CFM Files: Lot M–88: Box 143: USDel Working Paper Series

Proposal by the United States Delegation to the Council of Foreign Ministers 1

secret

USDel Working Paper/13 Revision 12

Electoral Procedure

In discussing the implementation of paragraph one of the U.S. procedural proposal,3 it will be unnecessary for the Ministers to attempt to draw up any new electoral law for Berlin. They will need merely to lay down certain general points in which the electoral procedure employed in October 1946 should be modified in order to meet existing conditions. Those points should include the following:

(1)
In view of the absence at the present time of a Magistrat having jurisdiction over the whole city of Berlin, it will be necessary, in order that the election procedure of 1946 can be carried out, to set up a temporary body to perform, during the free city-wide elections contemplated by paragraph one of the proposal, the functions performed by the Magistrat under the election law of 1946. This body might be composed of an equal number of representative Germans selected by each Allied Commander in Berlin.
(2)
The provisions of the electoral law of 1946 relating to required qualifications for voters may be modified, by unanimous consent of the Commanders.
(3)
Any political party authorized to operate in any one of the four sectors should be free to operate, for the purposes of this election, in all sectors.
(4)
The Allied body designated to supervise the elections should be quadripartite in composition and should operate in all sectors of Berlin.

If these principles are approved by the Ministers the four commandants should be instructed to work out the modifications of the 1946 electoral law which these principles would entail and to arrange for free city-wide elections under quadripartite supervision and in accordance with the principles set forth above.

  1. Read by the United States Member (Acheson) at the 11th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, June 3; for the minutes of this meeting, see p. 945. This paper was circulated to the Council, June 6, as CFM/P/49/21.
  2. An earlier draft of this paper, USDel Working Paper/13, dated June 2, is in the CFM Files: Lot M–88: Box 141: Staff Papers—Germany 1949. It was discussed at a meeting of the three Western Ministers, June 3, before the session of the Council, and was revised for presentation that day.
  3. Under reference here is the memorandum circulated at the tenth meeting of” the Council June 2. For a report on this meeting and the text of the memorandum, see Delsec 1839, June 2, p. 943.