Office of the Historian

740.00119 EW/1–2247: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State

confidential
Paris, January 22, 1947—9 p. m.

299. Following is French text of invitation with regard to signing of peace treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary just received under cover of Foreign Office note dated January 20:

“After the conclusion of the deliberations of the conference held in Paris from July 29 to October 15, 1946, and taking into account its recommendations, the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in its New York meeting drew up the final texts of the peace treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

“These texts have been communicated to the Department of State at Washington through the good offices of the Secretariat General of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs.

“In its meeting of December 11, 1946 in New York, the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs agreed that the signing of the peace treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary shall take place in Paris at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 10, 1947 at 4 p.m.

“The Government of the French Republic, acting in the name of the Council of Foreign Ministers, has the honor to invite the Government of the United States to send to Paris, for the date stipulated, its plenipotentiary or plenipotentiaries for the purpose of signing in its name the treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

“It would be grateful to the United States Government if the latter would be so good as to inform it as soon as possible of the name of its representatives.”1

Caffery
  1. In telegram 386, January 30, 1947, from Paris, not printed, Ambassador Caffery was instructed to accept the invitation on behalf of the United States Government; he was notified that he would serve as U.S. representative in signing the treaties and that his full powers would be sent by courier (740.00119 EW/1–2247). On January 20, the day before James F. Byrnes retired as Secretary of State, he signed the treaties on behalf of the United States. (Department of State Bulletin, February 2, 1947, p. 199.)↩