater in the case of those countries which had zones of occupation in Germany than in the case of those which did not: I too felt it important, I said, that there should be an early overall preliminary agreement on German reparations which the Control Council in Berlin would be in a position to apply to all areas of Germany.
Maisky inquired as to whether Mr. Lubin and Mr. Pauley would be coming on to Moscow after their tour. I said I thought they would. He then returned to the question of the composition of the Commission and stressed the desirability of getting on with this. I pointed out that we were still waiting for a reply to Mr. Harriman’s letter of April 989 and that the next move lay with them. Maisky did not say so directly but he made it evident that at the present time he had no authority to recede from the position they had taken and that further exchanges of notes would therefore not be helpful. Since I could see that he was wondering whether the plan of Mr. Pauley to arrive here in June would mean that we were prepared to open conversations on the tripartite basis, I told him, in parting, that I was sure that our Government hoped that by the time Mr. Pauley arrived we would have had opportunity to complete our discussions and come to an agreement on the composition of the Commission.
Sent to Department as 1578, repeated to London, for EAC, as 201, to Paris, for Murphy as 116.