740.00119 Control (Germany)/8–2746
The First Secretary of the British Embassy (Ripman) to the Associate Chief of the Division of German and Austrian Economic Affairs (deWilde)
Dear deWilde: I have received a letter from London dated 20th August in which I have certain further information concerning the progress of the discussions about the fusion of our two Zones. The first extract which I think will interest you, runs as follows:
“General Clay in Berlin said that it would be impossible for a German Agency to trade with U.S. citizens without special licence and that in his view this made the proposal for a German Agency to effect procurement and hold banking accounts in U.S.A. an impracticable one. We felt here that although formally we should have less difficulty in getting round this in this country, there would be political and general difficulties about having a German Agency operating here in the near future. We have accordingly told Mills that we are prepared to accept the American view that there will have to be a British/U.S. Agency to undertake procurement and to operate bank accounts in U.S.A. and, for the time being, in U.K. also, although we may be prepared to hand over procurement in the U.K. at any rate to the German body at some later stage. We are still proposing that in all countries other than U.S.A. and U.K. the work shall be done by the German Agency from the start.”
The second point of interest concerns the sharing of financial responsibility. As I understand it, General Clay declined to accept the 50/50 basis and argued that the division of responsibility should be based on the respective populations of the two zones. It appears that it was felt in London that discussion of this point through diplomatic channels might involve considerable delay and that this delay would not be justified by the amount of the difference between the two decisions, particularly if agreement could be reached in Germany to make certain special adjustments to the population basis which appear to have been mentioned in a tentative way by General Clay. My information [Page 595] is therefore that an agreement will be reached by Clay and Mills on this point.
I hope that this is not old news to you and I look forward to hearing from you what news you have from Germany on these negotiations.
Yours sincerely,