Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Council of Foreign Ministers, Volume II

C.F.M. Files: Lot M–88: Box 2063: US Delegation Minutes

United States Delegation Record, Council of Foreign Ministers, Second Session, Fifteenth Meeting, Paris, May 10, 1946, 11 a.m.⁹⁷

Paris, May 10, 1946, 11 a.m.

secret

Procedure for Preparation of Peace Treaties and Convocation of the Peace Conference

M. Molotov opened the meeting and asked for suggestions concerning the topics for discussion. He wished to know whether his colleagues desired to discuss the questions remaining on the agenda such as the demilitarization of the Franco-Italian Frontier and of the Yugoslav-Italian Frontier, the position of bilateral treaties and the report of the Commission on the Tenda-Briga Area.

M. Bidault had no objection to discussing the questions still in abeyance if that was the desire of his colleagues. If it should be deemed more expedient to discuss the problem of the Peace Conference, in particular the proposal made by Mr. Byrnes and the amendment suggested by M. Molotov, the French Delegation was ready to make a new proposal.

Mr. Byrnes said that he would be very glad to hear that proposal.

M. Bidault said that two days before Mr. Byrnes had posed the question of the continuation of the Council’s discussions. Apparently the U.S. Delegation considered that the chances of further progress at the present conference were very limited and that the chances of additional progress by the Deputies in the future were not sufficient to permit the attainment of agreement before the convening of the general Peace Conference. M. Bidault wished to say that, perhaps because the French Government had not had the good fortune to participate in as many such conferences as had the other three governments, he was hot entirely disillusioned and had not lost hope that the Foreign Ministers could reconcile their points of view, at least to a large degree. For that reason he wished first to associate himself with the suggestion made by Mr. Bevin at the previous meeting to the effect that the Council should resume its examination of the subject of the peace treaties and with good will on all sides, find out whether there were any more questions where progress was possible. The French Delegation believed that there were such questions. He felt that it was desirable and not at all impossible that further efforts would lead to some result. If agreements were not reached and the present session of the Council of Foreign Ministers were terminated, then the question would arise, what would be done next. On this question two concepts, with which his colleagues were familiar, had been placed before the Council. The French Delegation for its part believed that the essential thing was to provide for sufficient delay to permit the rapprochement of the different points of view. France had lost some of its faith in the validity of fixed time limits, because experience had shown that they were seldom respected. Finally, M. Bidault wished to propose: First, that further efforts be made at this session to reduce the outstanding points of difference; second, that after the termination of this conference, if there still existed points on which there was no agreement, the Deputies should continue their work with the purpose of reducing further those points of disagreement; third, that the Council should fix a date for its next meeting, thus providing for a delay which would be indispensable for reflection and for allowing solutions to mature. That next meeting could be fixed for some time in the neighborhood of June 15. Finally, with respect to the difficult problem of the Peace Conference it should be understood that the Council at its next meeting in June would fix the date for the Peace Conference.

M. Bidault said that he had purposely not put his proposal in written form, but that if that was desired and if the essential points of his proposal were acceptable, it would be an easy matter for the Deputies to prepare the necessary text.

Mr. Byrnes said that he had stated at the previous meeting that he was in accord with the suggestion of Mr. Bevin that the Council of Foreign Ministers go over at the present meeting the list of items still in disagreement. He had stated also, in response to an inquiry of M. Molotov, that while he had proposed that after its meeting immediately prior to the Peace Conference the Council should report the status of its consideration of the treaties, whether the drafts were agreed or not, it was nevertheless his understanding that at the meeting following the Peace Conference the Council of Foreign Ministers must agree on the text of each of the treaties. With regard to Mr. Bevin’s proposal made at the end of the previous meeting, he did not know whether M. Molotov had accepted or rejected that proposal and would like to be informed on that point.

M. Molotov said that he did not see any difference between the proposal of Mr. Bevin and that of Mr. Byrnes. He wondered why, if it was possible to adopt agreed decisions after the Peace Conference had been held, it was considered impossible to make those decisions before the Peace Conference was held. Or was it assumed that the Peace Conference would adopt agreed peace treaties by majority vote, with the minority having to submit to those decisions on the fundamental questions in disagreement?

