Office of the Historian

740.00119 Control (Rumania)/1–246: Telegram

The Ambassador to the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State

secret
urgent
Bucharest, January 2, 1946—noon.
[Received January 2—9:15 a.m.]

2. Secret for the Secretary from Harriman. Commission, Vyshinski, Clark Kerr and myself, met the King yesterday afternoon January 1 to explain the Moscow decisions.2 He said he had accepted the Yalta decisions3 and was prepared to accept the Moscow decisions. Clark Kerr and I emphasized the importance we placed on the elections and the specified freedoms. The King inquired regarding the possibility of neutralizing certain of the Ministries to which Vyshinski replied that this was not covered by the Moscow decisions.

We saw 10 members of the Government last night.4 Groza,5 speaking [Page 556] for the Government, stated that the Government accepted the Moscow decisions and were prepared to give the required assurances. Again Clark Kerr and I emphasized the importance our Governments placed on these matters. Vyshinski has correctly presented the agreement and has supported in words at least our emphasis on the elections. However, the attitude of Groza and other members of the Government gave me the impression that they felt confident that in one way or another the elections would not unseat them. The Government undertook to approach the historic parties regarding their candidates for inclusion in the Government. It was agreed that the members of the Commission as individuals, not as a commission, would see today those members of the historic parties we consider desirable. I am seeing Maniu6 this morning and later Bratianu.7

The Commission will meet with the Government again at 5 o’clock this afternoon.

The King has invited us to lunch today.

Repeated to Moscow as number 1.

[
Harriman
]
  1. At their conference in Moscow, December 16 to December 26, 1945, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ernest Bevin, and People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov agreed that their Governments were prepared to give King Michael of Rumania the advice for which he had asked on the broadening of the Rumanian Government. American Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, British Ambassador in the Soviet Union Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, and Assistant People’s Commissar for the Soviet Union Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky were authorized by the three Foreign Ministers to proceed to Bucharest as a Commission to consult with King Michael and members of the Rumanian Government regarding this decision. For text of the decision on Rumania, see part V of the Report of the Meeting of the Three Foreign Ministers, in telegram 4284, December 27, 1945, from Moscow, Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. ii, p. 821. The American record of the Rumanian Commission’s meeting with King Michael is filed separately under 874.00/1–146.↩
  2. Reference is to the Declaration on Liberated Europe, part V of the Report of the Crimea Conference, February 4–11, 1945, by President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Churchill, and Soviet Marshal Stalin, Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, p. 971.↩
  3. The record of this meeting is filed under 871.00/1–146 as part of the American Official Record of the Rumanian Commission.↩
  4. Petru Groza, Rumanian Prime Minister.↩
  5. Iuliu Maniu, President of the Rumanian National Peasant Party.↩
  6. Constantin (Dinu) Brǎtianu, President of the Rumanian Liberal Party.↩