Editorial Note
On the afternoon of October 15 the Department of State released the text of the High Commissioners’ reply to Adenauer. At the same [Page 1802] time the following statement was read to correspondents by Press Officer Michael McDermott but was not handed out textually:
“In connection with the release of the text of the letter sent by the High Commissioner today in reply to Chancellor Adenauer’s letter of October 4 concerning all-German elections, I wish to make the following points.
The resolutions adopted by the Federal Bundestag on September 27 provide a sound procedure for holding all-German elections. The United States supports, as it always has, the provision for international control of such elections as the essential method to guarantee freedom of expression and choice in all areas of Germany. As a preliminary, Chancellor Adenauer has proposed that a United Nations commission be sent into the German Federal Republic to report to the world whether conditions of freedom exist under which elections could be held. He has challenged the Communists to admit a similar commission to East Germany. Such an investigation of the Soviet Zone is obviously indispensable before elections could be held. The United States is prepared to support in the United Nations a proposal for the making of such an investigation by a United Nations commission simultaneously in the Federal Republic and in the Soviet Zone.
The United States Government favors German unification and will vigorously pursue any plan which genuinely promises to achieve it. On at least fourteen separate occasions since February 1950, the highest United States, French, British or German Federal authorities have proposed or endorsed the holding of free general elections throughout Germany. The record of our specific proposals to advance the freedom frontier eastward from the Elbe is crystal clear.
Moreover, it has been United States policy to favor German unification on terms which would permit a united Germany to play its role in an integrated Europe. A great movement for European consolidation and unity is now under way. Through the Council of Europe, the OEEC, The Schuman Plan for a European coal and steel community, the urge of free Europeans for the creation of a prosperous, safe and united homeland is finding expression. It is the view of the United States Government that this movement will not fail and must not be delayed.
The unity of a free Germany is part and parcel of the unity of free Europe but there can be no lasting German freedom without the strength that flows from European unity. The policy of the United States and that of its British, French and other European partners is to build such unity with all speed and at the same time to fuse it with the strength of the Atlantic Community. We believe that achievement of European unity will be a major contribution to creation of the conditions under which German unity can be safely and peacefully established. German unity will come but it must be German unity with German freedom.” (762A.00/10–1551)
For the text of the High Commissioners’ letter to Adenauer, which is the same except for minor textual changes as that transmitted in telegram 2400, page 1799, see Department of State Bulletin, October 29, 1951, pages 694–695, or Documents on German Unity, volume I, page 220.