Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Paris Peace Conference: Proceedings, Volume III

CFM Files

United States Delegation Journal

October 3, 1946, 3:45 p.m.

USDel (PC) (Journal) 60

The discussion on reparation opened with M. Rueff (France) indicating briefly the nature of the report of the Reparation Subcommission and the joint recommendation to the Commission by the delegations of France, UK, US, and USSR (CP(IT/R)Doc 34).⁷⁹ The reparation report, he said, merely set out in certain tables the damages sustained by the claimant countries. These figures were not evaluated by the Subcommission. The report merely indicated how the figures were arrived at. France, UK, US and USSR in Doc 34 had attempted to set out an outline for Part B of Article 64. They recommended that reparation be paid to Albania, Ethiopia, Greece and Yugoslavia. Although the amounts to be paid were left open, to be decided by the Commission, the sources of reparation were indicated: war machinery not convertible to civilian use, materials from current production, and all other categories of capital goods or services, including the passenger vessels Saturnia and Vulcania. The US and UK also recommended that Italian parastatal property in the ceded territories should be considered as part of the reparation account. France and the USSR were opposed to this suggestion. The arrangements with respect to carrying out reparation agreement were the same as had already been previously agreed upon in the case of reparation for the USSR. However, the time period of two years before which reparation from current production was to take place, was modified to allow deliveries during the first two years if such deliveries were made in accordance with agreements between Italy and the recipient country.

It was also recommended that reparation claims for other Allied and Associated Powers would be met from Italian assets within the territory of the respective powers, under Article 69. The Soviet Delegation recommended that countries such as Poland should be permitted to set off their governmental and private debts to Italy and Italian nationals against such claims.

The Ethiopian representative in response to certain remarks of the Italian Delegation to the effect that Italian occupation had been a benevolent occupation, vigorously denied the Italian assertions (CP (IT/EC) Doc 90).⁸⁰ Drawing on eyewitness accounts and telegrams sent from the Italian occupation authorities to Rome, he indicated that the Italian occupation had been characterized by repression and violence. With respect to the Italian claim of having invested large sums in public works, he stated that the roads which had been built were built hastily for military purposes, with forced Ethiopian labor and Ethiopian materials.

The representative of Yugoslavia made a further lengthy address on reparation along the same line as previous statements. He emphasized that Italy’s present industrial capacity was greater than prewar and argued the injustice of the proportion of reparation to be paid as compared to the agreed proportion of compensation.

The representative of Albania, in response to certain assertions of the Italian Delegation, stated that what economic benefits had accrued from the Italian occupation (and the Italian statements as to these benefits were greatly exaggerated) had largely been destroyed by the war. He said Albania was willing to settle for ⅓ its original claim of $1,161,000,000.

The representative of Mexico said that Mexico had suffered greatly during the war, and when Mexico had had to meet its international economic obligations no one had mentioned Mexican capacity to pay. He asked that the Mexican claim be met and said Italian assets in Mexico were not sufficient to cover the Mexican claim.

79. The Subcommission report, C.P.(IT/EC)R. Doc. 18, is not printed; for text of the Four Power draft, C.P.(IT/EC) R. Doc. 34, see vol. iv, p. 792.
80. C.P.(IT/EG) Doc. 90, text of the Ethiopian statement, is not printed. The Italian assertions under reference were presumably the remarks of Tarchiani at the 34th Meeting of the Political and Territorial Commission for Italy, September 26; see the United States Delegation Journal account of that meeting, p. 562.