Office of the Historian

740.00119 Council/12–1147: Telegram

The United States Delegation at the Council of Foreign Ministers to President Truman, the Acting Secretary of State, and Others

confidential
urgent
London, December 11—[7 p.m.]

6443. Delsec 1542. For the President, Vandenberg, Connally, Eaton, Bloom and Lovett. Fifteenth CFM meeting, December 11, Marshall presiding.

The Council accepted the proposal49 discussed yesterday involving the breaking up of German cartels and other monopolistic arrangements. It also accepted in principle a proposal50 to institute greater Allied control through the Control Council over the distribution of coal, power and steel and their utilization in Germany as well as the amounts shipped abroad.

The Council agreed to revise the level of German peaceful industry adopted in March 1946 so as to meet both the needs of security and the needs of the German economy. Germany will be left with sufficient capacity to produce eventually 11,500,000 tons of steel yearly.51

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Bidault proposed52 and Bevin and Marshall agreed that the rehabilitation of German industry be regulated in such a way as to prevent its revival at a rate faster than that of the economic reconstruction of other democratic countries in Europe. Molotov agreed to study the proposal.

The Council referred to a drafting committee for further study a proposed directive to the Allied Control Council to make by March 1948 a fresh determination of German industrial plants and equipment which are to be removed as reparations.53

The Council discussed a proposal54 that the delivery of plants and equipment to be removed from Germany should be hastened; that the final list of plants and equipment to be removed should be issued by the Control Council not later than April 1948 and that the ACC should hasten the valuation, allocation, dismantling and delivery oi capital equipment. Differences arose over a definite date when the removal would have to be completed and further discussion was postponed until tomorrow.

Repeated to Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Moscow.

  1. CFM(47) (L)7, November 27, 1947, paragraph 26 and the proposed United States amendment thereto, p. 787.↩
  2. The reference here is to a new paragraph 26 (bis) proposed by the French Delegation; see footnote 87, p. 787.↩
  3. CFM(47) (L)7, paragraph 27.↩

  4. Foreign Minister Bidault proposed the following new text for paragraph 28 of CFM(47) (L)7:

    “The increase of German industrial activity shall be carried out progressively in such a way that the reconstruction of Germany does not enjoy priority over the reconstruction of the democratic countries of Europe.”

    ↩
  5. Under reference here was paragraph 29 of CFM(47) (L)7 and a French counter-proposal.↩
  6. CFM(47) (L)7, paragraph 30.↩