740.00119 Council/1–346: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
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[Received January 4—9:10 a.m.]
37. Following is translation of French note referred to in my No. 25, January 3.7
Begin Translation. On December 23, Your Excellency was good enough to communicate to me a message from the Secretary of State of the United States, acting in his capacity as temporary President of the Conference of the Three Foreign Ministers at Moscow.8
This message related to the arrangement which had just been reached, with respect to the preparation of the peace treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland, to be drawn up by the Foreign Ministers of the United States of America, of Great Britain, and of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.
Mr. Byrnes expressed the wish that the French Govt associate itself with this arrangement, and in this event he proposed that the conference which is envisaged for May 1, 1946, at the latest, should take place at Paris, at the invitation of the French Government.
Your Excellency’s communication has been considered carefully and sympathetically by the French Govt which warmly welcomes the [Page 4] principle of a conference for the consideration of drafts of peace treaties. The French Govt is always prepared to participate in such international consultations.
The French Govt has taken note, furthermore, of the proposal that has been made to it, that this conference meet in Paris, and is ready, so far as it is concerned, to invite all the govts envisaged in the proposal, to send their representatives to the conference.
In order to be in a position to confirm these statements to Your Excellency, the French Govt would be happy to receive information on certain points which it considers essential.
1. The Council of the Five Foreign Ministers should convoke the above-mentioned conference as soon as the representatives of certain interested states have finished preparing the drafts of peace treaties. But the role of this council in the future is not specified. Furthermore, this council had been considered as a permanent one, equipped with a permanent Secretariat, responsible for the preparatory work necessary for the peace settlement and for taking care of all other matters which might, from time to time, be referred to it by agreement of the govts belonging to this council. The agreement reached at Potsdam between the Govts of the United States of America, of Great Britain and of the USSR, and to which France had subscribed with respect to this point, provided in particular and explicitly for the preparation of the peace settlement with Germany.
The French Govt would be happy to know what the Govts of the United States, of Great Britain and of the USSR consider would be the future work (“la suite des travaux”) of the Council of the Five Foreign Ministers.
2. The procedure decided upon for the Council of the Five Foreign Ministers provided for the possibility of inviting the representatives of other govts when matters which particularly concerned them were to be discussed.
In the proposals which have just been made to the French Govt, it is provided only that other members of the Council of Foreign Ministers can be invited to take part in the discussion of questions directly concerning them. The result of this would be that the peace treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland would be prepared by the representatives of four, three or two govts, as the case might be, without other directly interested govts having the possibility of making themselves heard at this vital state. For instance, for the treaty with Italy, this applies to Greece, Yugoslavia and Ethiopia.
With regard to Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland, the French Government must recall the comments which it made in its reply under date of August 4 [7?], 1945, to the invitation which was addressed to it to participate in the Conference of the Five Foreign Ministers.9 The French Government pointed out in this reply that France is concerned in every important question affecting Europe or any region of Europe.
[Page 5]3. The importance of the preceding observation depends on the interpretation of the provisions envisaged for the conference which would follow the completion of the work of the delegates of the Foreign Ministers. This conference would be responsible for studying the drafts of peace treaties and, when desirable, making recommendations concerning them. Thus the conference would not have any powers of its own, and the decisions on the recommendations which it would formulate, would be made subsequently by the states responsible for preparing the treaties.
The French Government would like to be assured that, as it believes, this literal interpretation does not correspond to the spirit in which this plan was drawn up. The French Government considers that as broad and thorough a discussion as possible should take place at the conference in order to give the conference the character which it should have of real, international authority. Furthermore, the results of this discussion should be taken into account to the fullest extent possible.
4. The project communicated to the French Government does not provide for the possibility of hearing at the conference the representatives of the states with which the treaties of peace are to be concluded. Such a procedure had already been put into effect at the London Conference. In the spirit of the ideas (“preoccupations”) expressed in the preceding paragraph, the French Government believes that the discussion of the treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland should include hearing the representatives of these states. It would be glad to receive the assurance that the Governments which participated in the conference of Moscow take the same point of view.
Naturally this would not constitute a precedent for the future discussions of a peace agreement with Germany, whose situation is completely different because of the terms of its surrender.
5. The communication given to the French Government appears to involve, as regards the conditions under which the terms of the treaties of peace will be finally drafted, an essential change in comparison to the plan of the Council of Five Ministers of Foreign Affairs.
The latter was charged with the elaboration of the treaties of peace in question for submission to the United Nations and to suggest settlements for the territorial questions pending at the time of the end of the war in Europe. It was a working committee but was not authorized to take final decisions. This was to be left to the United Nations in accordance with a procedure which was to have been determined later. The French Government willingly accepted this formula which appeared to it to fit entirely within the plan of international cooperation which it approves and which was the inspiration of the Charter of the United Nations established at San Francisco.
The project now proposed is inspired by another conception, inasmuch as it leaves the final decision to the representatives of the states charged with the task of preparing the treaties, and no longer calls for the final decision of the United Nations.
This makes it more important to determine the real functions (“attributions”) of the proposed conference as well as to ascertain what assurances can be given in regard to the consideration which its recommendations will receive. The French Government believes it should [Page 6] call to the attention of the United States, British and Soviet Governments a point so important to the very principles of international organization.
The foregoing considerations indicate the importance that the French Government attaches to the questions raised in the proposal which Your Excellency transmitted. Desirous of not delaying its final reply, the French Government hopes that it will be possible to obtain in as short a time as possible the explanations asked for in this letter.
Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the assurances of my very high consideration.
Signed Gay. (End Translation)
- Not printed; it reported the receipt of the French reply of January 3, 1946, to the invitation to France to associate itself with the conference relating to the treaty settlements with Italy, the Balkan countries, and Finland (740.00119 EW/1–346). It was reported that copies of the French note had also been given to the British and Soviet Ambassadors in Paris.↩
- The text of the message from Secretary Byrnes was contained in telegram 457, December 23, 1945, from Moscow to Paris, Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. ii, p. 741.↩
- For the invitation to the French Government to participate in the Council of Foreign Ministers, delivered to Foreign Minister Bidault on July 31, 1945, see Foreign Relations, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, vol. ii, p. 1543; for the French reply to the invitation, handed to Ambassador Caffery on August 7, 1945, see ibid., p. 1553.↩