740.00119 Control (Germany)/4–1646: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Smith)83
708. Top secret for Smith from the Secretary. Please communicate to Molotov the following message from me:
“I hope very much you will be able to discuss informally with me at Paris your views on the proposed German disarmament clauses which I sent you on February 14.84 When I was in Moscow last December at the dinner given by Generalissimo Stalin I explained the gist of my proposal to him.85 I told him that if he was interested I would work out the proposal in greater detail and discuss it further with the President. The Generalissimo said that he hoped I would [Page 63] do so, that he heartily approved the idea and that I could rely upon his support.”
- At the same time that this message was sent to Moscow, the Secretary sent telegram 3255, April 16, to London, which requested that the following communication be conveyed to Foreign Secretary Bevin: “I would be happy if you could discuss informally with me in Paris the proposed German disarmament clauses which I sent you in mid-February.” (740.00119 Control (Germany)/4–1646)↩
- Regarding the United States draft treaty on the disarmament and demilitarization of Germany, see document CFM (46)21, April 30, 1946, p. 190.↩
- No official record has been found of the substance of the discussion of Secretary Byrnes’ dinner meeting on December 24, 1945 with Generalissimo Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. For the Secretary’s own account of his discussion with Stalin of a proposal for a twenty-year treaty for German demilitarization, see James F. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 337.↩