Editorial Note
On December 22, 1948, the Technical Committee on Berlin Currency and Trade presented to the experts of the Four Occupying Powers in Berlin certain preliminary draft recommendations, which were also submitted on the following day to the President of the United Nations Security Council. The text of the Committee’s preliminary report was transmitted to the Department in telegram 6424, December 22, from Paris, not printed (501.BC/12–2248). The texts of this document and various related papers are printed in Department of State, Documents and State Papers, May 1949, pages 749 ff.
The Department of State on December 29 informed its Embassies in the United Kingdom and France that it considered the fundamental premise for the report to be lacking since the Soviet Union had set up a separate administration in Berlin. In the Department’s view the report, though ingenious, was unrealistic, and the Western Powers, after replying to the Committee, should proceed immediately to introduce the B mark. (Telegrams 4792 to London, 4955 to Paris, not printed, 740.00119 Control (Germany)/12–2948)