Office of the Historian

760h.74/3–245: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman)

Washington, March 2, 1945—8 p.m.

473. The British Embassy has informed the Department22 that the British representatives at the Crimea Conference23 invited the Soviet Government to consider their suggestion that the Yugoslav and Bulgarian Governments should be informed that the three principal Allied Governments were opposed to the conclusion of the proposed Yugoslav-Bulgarian pact of alliance and mutual assistance.24 The Foreign Office desires that we should make a similar approach to the Soviet Government.

The Department feels that during the period in which a former Axis satellite still an enemy state is subject to the control of an Allied Commission its negotiation of treaties or other international agreements of a political character with a member of the United Nations or any other state would be inappropriate, unless specifically endorsed by the three principal Allies and other interested Governments. Please inform the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of our view in this regard and say that it is being likewise communicated to the Yugoslav Chargé d’Affaires here for transmission to his Government.25 You should add that, in line with the agreed policy of consultation among the three principal Allies before acting in matters affecting Bulgarian foreign affairs during the period of control under the armistice regime, the Department is delaying for the moment the presentation of its position on this subject to the Bulgarian authorities, with the thought that the Soviet Government may wish to give an early indication of its views.

Sent to Moscow, repeated to London for Patterson, and to Sofia.

Grew
  1. Aide-Mémoire from the British Embassy, February 20, 1945, not printed.↩
  2. The conference between President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, and Marshal Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, with their advisers, held at Yalta, February 4–11, 1945.↩
  3. For discussion of the proposed Yugoslav-Bulgarian pact at the Yalta Conference, see Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, pp. 876–877, 881–882, 890–891, 939, 964–965, 981.↩
  4. Memorandum to the Yugoslav Embassy, March 3, 1945, not printed.↩