Office of the Historian

CFM Files: Lot M–88: Box 126: File—Misc Materials

Agreed Minutes of the London Conference on the Ruhr Regarding the Draft Agreement for the Establishment of an International Authority for the Ruhr1

secret
[London, undated.]
1.
With respect to Article 13, it is agreed that the Executive Secretary and the other principal officials of the Secretariat, and in particular the staff members who occupy supervisory positions in connection with the verification of information provided for in Article 17 should be nationals of the Signatory Governments, if competent persons of those nationalities are available, and that such positions shall not be filled by German nationals. It is further agreed that the Executive Secretary will not appoint a national of one of the Signatory Governments to a position [other than a minor position],2 on the staff if objection is raised by the representative of that Government.
2.
It is agreed that arrangements may be made under Article 13 to provide for the Authority’s necessary liaison with and obtaining on a continuous basis necessary information from the principal German organisations responsible for production, division and distribution of Ruhr coal, coke and steel.
3.
In connection with Article 14(c), the conference took note of a United States proposal circulated as Conference Document RC/18,3 and agreed that it represented the procedure contemplated by all the delegations.
It is agreed that the Economic Cooperation Agreements entered into between the United States and the United Kingdom and French Occupied Areas in Germany are not in any way amended by the present Agreement, and that nothing in the present Agreement shall prevent the Bizonal or Trizonal Area, through the appropriate authorities, or the German Government from entering into subsequent bilateral agreements in accordance with the provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948.
5.
It is understood that nothing in the present Agreement shall affect the obligations of the signatories of the Convention for European Economic Cooperation under that Convention.
6.
It is agreed that any powers that may be transferred to the Authority under paragraph (a) of Article 18 shall not be used by the Authority to modify any action taken with respect to patterns of ownership or of trade or marketing agreements established by, or with the approval of the Occupation Authorities prior to such transfer, nor shall Article 18 be held to prejudge the final determination of ownership adopted with respect to the coal, coke and steel industries of the Ruhr.
7.
It is agreed that there shall be established an adequate and objective procedure for identifying the persons affected by Article 18(a) (ii) and that such procedure will be determined in the light of experience of this problem by the Occupying Powers.
8.
Nothing in Article 19 shall oblige the Occupation Authorities to retain in full the powers which are at present vested in them.
9.
The Signatory Governments undertake to seek the inclusion in the peace settlement of provision for the continued operation of a Ruhr Authority with powers appropriate to the conditions of the peace settlement.
10.
It is agreed that the power of termination reserved to the Occupying Powers in Article 32 is to be exercised only in connection with an agreement relating to the whole of Germany now under Four-Power Occupation to which those Four Powers are party.
  1. An earlier version of these Agreed Minutes was included as the concluding portion of document RC/21 Final, December 19, the recension of the Draft Agreement on the Ruhr approved by the London Conference on the Ruhr at its final plenary meeting, December 19. As indicated in the editorial note, p. 576, conversations continued in London until December 24 among the representatives of the delegations to the Conference, land the Agreed Minutes were revised and amended. As agreed by the delegations to the Conference, these minutes were not released to the press at the time of the release of the text of the Draft Agreement, printed supra.↩
  2. Brackets appear in the source text.↩
  3. Ante, p. 575.↩