740.00119 Control (Hungary)/4–1746
The Chief of the United States Representation on the Allied Control Commission for Hungary ( Key ) to the Minister in Hungary ( Schoenfeld )64
My Dear Minister: I submit the following comments on the note of the Soviet Government dated 25 [22] March 1946, inclosed with your letter of 5 April 1946,65 concerning the Statutes for the Allied Control Commission for Hungary:66
The facts are that the Statutes governing the operation of the Allied Control Commission for Hungary have not been revised since the Potsdam Conference. The Soviet Government’s statement that certain questions were considered by the Allied Control Commission with [Page 277] the participation of the Representatives of the United States and Great Britain is true, and it is equally true that certain questions have been considered without the participation of these same Representatives.
The record will show that at a formal meeting of the Allied Control Commission for Hungary on 5 June 1945 I stated that, since the First Period of the Armistice was concluded by the cessation of hostilities, the Statutes should be broadened to permit of more active participation by the American and British Representatives during the Second Period. You will recall that contemporaneously with the Armistice Agreement, 20 January 1945, Statutes were agreed upon to govern procedure until the end of hostilities with Germany;67 that there was no agreement as to procedure to govern the Second Period of the Armistice, namely from the end of hostilities with Germany to the conclusion of peace; and that the British Minister by a specific note directly reserved the right to have the procedure modified for the Second Period of the Armistice; and inferentially both the British and the American Representatives made it clear that new Statutes were to be agreed upon for this Second Period. It was with these considerations in mind that I made my proposals in June 1945.
Specifically, I proposed that (a) United States and Britain should be represented in all sections and divisions of the Commission, (b) United States and British Representatives to have equal status with the Soviet Representative on the Commission, except the latter would continue as Chairman with the United States and British Representatives as Vice Chairmen, and (c) that all decisions and orders of the Commission to the Hungarian Government should be concurred in by Representatives of all three Governments prior to their issuance. These proposals were subsequently extended and made the basis of a draft of “Proposed Statutes for ACC for Hungary for Second Period” and submitted to the War Department. They were approved by the War and State Departments and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and copies were furnished to all territorial commanders and Allied Control Commissions in Europe.68
On 11 July 1945 the Chairman of the Allied Control Commission wrote me as follows: “The Soviet Government, due to the changes brought about by the cessation of hostilities with Germany, finds it necessary to establish the following order of procedure for the Allied Control Commission for Hungary”; continuing, the letter prescribed [Page 278] a procedure for the Allied Control Commission, being a modification of the first five paragraphs of the original Statutes, and stating “that the remaining paragraphs of the existing Statutes will remain in force in the future.”69 It included one of the recommendations I made at the meeting of 5 June 1945, to wit, that concurrence of the Representatives of the three Governments would be obtained before directives were issued to the Hungarian authorities; however, the letter limited this to important subjects.
After the Potsdam Conference the Chairman wrote me another letter under date of 14 August 1945, as follows: “The Berlin Conference brought a decision about the question concerning the revision of the procedure of the Allied Control Commissions in Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary, according to which the Statute of ACC for Hungary was accepted as basis for the Allied Control Commissions in those countries. In connection with this I have the honor to submit to you the new Statute of the ACC in Hungary.” Inclosed with this letter was a document headed “Statute of the Allied Control Commission for Hungary”, comprising nine paragraphs with many subparagraphs, but in substance not differing from the Chairman’s letter of 11 July 1945.70
At a formal meeting of the Allied Control Commission on 22 August 1945 I proposed a revision of the Statutes for the Allied Control Commission in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement and attempted to present and discuss my proposals which had been approved by Washington. The Chairman refused to discuss any modification of the Soviet directive of 12 August 1945 which he stated had been approved by the Potsdam Conference. I stated that my Government did not accept his proposals as the Statutes for the Second Period. This incident was reported by wire to the War Department on 23 August 1945 and by letter of same date to you.71 On 5 September 1945 I was furnished an extract from a message from the Embassy at Moscow expressing “the view that efforts to discuss the revision of the ACC Statutes either in Budapest, Bucharest or Sofia or in Moscow would serve no useful purpose.”72 Several messages were sent to Washington inviting attention to the position occupied by us as a result of the arbitrary attitude of the Soviets requiring us to [Page 279] operate under their directive. Finally on 30 October 1945 you conveyed to me a message from the Secretary of State, in reply to my Z–857 of 18 October 194573 stating in substance that our Government sympathized with my desire to see the activities of the Commission put on a truly tripartite basis but felt that to pursue the matter further at this time would serve no useful purpose and requested that I endeavor to avoid discussion of this question, indicating that the matter would be settled at government levels. Accordingly, I have attended and participated in all meetings without objecting to the actions of the Soviets in prescribing the regulations and procedure for the operation of the Allied Control Commission, but without conceding their propriety.