Mr. Byrnes felt that all should understand that the Peace Conference, following any procedure it saw fit to adopt, could only make recommendations to the Council of Foreign Ministers. He thought that all Delegations agreed on that. Assuming, as M. Molotov had suggested, that a majority of nations at the Peace Conference favored one recommendation and a minority favored another, the two recommendations would be submitted to the Council of Foreign Ministers for its consideration. The Council would then meet to consider those recommendations, bearing in mind what was said in the letter of January 13 to M. Bidault, namely that full and careful consideration would be given to these recommendations and they would not be arbitrarily rejected. It was certainly the hope of the United States that the Council of Foreign Ministers could then agree on the final texts of the treaties. M. Molotov had asked why, if agreement was essential after the Peace Conference, the four governments could not agree before the Peace Conference. The trouble was that they had now reached the point where they did not agree. It would be a blessing if they could agree today or tomorrow, but if they could not, they must keep on trying and must make further efforts in accordance with the plan agreed to at Moscow, and that plan had contemplated that a Peace Conference would meet not later than May 1. Instead of giving up, the Council should continue to attempt to reach agreement up to the day of the opening of the Peace Conference. The natural desire of all to present an agreement to the Conference might help the Foreign Ministers, at the meeting to be held three days before the Peace Conference, to bring about a meeting of the minds. After the Peace Conference, when the Council would again meet, it would have the responsibility of reaching agreement on final texts.

Mr. Byrnes said that he could say now, as he had thought yesterday, that the statement he had just made gave an answer to M. Molotov’s question. When the Peace Conference was over and the Council of Foreign Ministers met again, it must agree, in the case of Italy for example, on one text, and there could not be two or three treaties. He could not conceive of a situation in the final meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers where there would be three or four treaties in the case of Italy or that of Rumania. There must be one treaty, or else it would have to be confessed that the machinery created at Potsdam, establishing the Council of Foreign Ministers for the purpose of making peace treaties, had brokn down. Mr. Byrnes did not want even to think of such a thing.

M. Molotov said that it was his understanding that if the four delegations wished to ensure effective working of the machinery set up at Potsdam and at Moscow, then they would have to have agreed draft treaties. It went without saying that all recognized that the recommendations made by the Peace Conference should be accorded due respect by the Council of Foreign Ministers. On the other hand, it followed from the discussion that important decisions could not be made by majority vote since the individual countries, small and great, were sovereign states. This situation posed a question which deserved to be answered. It should be made clear that if the Council failed to reach agreement prior to the Peace Conference, what reason was there to hope that agreement would be reached after the Conference was held. M. Molotov thought that there was as little or as great a chance of reaching agreement after the Conference as there was before it; therefore it was necessary to reach positive agreements on all fundamental questions in connection with the peace treaties while those treaties were in the process of preparation. In his view the proposal of M. Bidault met the general wish for concerted efforts in preparing for the Peace Conference. It met also the wish expressed at Berlin and at Moscow when the decisions regarding the preparation of the peace treaties and the convocation of the Peace Conference were taken. If the Peace Conference should meet without having agreed texts before it, the Conference would be placed in a difficult position. It was likely that it would split into two conferences. There might be two draft treaties, one for one part of the Conference, the other for another part. There would thus be two conferences instead of one. Would it be correct to deny the assumption that there will be one conference and to admit that there might be two? Was this what the Council was striving to achieve? M. Molotov thought that this was not its purpose. That would be contrary to the decisions taken at Berlin and at Moscow regarding the Peace Conference and the process of agreeing on final texts for the peace treaties.

Mr. Bevin wished to present his point of view, reserving for the moment a reference which he wished to make to Mr. Byrnes’ proposal regarding dates. His conception was a simple one. He assumed there would be instructions given to the Deputies to continue their work energetically and try to get agreement on every point possible. When the Deputies reported to the Foreign Ministers in June the points of disagreement still outstanding, the Foreign Ministers would make the most desperate efforts to try to get agreement, but if there were still matters on which neither the Deputies nor the Ministers could agree, that situation should be reported frankly to the Peace Conference, where it would be ventilated and where the opinions of the nations represented there could be heard. He did not have in mind that there would be majority decisions binding upon the minority, but he felt that when the Council met for its final meeting after the Conference, after world opinion had been brought to bear on the outstanding difficulties, it would be assisted in achieving final agreement on the texts of the treaties. On the subject of dates Mr. Bevin felt that Mr. Byrnes’ proposal that the Council of Foreign Ministers meet for three days before the opening of the Peace Conference would not be workable. There would not be time to acquaint the other governments with agreements which might be arrived at, and those governments would have no time to examine the issues. In any case he would like provision made for a little longer time between the meeting of the Foreign Ministers in June and the opening of the Peace Conference. On the other hand he would not like to adopt M. Bidault’s plan of leaving the date of the Peace Conference unsettled. If it was not indicated to the other governments when the Peace Conference would be held, that would create disappointment and uncertainty. Therefore he would suggest, especially to M. Bidault and Mr. Byrnes, that if the time of the next meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers was to be around June 15, a week should be allowed for that meeting and at least a month after it before the Peace Conference opened in order that the other governments could study the proposed treaties and come prepared to discuss them. The Peace Conference should not open until a month after the end of the meeting of the Foreign Ministers; one could not tell how long such meeting would last.

