740.00119 Control (Austria)/5–1245: Telegram
The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Truman
43. The latest reply of the Soviet Government about our missions proceeding to Vienna is wholly unsatisfactory. It is quite unacceptable that the Russians should continue in this manner to exclude our representatives from Vienna. I am perfectly willing that the question [Page 119] of zones in Vienna should be concluded in the EAC, but I feel that we should insist that our representatives should first be allowed to make a survey on the spot. Field Marshal Alexander holds the same view very strongly. As we have now reached a deadlock on the diplomatic level, would you now be willing to send either a joint or parallel message to Marshal Stalin on the following lines:—
- 1.
- “I am surprised to learn that, despite the invitation you extended to Mr. Harriman on April 13th, the Soviet Government are still refusing to allow Allied representatives to proceed to Vienna. The fact, to which M. Vyshinski has drawn attention in a letter to the British Chargé d’Affaires, that the zones of occupation in Germany and Berlin were established on a tripartite basis by the EAC before Allied troops entered German territory seems to me to have no relevance to the refusal of the Soviet Government to allow the representatives of their Allies to proceed to Vienna which has been liberated by Soviet forces. I have no wish, as suggested by M. Vyshinski, to transfer the ultimate decision of the zones question from the EAC to Vienna. But, the Soviet representative on the EAC having had occasion to alter his own recommendations to the Commission because of the discovery that part of the proposed Soviet zone had been destroyed, makes me feel that we too are fully entitled to have the opportunity to examine on the spot the factors bearing on our own proposals in the Commission.”
- 2.
- “In order therefore to facilitate a rapid conclusion of the agreements in the EAC, which you will I am sure agree to be very desirable, I request that the necessary instructions may be issued to Marshal Tolbukhin so that Allied representatives may fly at once to Vienna.”