868.00/6–2945
The British Embassy to the Department of State
Paraphrase of Telegram From Foreign Office to Washington Dated June 27th, 1945
It is extremely satisfactory that the State Department agree to share responsibility for supervision with us and we are in general agreement with their preliminary views.67 Greek Government should clearly be pressed to issue an invitation to the Soviet Government as well as to ourselves and the Americans, and we agree that this matter might also be taken up at the forthcoming three power meeting. If, however, the Soviet Government decline the invitation we do not feel that we need go to great pains to bring them in. If the Greek Government invite them and if we and the Americans express the hope that they will join us in the task, they could hardly accuse us of “ganging up against them”. Tripartite supervision in Greece would establish a good precedent for similar supervision in Soviet-controlled countries, but for this very reason we think it inevitable that the Soviet Government will refuse.
- 2.
- I should be grateful if you would confirm that State Department adhere to views expressed in your telegram under reference.
- 3.
- We should see no objection to the United States Contingent being of the size indicated in your paragraph 6. Exact number of observers could no doubt be fixed after further discussion in Athens.
- No record has been found in Department files to indicate that the Department’s views on this question had been conveyed to the British Government by this time. It is possible that the tentative views of the Department were transmitted orally to the British Embassy.↩