Summarizing his proposal, Mr. Bevin said that there should be: First, instructions to the Deputies to continue their work on the treaties; second, a meeting of the Foreign Ministers in June, and if they did not reach agreement on all points, the situation should be reported to the Peace Conference so that world opinion might be consulted on points in disagreement as well as others; third, the Peace Conference should be held a month after the Foreign Ministers had completed their task at the June meeting, it being understood that at the Conference the vote of the majority would not bind the minority and that final agreement on the treaties was dependent upon agreement within the Council of Foreign Ministers.

Mr. Byrnes recalled that after the first World War the Peace Conference convened in January 1919, two months after the cessation of hostilities. The peace treaty was completed in about six months. Peace could be made only by the governments which were at war. Ordinarily, at the termination of a war, a conference is called for the purpose of drawing up peace treaties. After the end of hostilities in the recent war, the American, British and Soviet governments had undertaken at Potsdam to provide machinery to facilitate the work of a Peace Conference. Those three governments did not assume to themselves the right to make peace treaties or to deny to other governments at war the right to participate in the making of peace treaties. A year had now passed since the end of hostilities. The machinery which had been established had not operated with great speed. Mr. Byrnes wished again to call attention to the fact that at Moscow they had held out the hope to the other states which were at war that they could participate in a Peace Conference not later than May 1. They had been disappointed in that hope. Certainly the Council must at this time set another date, in order that the twenty-one governments, which had been notified after the Moscow agreement that they could participate in a Peace Conference, would know at what time they would be able to come to such a conference. With regard to Mr. Bevin’s suggestions, Mr. Byrnes was willing to agree that the Council of Foreign Ministers should meet on June 15, but he insisted that they ought now to fix the date for the Peace Conference. He would agree to July 1. If that was not satisfactory, he would agree to July 15, although he did not like to. That would allow a month between the next meeting of the Council and the opening of the Peace Conference.

Mr. Byrnes stated that he feared if the date were left open as his friend, M. Bidault, had suggested, they would come to their next meeting in June and would again be unable to agree as they had been here, although all professed the desire to reach agreement. Should that occur, no Peace Conference would be called. It would be postponed again. By then it would be September, the time set for the meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and thus the Peace Conference would again have to be put off. The end of the year would find them without having made one bit of progress toward making peace.

Mr. Bevin said that he didn’t object to July 15.

M. Bidault said that he agreed with any date and agreed that all should agree on a date.

M. Molotov said that the Soviet Delegation had agreed to June 15, but that if it was desired to change the date, it would agree to July 1 or July 15, but the main point in the view of the Soviet Delegation was that the preparation of the peace treaties should be continued on the basis of coordinated effort. With respect to the historical point which had been mentioned concerning the treaty following the first World War, it was common knowledge that not several peace treaties but a single treaty had been prepared by the Peace Conference at that time.

M. Molotov then suggested that the Council discuss the suggested addition to the U.S. proposal which the Soviet Delegation had put forward. Until then the Council had devoted its attention only to the first part of the Soviet proposal.

Mr. Byrnes said that before they left the matter presently under discussion, he had one more suggestion. If all could agree on a date for the Peace Conference, he thought that at the present session of the Council they should hold several more informal meetings to see if they could get together on the outstanding questions. Mr. Byrnes said that it was important and necessary to do that.

Mr. Bevin and M. Molotov stated that they had no objection. It was then agreed that they should hold such a meeting at 5:00 p.m. the same day.

M. Molotov then asked whether there were any suggestions regarding further discussion at the present meeting.

Mr. Byrnes said he would like to know whether they could agree on a date for the Peace Conference.

M. Molotov was prepared to agree to any date provided that the additions to the U.S. proposal which the Soviet Delegation had suggested were accepted.

Mr. Bevin asked what the meeting was discussing now.

M. Molotov said they were discussing Mr. Byrnes’ proposal.

Mr. Bevin said that he thought the matter before them was so vital that they ought to know definitely whether there was an acceptance of the proposition that the Peace Conference would be held in any case.

