740.00119 Control (Germany)/6–2348: Telegram
The United States Political Adviser for Germany ( Murphy ) to the Secretary of State
1451. For Saltzman and Hickerson. Today US liaison officer delivering communication to Marshal Sokolovsky was received by Colonel Vyrianov, chief of SMA liaison and protocol. Vyrianov who ordinarily limits contact to official formalities in this instance insisted on offering champagne and engaging in general conversation during course of which he asked whether US did not consider that it was skating on very thin ice in respect of its recent actions in Germany. He developed this into a discussion of the danger of war and then made the suggestion which he carefully qualified as a strictly personal observation that possibly an adjustment of present zonal lines in Germany should be made with a view to eliminating the friction caused by US and Soviet contact in Berlin. Our officer inquired whether he meant our departure from Berlin and return to Thuringia and Saxony originally occupied by US forces. Vyrianov said he could not be that specific but that “some readjustment” might be a solution for present difficulties.
Attach significance to this Soviet voluntary comment because Vyrianov is close to Sokolovsky. It may indicate desire to bargain and disinclination to force the issue.