For obvious reasons I cannot itemize actions taken by the Chairman in the name of the Allied Control Commission, but without either the American or the British Representative having been informed or consulted in any way. Frequently we have no knowledge of such actions until information reaches us through indirect sources, sometimes weeks after the action has been taken.
The primary difficulty here is that we have to operate under a unilateral Soviet directive in lieu of agreed Statutes of the Allied Control Commission covering the Second Period of the Armistice. The matter of clearances is only one aspect of the general problem. It is humiliating to have to petition our allies to permit entrance into Hungary of official diplomatic or military personnel coming here under orders and in the discharge of official duties. I proposed last June that, hostilities having ended, we should have the right to bring in any officials whom the United States Government desired to bring in, on the understanding and subject only to the condition that we should inform the Soviet authorities of their entry and the estimated date of departure. But my views have not prevailed, and I must assume that our authorities at Washington, both military and diplomatic, have satisfactory reasons for their implied acquiescence in the present arrangement imposed by the Soviet Government. In the meantime, if clearance is denied here, we have no alternative except to renew the application at higher levels, unless it is preferred to assume the risk of entry without authorization.
While the issue may be largely academic, in view of the approaching Peace Conference, it is still my opinion that we should press for fulfillment of the tripartite commitment contained in the Potsdam Declaration of last August (Art. XII),74 that the revision of the procedure [Page 280] of the Allied Control Commission in Hungary, as well as in Rumania and Bulgaria, would be undertaken. This can be done, in my opinion, only by negotiation between the three governments directly concerned, and it seems to me that such negotiation should be pressed.
Sincerely yours,
Major General, U.S. Army Chief
- Copy transmitted to the Department in despatch 1384, April 17, 1946, from Budapest; received May 24, 1946.↩
- For text of the note of March 22, 1946 from Vyshinsky to Kennan regarding the revision of the procedures of the Allied Control Commissions, see telegram 940, March 25, from Moscow, p. 89. Schoenfeld’s letter to Key is not printed.↩
- The Statutes of the Allied Control Commission for Hungary are printed in Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. iv, p. 802.↩
- For text of the Draft of Statutes of the Allied Control Commission in Hungary, proposed by General Key on June 5, 1945, see Foreign Relations, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), vol. i, p. 375.↩
- For text of the Proposed Statutes for the Allied Control Commission for Hungary, recommended by the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, see ibid., vol. ii, p. 705.↩
- For text of Marshal Voroshilov’s letter of July 11, 1945, to General Key, see telegram 286, July 13, 1945, from Budapest, Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. iv, p. 834.↩
- For text of Marshal Voroshilov’s letter of August 14, 1945, to General Key, together with the enclosed draft of Statute of the Allied Control Commission for Hungary, see ibid., p. 844.↩
- For text of General Key’s letter of August 23, 1945, to Schoenfeld, see ibid., p. 855.↩
- The quotation is from telegram 3173, September 5, 1945, from Moscow, ibid., p. 862.↩
- Telegram Z 857, October 18, 1945, from General Key to the War Department, ibid., p. 893.↩
- Foreign Relations, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, vol. ii, p. 1511.↩