M. Bidault said that he still thought that it would be the most satisfactory solution for all concerned if the proposal he had made could be accepted. Such a solution would give time for reflection. It would leave until the subsequent meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers the question of fixing the date of the Peace Conference. He felt this to be a matter on which some progress toward agreement might be made in the course of the meeting that afternoon.

Mr. Byrnes said that, as he understood M. Molotov’s last statement, the Soviet Delegation would agree to any date provided that the other delegations would agree to everything set forth in the Soviet amendment.

Mr. Bevin said that the acceptance of this amendment would place them in the same position on June 15 in which they now were with respect to the Moscow decision. The text of the Soviet proposal says: “To call, in accordance with the agreement reached at Moscow, a Peace Conference to meet in Paris on 15th June, on the understanding that agreement will be reached on the proposed Peace Treaties, to which draft treaties shall be submitted …”. This is the same narrow interpretation which has hampered us up to now. It would mean that there would be no Peace Conference if drafts were not approved by all. The Council would be in exactly the same position in which it found itself now. Mr. Bevin did not wish to create a situation where there appeared to be general understanding but in which all had different interpretations. The acceptance of the second paragraph of the Soviet proposal would mean that unless all delegations approved every point and every comma in the draft treaties, nothing could be done.

M. Molotov said that he must note that an interpretation was being placed on his proposal which was not quite correct. As a matter of fact there was general agreement that certain points should be referred to the Peace Conference without prior approval of the Council, for example the problem of the Greek-Bulgarian frontier, that of Bulgarian reparations, and others. It followed that the Soviet Delegation did not suggest that all minor points be settled prior to the conference, but the Soviet Delegation held that all were interested in reaching agreement on the fundamental points. This also was a basic requisite for the successful outcome of the Conference. The Soviet Delegation thought that the Council must see to it that the success of the Conference was thus assured.

Mr. Bevin asked whether the words “it being understood that agreement should be reached on the proposed treaties” remained in the Soviet proposal.

M. Molotov said that it was to show that those words were necessary that he had made an explanation.

Mr. Byrnes said that that was why he had proposed yesterday to add the words “as far as possible”. They would do everything possible; they could not do more.

M. Molotov said that it was only too obvious that no such reservation was required.

Mr. Byrnes asked whether his Soviet friend then accepted the words “as far as possible”.

M. Molotov replied that it was something which went without saying. It was not necessary to record it. It was a reservation which applied to all human affairs.

Mr. Bevin said that it just meant, and they had to face it, that if any one of them didn’t agree on a treaty, the Peace Conference would never be held. He had faced that fact in the matter of the final drafts, because he realized that it had to be done, but to hold up the Peace Conference because of lack of agreement on what might be called fundamental points put him at least in a very difficult position. The matter resolved itself into the position that there was not only a veto on the treaty itself, but a veto on allowing nations which fought in the war to express their views. That was carrying the veto to a point which he could not agree.

Mr. Byrnes made a motion that the meeting be adjourned.

M. Bidault agreed, but wished first to state the hope that all members would undertake to reflect on the matter at hand. He wished to draw attention to two simple points which, as he understood it, were the two main decisions of the Moscow Conference. The first was that the Foreign Ministers should agree on the treaties, and the second was that the Peace Conference would meet on May 1. Neither of these objectives had been attained. As the situation now stood, there was agreement among the Foreign Ministers neither on the draft treaties nor had the Peace Conference been held on the specified date. He therefore urged that his colleagues reflect on the situation in order to see if it might be possible in the light of the Moscow agreement, to maintain in a new agreement the possibility of making further efforts toward solving the principal points in dispute in connection with the peace treaties and toward agreement on the question of fixing a later date for the Peace Conference.

M. Molotov wished to add that the objective pursued by the Soviet Delegation in making its proposal was that all should work in the spirit of a concerted effort. This was the same objective which had been borne in mind at the time of the adoption of the agreements at Berlin and at Moscow. Also it was the objective of the Soviet proposal to exclude a situation where one party could impose its will on another. This was said with reference to Mr. Bevin’s remark on the veto. The question of the veto was not at issue; it was a question of one party imposing its will on another.

Mr. Bevin said that he and M. Molotov had the same objective but a different method of obtaining it. He wished also to maintain a concerted effort, but he did not want to deny to those who fought in the war the chance to express themselves, and that was what would happen if this affair dragged on for a long period of time because of lack of agreement among the four powers.

M. Molotov said that he did not wish the Council to call one Peace Conference and have it end up as two conferences.

The meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m.

97. For a list of persons present at this meeting, see the Record of Decisions, infra.