862.60/8–2747: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom
urgent
niact
3716. For the Ambassador. Confirming your telephone conversation with Hickerson, War and State approve the communiqué quoted in your telegram 4640.19 If it would assist in securing French acceptance of this communiqué you are authorized “to inform the French Representative that the US Govt is prepared at an early date to engage in discussions on and to give sympathetic consideration to the establishment in connection with the peace treaty of some international device for the purpose of insuring that access to production of the Ruhr shall not in the future, as was the case in the prewar period, be exclusively subject to the will of Germany. You are authorized to tell the French that the communiqué contains the minimum acceptable to the United States.” If you give the French assurance set forth above naturally we expect them to remove their reservations in the communiqué.
If absolutely necessary in your opinion to obtain unconditional French acceptance of communiqué you are authorized to inform the French Representative that the US Govt has no objection in principle to the establishment of an international body or some other device to insure that the distribution of coal of the Ruhr takes account of the just needs of Europe including Germany.20
In connection with the foregoing paragraph please consider carefully Clay’s telegram no. 72088 to War Dept of August 25,21 specifically [Page 1064] his paragraph dealing with the international body for coal distribution.
- Not printed.↩
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Telegram 3718, August 27, to London, not printed, gave the following supplementary instruction:
↩“In connection with penultimate paragraph of our telegram today approving communiqué to be issued at close of level of industry talks the second assurance to be used only as a last resort should likewise refer to the establishment in connection with the peace settlement of the international body contemplated.” (862.60/8–2747)
- Supra.↩