Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, The British Commonwealth, Western and Central Europe, Volume V

740.00119 Control (Germany)/5–2946: Telegram

The United States Political Adviser for Germany (Murphy) to the Secretary of State

secret

Berlin, May 29, 1946—2 p.m.
[Received May 29—9:18 a.m.]

1372. After today’s CORC meeting, Soviet Political Advisor Semenov¹² sought me out for a rather lengthy discussion of current problems affecting Soviet-American relations. He invited attention to Mr. Molotov’s statement¹³ and recent Tass dispatches. He said there was serious doubt that Americans understood Soviet viewpoint on European problems. His government regarded with natural suspicion and some resentment our method of agreeing on things with the UK in advance of their presentation to the USSR. Semenov also said there was a growing resentment over recent US efforts to “dictate” on questions relating to various world areas. Semenov said that we were inclined to forget that the Red Army had done the major fighting in Germany and as a result USSR would not receive dictation from anybody. I replied that we recognized the combat contribution of the Red Army but were also reasonably certain that some Soviet authorities had no conception of America’s contribution; US air forces had provided the wedge which made it possible for the Red Army to enter Germany while US land forces had captured the bulk of German territory, part of which, Thuringia and Saxony, they had presented to the Soviet High Command on a platter according to prior agreement.¹⁴

He went on to say that we threw out propositions apparently expecting immediate decisions without giving USSR reasonable opportunity to study subject matter. USSR could not operate that way. We had troops stationed over such wide areas and it was only normal, he said, for one to believe that his [this?] action was taken “with a view to the next war.” Nevertheless, he was not pessimistic about the possibility of solving some of the current problems. He mentioned particularly the Danube and intimated that the USSR is now disposed to find a “reasonable” solution.¹⁵ He thought progress could be made on the German question but the US should make a greater effort to understand the point of view of the USSR.

Semenov spoke in most conciliatory fashion but he obviously was speaking under some form of directive. Without seeking to be argumentative, I conveyed to Semenov our belief that far from seeking to dictate, the US had done everything in this area to conciliate and to support harmonious quadripartite government in Germany. I pointed out that according to the Secretary the paper presented by him at the Council of Foreign Ministers looking to Four-Power agreement re German disarmament¹⁶ had been discussed months ago with Soviet authorities. Other proposals made by the Secretary at the end of the meeting re Germany had not been discussed in advance with any of the members of the Council. With respect to our troops I said that we had heard a great deal from the Soviet side about the necessity of protecting its lines of communication and that he would undoubtedly understand that with American forces occupying areas in the Pacific and in Europe, the US had valid reason to protect its lines of communication. I inquired what his Government had in mind re the Danube but he refused to go into detail, contenting himself with an optimistic generality that he felt that a solution of this problem was much nearer.

On local matters Semenov said apropos of CORC’s discussion of political parties in Berlin, that it was his understanding that the German Communist Party had no intention of operating as a separate entity in view of the recent merger of the German Communist Party with some elements of the German Socialistic Party.¹⁷

Repeated to Moscow as 132 and Vienna as 67.

Murphy

12. Vladimir Semenovich Semenov, Political Adviser to the Chief of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (Sokolovsky).
13. Statement to representatives of the Soviet press on the results of the Paris meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, May 27, 1946.
14. See an exchange of messages between President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill, and Marshal Stalin, June 14–16, 1945, Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. iii, pp. 134–137.
15. For documentation relating to European waterways, see pp. 223 ff.
16. Reference is to the draft treaty on the disarmament and demilitarization of Germany, April 30; for text, see Department of State Bulletin, May 12, 1946, p. 815.
17. For documentation on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. iii, pp. 1033 ff.