Editorial Note
The first plenary meeting of the ISG opened on July 3 at the British Foreign Office. The United States delegation was headed by Ambassador Lewis W. Douglas (Member) and included Jacques J. Reinstein, Director of the Office of German Economic Affairs; Samuel Reber, Counselor at the Office of the United States High Commissioner for Germany; William C. Trimble, First Secretary of Embassy, London; and John A. Calhoun, Deputy Director of the Office of German Political Affairs. The French delegation was headed by René Massigli (Member), French Ambassador in the United Kingdom and included François Seydoux, Director of European Affairs, Foreign Ministry; Claude Lebel, First Secretary of the French Embassy in the United Kingdom; and Jean Sauvagnargues, Deputy Director for Central Europe, Foreign Ministry. The British delegation was headed by Sir Donald Gainer (Member), Permanent Under Secretary of State for the German Section of the Foreign Office, and included Roger B. Stevens, Assistant Under Secretary of State in charge of German Commercial [Page 746] Relations and Industry, and German General Economic and Supply Departments; William I. Mallet, Assistant Under Secretary of State in charge of the Western Department, Austrian Matters, and German Political and Internal Affairs; and Denis Allen, Head of the German Political Department.
The work of the ISG was divided into committees and subcommittees to consider various aspects under the terms of reference. A main Steering Committee handled general problems while more specific questions were dealt with by political, legal, and economic and financial subcommittees. In addition to the meetings of these several committees the Deputies and Members of the delegations met 35 and 8 times respectively before the summer session of the ISG adjourned in September to report to the Foreign Ministers.
The documentation on the activities of the ISG in the Department of State files is extensive, including United States delegation minutes of the various committee, subcommittee, deputy, and plenary meetings, a complete collection of ISG papers (designated by the series indicator IGG(50)–), United States delegation position papers and documents, complete collections of Sigto and Tosig telegrams, and other cables not in either of those series but relating to the work of the ISG. All these materials, subject files, and the briefs prepared by the Office of the United States High Commissioner for Germany are in the CFM Files: Lot M–88: Boxes 196 ff. The CFM Files are a consolidated master collection of the records of conferences of Heads of State, Council of Foreign Ministers and ancillary bodies, North Atlantic Council, other meetings of the Secretary of State with the Foreign Ministers of European powers, and materials on the Austrian and German peace settlements for the years 1943–1955 prepared by the Department of State Records Service Center. Smaller collections of these materials are in Department of State decimal file 396.1–ISG and in the Bonn Embassy Files, McCloy Project: Lot 311: Boxes 358 ff. The documentation that follows, because of the very detailed nature of the work of the ISG, presents only the outline of United States policy during the meetings and illustrates some of the problems encountered by the delegations in attempting to execute the Foreign Ministers terms of reference.
For an account of the review of the Occupation Statute alone, see Elmer Plischke, Revision of the Occupation Statute for Germany, September 21, 1949–March 7, 1951 (Frankfort, Office of the United States High Commissioner for Germany, 1952).