811.002/1–2446
Record of Meeting of the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy, October 16, 1946, 10:30 a.m.
| Present: | The Acting Secretary of State, Mr. Acheson |
| The Secretary of War, accompanied by Dean Rusk2 | |
| The Secretary of the Navy, accompanied by Under Secretary Sullivan and Captain Dennison | |
| Mr. Hickerson3 |
UNRRA Program for Yugoslavia
Mr. Acheson reviewed the developments in connection with this subject since the last meeting.4 He said that the three man investigating team which UNRRA sent to Yugoslavia has published a report which in effect refutes the charges which had been made about irregularities of administration and constitutes a substantial whitewash of the Yugoslavian Government and its cooperation with UNRRA. Mr. Acheson said that Mr. Clayton has talked with Mr. LaGuardia on the telephone about the seriousness of this matter and our view that UNRRA should be completely sure of its ground before accepting [Page 968] the report of its investigators. It has been pointed out to Mr. LaGuardia that the three investigators issued their report after approximately one and one-half days in Yugoslavia. Mr. LaGuardia is considering sending another investigator to Yugoslavia to go more fully into these charges but has not yet reached a decision. Mr. Patterson said that he had not changed his mind about this matter and that he had expressed his views fully in earlier meetings. He said that as an illustration of the inadvisability of continuing the UNRRA program he would refer to the fact that Yugoslavia is laying rails furnished by UNRRA for a railroad from Belgrade to the north frontier. This increases the military potential of a country openly defying the rest of the world about the peace settlements. Mr. Forrestal expressed his concurrence in Mr. Patterson’s views. Mr. Acheson said that he would discuss this whole matter with Secretary Byrnes upon his return. He said that this is much more than a question between the United States and Yugoslavia and that if we take action to stop shipments from the United States to Yugoslavia it precipitates an issue between the East and the West. He said that he did not know how Mr. Brynes would feel about this but that he would discuss the whole matter with him.
- Special Assistant to the Secretary of War.↩
- John D. Hickerson, Deputy Director of the Office of European Affairs, apparently prepared this record.↩
- At his meeting with Secretary of War Patterson and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal on October 9, 1946, 10:40 a.m., Acting Secretary Acheson reported that Robert Burnup, an American road construction engineer working for UNRRA in Yugoslavia who had been arrested by the Yugoslav authorities at the end of September 1946 for alleged espionage activities, was to be released as a result of a telegram from UNRRA Director General Fiorello La Guardia to Prime Minister Tito. Acheson also reported that the Director General was sending an investigation team to Yugoslavia to look into charges of irregularities in connection with the administration of the UNRRA program (811.002/1–1446). Burn-up’s arrest and the work of the UNRRA investigating team are briefly described in George Woodbridge, UNRRA: The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (New York, Columbia University Press, 1950), vol. ii, pp. 168–169.↩